By Rich Ptak
Scientist/statesman
Arthur C. Clarke promoted three laws, one of the most trenchant states: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic.” Even those
with minimal familiarity with the building blocks of technology will comprehend
the truth in that law. At IBM’s IMPACT 2014, the developers and operations
staff that create, enable and deliver the ‘magic’ saw the latest offerings of infrastructure,
software and services that support their efforts.
Over 9,100
attendees from 83 countries accessed displays and attended discussions that
provided a detailed review of the latest, greatest hardware starting with the amazing
POWER8[1] chip, brand new PowerSystems[2] through to PureSystems, WATSON and
System z mainframes.
However, the
strongest focus was on the increasingly accessible, powerful software used to
create and deliver the magic. On display were products and solutions ranging
from Cloud–based Open Standards development, test and deployment services to specialized
applications that support developers and, increasingly, business staffs in
their quest to harness the power of Cloud, Big Data/Analytics and mobile devices. All
of these are designed to speed development, test and delivery of solutions that
improve enterprise operations and life in general in so many different ways.
IBM continues
the theme of their new business operating model “IBM as a Service” (from Pulse
2014). Day 1’s theme ‘The New Composable Business’ expanded on the requirements
of this emerging style for business operation. IBM uses this term to describe
the dynamic evolution in the organization, creation and delivery of business services
a result of and driven by today’s big three technologies: Cloud, Big Data and Mobile.
To succeed, composable businesses require the structure, organization and
infrastructure of a complementary ‘Composable IT’, which are fueled and made
possible by those same technologies.
This leads
us to Day 2’s theme: “Made with IBM” kicking of with customer and partner presentations
demonstrating the successes they were realizing using IBM products and
services. IBM has recently been celebrating significant anniversaries (50 years
of the mainframe), introducing the new POWER8 chip and PowerSystems, as well as
launching Power-based WATSON as a real business group as it proves it is not
simply an exotic example of expensive, esoteric cognitive computing.
Underlying
all this, IBM said that it is the developers who hold the key to innovation. Therefore,
IBM is dedicated to making their task easier, convincingly demonstrating it
on-stage as customers working in real-time used IBM products to assemble
solutions. Using a variety of platforms, including WATSON, they demonstrated
customized customer service interactions involving commercial transactions,
travel planning, financial services, as well as more complex services for
medical treatment protocols, resource location and management.
On Day 3,
the focus was on “The Way Forward”, discussing extensions to existing, as well
as numerous new IBM efforts that increase the accessibility and lower the cost
of using their solutions, services and infrastructure now available for
students, developers, businesses and enterprises. There were numerous
announcements of new and enhanced products, services and solutions. A sampling
includes the announcement of additional enhancements to IBM Codename: BlueMix[3], a Cloud-based delivery system to
virtually the complete range of IBM products and solutions and a considerable
number of partner products to developers et al to gain experience, insight and
try n’ buy. Then, there is the IBM Cloud marketplace of over 200 IBM and Third-party
products and services. PureApplication
Service on SoftLayer improves Cloud economics (lower costs) with over 200
software patterns that are more modular to increase agility, simplify reuse and
add flexibility. Complementing these activities is a new IBM MobileFirst
Development solution. You can sign-up for a free account on Cloudant[4], IBM’s mobile-ready, highly scalable
NoSQL Database-as-a-Service now available on SoftLayer. New pre-configured
industry-specific mobile apps were announced for Retail Banking, Small Business
Banking, Coordinated Care, etc. The list continues, more information is
available directly on IBM’s site.
IBM has and
is operating to a vision of market that is in the process of radical
transformation. The transformation is fundamental and massive affecting the
business and operational models of vendors, partners and customers. It changes
how revenue is generated; how solutions are created, deployed, delivered and
accessed. A lot of foundational investment must be made in building and
providing the comprehensive ecosystem of vendors, channels, partners and
customers to achieve the transformation. No company can do it all alone. IBM is
working hard to define, create and implement the parts of the ecosystem that
they can deliver and influence. They are working with their partners,
competitors and customers in the areas of the ecosystem that each of those
requires and where coop-tition is necessary for the transformation is to occur.
Those include long-range efforts at standards and environmental portability.
Developers
have a key role in initiating and accomplishing a successful move. Vast
advantages will accrue to those who make the shift. IBM has set out to attract
and support those developers, partners and customers that already recognize the
need to change. They are undertaking the major task to accelerate and make the
move to composable business operations easier for current movers and to educate
those who recognize something is happening and are searching for the path
forward. IBM’s efforts are inclusive, recognizing that the ultimate success of
the effort depends on the success of multiple players. IBM Application &
Integration Middleware General Manager, Marie Wieck summarized the plan best in
her keynote speech summary:
- IBM is helping customers transform to composable businesses and capitalize on cloud, data and mobile
- IBM continues the journey to build out the most comprehensive cloud portfolio in the industry, with the IBM Cloud marketplace as the single destination
- IBM has opened its middleware to the cloud, working with broad development ecosystem on the BlueMix platform-as-a-service
IBM sees the
future in this transformation. We tend to agree.
[1]
See a review: POWER8 – IBM’s billion dollar bet on servers at http://www.ptakassociates.com/content/
[3]
See our review IBM's BlueMix---A playground for developers at: http://ptakassociates.blogspot.com/
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