Guess who the European Union is reaching out to lead a $20 million research effort around cloud technology and data analytics?

If you guessed IBM, you're on the money. As a ComputerWorld article relates, Big Blue and 15 impressive partners are leading the charge on the EU's Vision Cloud -- Virtualized Storage Services for the Future Internet" effort aimed at boosting
delivery of rich data and storage services.

Research will touch on all the big hurdles such as data mobility and security that impact quality of service in cloud systems.

"Users now require capabilities that are far richer than simple raw bits and basic storage," Hillel Kolodner, an IBM Haifa researcher and lead architect for Vision Cloud, said in a statement. "To satisfy this need, the focus must shift to the data, where the collections of bits are semantically meaningful and have associated metadata. With Vision Cloud, our aim is develop the infrastructure to support this prominence of data and data-intensive services."

IBM said that with Vision Cloud, a future provider of storage services may be able to offer a "digital safe" service for users in which photos, health records and videos could be safely secured and house.

The partner list crosses industries from media to technology standards organizations tot telecoms and universities.