Tag Archives: IBM Cloud computing

Chandar Pattabhiram IBM Vice President, Cloud Product Strategy Talks About CLoud

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by Susan Eustis

Following is a conversation we at WinterGreen Research had with Chandar Pattabhiram IBM Vice President, Cloud Product Strategy where he talks about cloud positioning and integration in this context.  As cloud computing becomes the new mantra for improving business productivity and efficiency, we look to our leaders in the channel to provide new business models.  Chandar is surely one of our best.

What difference does integration make in a cloud environment? 

  • Integration has become the ‘productivity application’ for Cloud computing. Without integration, Cloud users don’t get access to critical backoffice information locked away in other on-premise applications. For example, a salesforce.com users needs access to critical customer information – orders, invoices, credit history, payment history, etc. – that is locked away in an ERP application like salesforce.com. Without integration, Cloud users are doing one of two things: a) ‘swivel-chairing’ to multiple apps to access the information  b) manually calling people or accessing offline spreadsheets, etc. With integration, they get all the information they need in one place – in the Cloud. As a result, they are able to maximize their productivity and the company is able to maximize the economic value of their Cloud investment.

 

So, you suggest that integration is the very base of cloud computing, that we used to have siloes that represented different aspects of a line of business, and now we are finding that it is more efficient to use one set of information for ordering and billing and shipping rather than having separate customer lists.

Why would an IT manager want to integrate between cloud environments within the data center?

  • Most companies operate in a hybrid Cloud environment. They consume some public Cloud services like salesforce.com, create some private Cloud services and house within their data center and also house traditional on premise applications. In such an environment, they may have the need to: a) integrate public cloud apps with each other (e.g. salesforce.com and netsuite), b) public cloud and private cloud apps (e.g. salesforce and a private cloud commissions applications they have developed), or c) integrate Cloud and on premise applications (e.g. salesforce, private cloud commissions application and SAP). The business value is as mentioned above – increased end-user productivity and lower IT costs.

Why would an IT manager want to integrate within cloud environments within the data center?

  • A company may have a combination of Private Cloud services within a data center. For example,a private cloud service for patient tracking and another private cloud service for patient billing. In this example, they will have the need to integrate these private Cloud services with each other within the data center.

Does this make any difference to the line of business?

  • As mentioned above, Integration has become the productivity application for Cloud Computing. With integration, line-of-business users get a 360* view of business information in one place – directly in that Cloud application rather than having to log into multiple places. As a result, they are able to maximize productivity and deliver a superior customer experience. As SaaS applications are being rapidly adopted by line-of-business user (salesforce.com, taleo, Success Factors, etc.), integration has become one of the most critical factors for the continued adoption and success of these applications over time in each company.


Steve Mills Talks About Cloud Computing and IT Capabilities

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Steve Mills Presents at Software Group Meeting
Posted on January 9, 2012 by susan

Steve Mills Presents at Software Group Meeting – Cloud Computing Part of Software Initiatives

IT strategy is positioned to bring balance to business. The IT portfolio consists of data bases, transaction processing capability, messaging, and support for services oriented architecture: SOA. IBM has a focus on supporting newer systems, helping data center managers make intelligent incremental investment.

The themes in industries relate to specifics around smarter plant. Industry focus leads IT to implement business analytics and to leverage social networking. IBM has acquired analytics software companies with an aim to bring new decision support capability to all levels of management.

Security technology is evolving and IBM has brought the different initiatives into one division. Security technology can do some things that are transformative and the single division is poised to create significant market opportunity for IBM. The nature of the IT challenge has shifted as more data is being managed across more divisions. The silos are disappearing, integration of systems is the norm.

Industry solution analytics leverage software as a service offerings. Lotus live cloud offerings provide improved communication in the enterprise. Market place strategies are evolving to meet challenges. IT is seeing a significant shift toward more efficiency. Less expensive systems are being driven by cloud implementations. Assembler state machine fundamentals are continuing to be improved inside machines so that systems are able to do more, and have better, more efficient, effective automated process.

Industry solution analytics improve the economics of a company, supporting implementation of practical business solutions. Analytics are being implemented in the context of big data, leveraging IBM Watson. At the same time hardware is cheaper compute capacity and storage capacity are improving. Telecom bandwidth improvements provide different ways to apply economically viable solutions to IT. IT process is used in addressing problems posed by economic conditions.

Improving manufacturing of components is a priority. Silicon based devices provide better performance and permit systems techniques to apply to problems beyond what have been addressed previously.

Enterprise business process is able to be adapted to a level of system performance that is remarkable. Performance of remote systems make the prior constraints of distance disappear. Distance server capabilities can make them look like they are local. Applications can be served by someone else. IT investment is underlying the art of the possible. Geographical growth is occurring. The geo economies follow the patterns of the economies and the political rise of the mature economies. The geo growth is significant for those countries and does not matter to existing western economies. There is no inherent decline in existing mature economies, just because there is emerging market growth.

IBM has invested in emerging markets. There is a pattern of consumption there that depends on the IT systems IBM can supply. IBM is positioned to accomplish smarter planet. It seeks to capture business from emerging market opportunities. The technology industry knowledge base is a significant help to emerging economies. Industry sales is more of a priority in this context.

Clients adding line of business systems can drive decisions. Customers care about infrastructure service quality. The systems have a technocentric influence of importance for the line of business. The line of business managers have begun to take an interest in achieving influence over IT to make sure the right technology is chosen. They control the IT budgets in many cases. The line of business looks to choose industry vertical systems that work in an integrated manner.

Solving problems at a departmental level is enhanced. Critical compliance problems are solved more easily with new systems. Healthcare solutions are more efficient and at the same time more robust. End to end electronic commerce is being implemented.

Vertical shifts have been happening for decade. Vertical systems continue to have high value as they support scalability, availability, adaptivity, reliability, and secutiry The new strategic plans are to take these same virtues and make them applicable to horizontal systems. The modernization trends implement systems that enable computing solutions that are integrated. New features make it possible to customize applications for a more granular approach to automated process.

IBM has crafted an IT strategy geared toward relevancy in customer support. This is not a commodity approach to addressing a set of needs, rather a set of tools that gives companies a way for talent in the company to implement solutions relevant from an industry perspective.

The aim is to expand the software offerings and continue to dominate the industry with a portfolio of leading information products that provide integrated solutions to business problems. The solutions work in an open systems environment, letting companies choose what they consider to be best of breed solutions, but to support systems integration in that context. The aim is too provide solutions that are relevant to what a customer wants.

IBM is set to deliver core middleware applicable in an industry context. IBM solution oriented technology is able to ingest middleware. Systems are built ot be reliable and durable. Security, risk management, and compliance expand core competencies. IT support for business capabilities is a broad issue addressed by IBM in a professional manner.
The aim is to turn information into insight. New systems drive integration.