by Susan Eustis

Kristof Kloeckner talks Smart Cloud in Chicago
Smart cloud brings a revolution in collaboration. Smart cloud enables the interconnection of business process in real time with applications – apps. Apps are software that vendors and partners bring to a catalog of social business services. Kristof Kloeckner talked about this most exciting new initiative for IBM, saying that the aim of Smart Cloud is to enlist social business structures for IT. Apps are used to link people and process to each other in real time.

Kristof Kloeckner is General Manager of Rational Software, IBM Software Group . In Chicago this week he described application patterns that can be used in a manner similar to cell phones apps, but are for full blown business applications. IBM has positioned the smart cloud as a black box that has a catalogue of applications that can be downloaded and used within minutes, just like iPhone apps work on a cell phone. IBM has loaded the Smart Cloud with an initial 80 pattern apps that have been complimented by another 3,000 patterns from partners.

The social business structures for IT are implemented as applications with a pattern wrapper. The apps are listed in catalogues. Enterprise social business apps provide a pattern for xyz problem that needs to be solved by business. The apps can get a certification that describes how well the app fits a solution. A pattern for an app means that it can be adapted.

All the IBM customers are now outfitted with a SOA services oriented modular software infrastructure so the smart cloud is designed to provide a context for using SOA modules. Patterns for social business can use the new IBM Pure Systems hardware center as server that implements fully integrated hardware solutions with databases, systems management, and applications configurations all in the server as it is shipped. Then all the social business server needs is an app — an enterprise app called from the social business catalog.

Social business structures are used to build patterns in the cloud. IBM has established a software app trial environment where communications and sharing are enabled. It has established a core governance and processes pure systems center. In this way, the new svelte IBM is seeking to imitate the functionality of the iPOD and iPAD, not yet shaking its stogy underpinnings of transaction management excellence, but adding a new layer of social business systems that provides ease of access and ease of use unimagined as few as five years ago.