Years ago, I had the opportunity to
chat with a VP in charge of IBM software research, and I asked him
point-blank, how are IBM products different from the competitors'? He
answered simply that other products on the market were “uni-taskers”
– having limited function – whereas IBM offerings were like a
whole set of dependable Craftsman®
tools. The uni-tasker might offer a quick and easy fix, but IBM
offers customers a range of options they can use to build the right
solution.
I am reminded of this conversation
again as I look at the IBM cloud offering portfolio. In the cloud
marketplace, there certainly are a lot of uni-taskers, but the value
in the IBM cloud portfolio is that it is extensive, with offerings to
meet the needs of all kinds of businesses, large and small. However,
having too many choices can be daunting. I am definitely in the camp
of “having a lot of options is a good thing,” but I can see how
this might cause some confusion and make things more complicated for
customers looking for the right solutions for their business. That is
why I give you my “cloud offering decoder” if you will.
Where do you fit in
to the cloud ecosystem?
By now, you might be familiar with the cloud delivery models:However, whether you want to move a little of your business on to the cloud, or a lot, cloud adoption patterns tend to fall into one of the following categories, depending on how you want to use cloud:
What do you want to do with cloud?
|
Solution
|
Cloud delivery model
|
Cut IT costs and reduce
complexity
|
Cloud enable your data
center
|
|
Accelerate application
development, testing, and deployment
|
Leverage cloud platform
services
|
PaaS
|
Transform business
processes, build your brand, innovate with speed and efficiency,
drive sales and profitability
|
Use business solutions on
cloud
|
SaaS
|
Create, manage, and monetize
cloud services
|
Become a cloud service
provider
|
Cloud infrastructure
|
IBM cloud offerings are grouped around the following adoption patterns:
- Cloud
enabled data center (IaaS): Here are a plethora of offerings,
ranging from IT services to help you plan your cloud strategy, to
implementing an advanced cloud infrastructure.
- Cloud
platform services (PaaS): These are pre-built, pre-integrated IT
infrastructures tuned to application-specific needs. The offerings
here support development, deployment, and testing of applications on
the cloud.
- Business
solutions on cloud (SaaS): The IBM offerings here cover business
process design, social business, supply-chain visibility, digital
marketing optimization, B2B integration, monitoring as a service,
desktop cloud, and more.
- Cloud
service provider: Here you have everything you need to build the
cloud infrastructure, enable and extend applications in the cloud,
and so on.
- Cloud
security: Offerings range from services to help you build a
strategic cloud security roadmap to protecting and managing critical
business data, for example, IBM
Security Virtual Server Protection for VMware.
- Cloud service assurance: Offerings include IBM
Tivoli Monitoring for Virtual Servers,
IBM
Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments,
and more.
- Integrate and manage hybrid clouds: Offerings include Cloud
Service Delivery & Management,
WebSphere
Cast Iron Cloud Integration, and more.
IaaS
|
PaaS
|
Saas
|
-
|
Cloud-enabled data center
|
Cloud platform services
|
Business solutions on cloud
|
Cloud service provider
|
Cloud
security, service assurance, hybrid cloud integration and
management
|
|||
IBM
fall cloud launch
The IBM
cloud computing webcast on Oct. 12 did an excellent job of
presenting the IBM cloud offerings, and you can visit the IBM
Cloud Computing Briefing Center to access a replay of the event.
After registering, be sure to explore the links under the Directory
in the virtual meeting center where you will find more detailed
information about specific cloud topics and offerings.
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