<p>Adding more muscle to its cloud operations portfolio, IBM is acquiring hosted NoSQL database provider Cloudant.</p><p>Based in Boston, the privately held Cloudant offers a hosted version of the Apache CouchDB open source data store. Its own version, called BigCouch, can be run across multiple servers, providing a way to build and maintain an extremely large and fast data store for a front-end application.</p><p>Companies in the fields of gaming, services, manufacturing, online education, retail and health care have all used the Cloudant service.</p><p>IBM plans to use BigCouch service for its big data and analytics products and services. The company will also incorporate the service in its MobileFirst portfolio of tools for developing mobile applications.</p><p><a href="http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=EEBF1957-CA00-4E51-31709528FCCBBFCC">Keep reading...</a></p>