Kategorie: technology

5 cloud predictions for 2019

2018 was a landmark year for cloud with a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, and technological advances that set a new standard for adoption. The volume and impact of changes have forced organizations to rethink how they define cloud for their business goals and infrastructures.
Looking ahead to 2019, organizations will likely focus on shifting their cloud strategies from the low-end infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) opportunity to instead extracting valuable data from their business processes; integrating data across the enterprise and with external data sets; and applying new, innovative services such as AI, blockchain and analytics to that data.
Organizations will need hybrid and multicloud environments comprised of the right tools and infrastructure to help get their jobs done more efficiently. At IBM, we believe the following cloud trends will gain momentum as enterprises continue into the next phase of their cloud journey.
1. Hybrid multicloud architectures will replace the “one-cloud-fits-all” approach.
According to research from Ovum, while 20 percent of business processes have already moved to the cloud, 80 percent of mission-critical workloads and sensitive data are still running on-premises because of performance and regulatory requirements. As they enter the next phase of their cloud journey, many organizations will be moving away from “one cloud fits all”.
Public cloud may be a key to cost effectively accelerating digital transformation, but many enterprise data centers aren’t going anywhere, nor should they. Not every workload is a candidate for the public cloud. Businesses will increasingly drive value from the integration of public and private clouds as they seek to get the most out of their cloud investments by taking a hybrid multicloud approach. A hybrid multicloud environment uses a combination of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud architecture, with best-in-class resources from different cloud vendors.
2. Companies will increasingly embrace open cloud technology.
Most major companies have already embraced the concept of open source to help them avoid lock-in and allow them to choose from more vendors. We believe open technology enables interoperability of applications, platforms and data. We believe open technology projects developed in communities committed to open governance tend to attract the largest ecosystems and most expansive markets.
In the coming year, we predict the more advanced companies will identify new opportunities for containers, using open source Kubernetes to arrange them into clusters that support microservices across multiple clouds. Open management tools will be essential to administering, securing and updating those clusters over time.
3. Cloud skills and culture will be the key to cloud adoption.
As organizations embrace a hybrid multicloud approach, IT organizations will undergo a culture shift in the way that they work. They will need teams equipped with new skillsets, such as cross-platform tool and automation experience, and knowledge of API management and data integration best practices. Job titles such as cloud architect, cloud project manager, cloud service broker and cloud automation engineer will become increasingly common to manage emerging hybrid cloud environments.
4. As cloud adoption rises, developers must put security first.
Gone are the days of siloed IT processes in which an application was developed and then security put in place to protect the app. As enterprises enter the next phase of the cloud journey, they’ll use a mix of public clouds, private clouds and on-premises IT.
We often find that many enterprises are already managing between five to 16 different cloud vendors, which can introduce new risks and vulnerabilities due to lack of consistent management, control and visibility into the threat posture of applications and data.
To help overcome these challenges, developers can integrate security even earlier into the app development process and a DevSecOps culture will begin to take root in the enterprise. Incorporating security best practices into every facet of application design and deployment will provide greater application visibility, control and protection.
5. There will be an explosion of edge computing.
The continued convergence of IT and telco will bring edge computing to the forefront in 2019, creating a surge of new opportunities for companies to use new technologies and computing power. The scale and value of edge computing will increase, meaning that companies will be positioned to increasingly drive innovation, expand automation and reduce response times in low-bandwidth locations.
Hybrid cloud platforms and software-defined networks will increasingly use edge networks, giving companies improved visibility and the ability to analyze, protect and harvest valuable data from sensors, cameras and pieces of industrial equipment. Open, interoperable technologies mean that edge locations stay in sync with the cloud to ensure a consistent experience throughout.
With enterprises rapidly entering the next chapter of cloud, it’s an exciting time to work in IT. IBM has been investing to lead in the emerging, high-value segments of the market, from hybrid multicloud to AI, security, quantum and blockchain. We’re looking forward to seeing the new value that businesses generate using cloud in 2019.
Learn more about the future of cloud at THINK 2019 this February in San Francisco. Register now to attend.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

HansaWorld unlocks cognitive capabilities for clients of all sizes with cloud-based ERP

If there’s one lesson that software companies have learned over the past few years, it’s that creating a cloud version of your solutions isn’t as straightforward as it might seem.
On the one hand, there are the technical challenges of taking responsibility for infrastructure and hosting, and providing a fast and reliable service around the clock. On the other hand, there are product design challenges: you need to standardize your solutions to make them maintainable, while minimizing the impact on clients who are relying on custom functionality.
HansaWorld provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for 550,000 clients of various sizes in more than 110 countries around the world. We provide a wide range of solutions, from our Standard Accounts and Standard CRM packages for smaller businesses up to our enterprise-class Standard ERP offering.
Our clients’ requirements vary widely, so we must make our products and services as versatile as possible. When we recognized that many of our clients were interested in a cloud-hosted version of our ERP software, we knew we would have to find a cloud platform that was equally flexible.
It’s not just that HansaWorld offers different solutions in different sizes. We also need to support clients both directly and through our network of partners. We had to build a multi-tier cloud platform that could accommodate both clients and partners in a single, coherent landscape.
Most of the cloud providers we evaluated could only offer a one-size-fits-all approach, with commodity servers that are preconfigured to meet the needs of most generic workloads. We quickly realized that this just wouldn’t work for us. We needed a much more customizable approach. That’s why we turned to IBM Cloud.
Harnessing a versatile platform
Unlike other cloud solutions that HansaWorld tried in the past, IBM Cloud Virtual Servers provide a high degree of configurability, so we can tailor each server to the precise requirements of each application or even to the needs of a specific client.
Moreover, since IBM has data centers in more countries than almost any other cloud provider, we can keep our clients’ systems close to their users, which helps minimize latency and boost performance and responsiveness.
As we work on developing new AI and big data analytics services, the fast IBM Cloud internal network will also help us move large volumes of data seamlessly between servers and devices, unlocking the potential to deliver new types of business insight.
Enabling call center transformation
HansaWorld is also taking advantage of IBM Voice Agent with Watson to develop a powerful virtual assistant solution that integrates with our ERP solutions and enables a high degree of call center automation.
For larger enterprises, this can potentially replace expensive interactive voice response (IVR) systems and provide a much more user-friendly experience for clients. For smaller clients, it can reduce the need for employees to spend time answering calls and dealing with routine inquiries.
At HansaWorld, we’re already developing the virtual assistant internally to walk our clients through the process of checking their licensing status, invoices and payments. We’re confident that this will significantly reduce the amount of time our call center teams spend on handling these tasks.
The virtual assistant will also reduce call resolution times because it eliminates the need for clients to wait on hold until a human agent is available. It can handle thousands of calls simultaneously, so it can scale to meet any level of demand.
Strengthening the relationship
HansaWorld’s adoption of IBM Cloud and Watson technologies has strengthened the relationship between our two companies. We’re excited to be working more closely with IBM. Several HansaWorld products are already available in the IBM Marketplace, and we’re looking forward to collaborating to bring innovative cloud-based ERP solutions to clients around the globe.
Read the case study for more details.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

The top 10 Thoughts on Cloud articles of 2018

What are some topics that come to mind when you think of cloud in 2018?
The depth and breadth of the possibilities in and capabilities of cloud computing became even more apparent over the past year. However, a few key topics did emerge from a look at the most popular articles on Thoughts on Cloud in 2018:
Growing investment in hybrid multicloud
One of the posts that made this year’s list involved an expanded partnership with Red Hat, which IBM would acquire later in the year, making IBM the world’s top hybrid cloud provider. Also popular was the announcement of IBM Multicloud Manager.
Containers, Kubernetes and open source innovation
Not only were readers curious about new developments involving Kubernetes, serverless and open source projects, but they were also interested to learn more about the differences between solutions and how they can work together. Introductory articles on these topics attracted top traffic.
Expanded partnerships to accelerate adoption
Posts about broadening IBM partnerships with VMware, NVIDIA and SAP, all aiming to bring new value to organizations looking to bring their workloads to the cloud, also made the top 10, along with the news about Red Hat.
Here’s the full list of the top 10 Thoughts on Cloud stories of 2018:

IBM and Red Hat expand partnership to accelerate journeys to the cloud
IBM unveils major expansion of cloud capabilities and global availability zones
IBM brings the ease of containers to complex workloads with managed Kubernetes on bare metal
Are you putting cloud and AI to work?
Kubernetes vs. Docker: Why not both?
IBM Cloud teams with Google and open community to help build Knative and expand the power of serverless
IBM and SAP: Extending a partnership built on trust
What is IBM Multicloud Manager?
Accelerate and streamline AI and HPC workloads with new NVIDIA GPUs on IBM Cloud
IBM and VMware partnership unlocks new value for enterprises

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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

With IBM Cloud, Avetta Global gives organizations the freedom to innovate

Traditional, on-premises infrastructure can hold businesses back. Costly, inflexible and difficult to maintain, on-premises hardware is often a drain on limited internal resources, particularly for smaller organizations.
This is why Avetta Global is on a mission to move its clients’ systems to the IBM Cloud, freeing them from the hassle of having to manage their own infrastructure.
Making IT disappear
Avetta Global has long promoted the value of cloud computing, helping companies such as urban ad provider Alchemy Media make the move to cloud. Like many businesses, Alchemy Media wanted to spend less time managing its IT infrastructure and more time innovating.
Alchemy Media approached us because they wanted our help making their IT systems “invisible.” We get this kind of request all the time. Clients come to us because they don’t want to have to think about infrastructure or networking. They want us to take care of it.
Alchemy struggled with network bandwidth issues, which meant that remote users couldn’t access important line-of-business (LOB) applications hosted at the head office. We stabilized and rationalized the on-premises systems to solve the immediate issue and recommended cloud computing as the best way forward.
A new approach
At the time, Avetta Global was working with a major public cloud provider to host systems for its clients. But when a trusted partner advised looking at IBM Cloud instead, we were blown away.
For us, IBM Cloud was a total no-brainer. A lot of public clouds seem to have thrown together a stack of open source tools, but the IBM Cloud is very well constructed from a network engineer’s perspective and really easy to navigate. We saw right away how simple it would be to extend Alchemy’s infrastructure into the IBM Cloud.
Avetta Global migrated Alchemy’s systems from eight physical servers to five IBM Cloud bare metal servers running VMware vSphere. Avetta used VMware vSphere vMotion to virtualize the existing servers and migrate them to the new virtual network non-disruptively and in a matter of days.
Users were none the wiser. In fact, Alchemy only realized the migration had happened when the old servers were rolled out of the office. We see that as a job well done.
Win-win with IBM Cloud
For Alchemy, the pressure’s off. The company gained a stable, security-rich platform for its LOB applications that delivers the high level of performance needed to support operations. Critically, migrating from on-premises servers to IBM Cloud bare metal servers means that Alchemy no longer needs to worry about infrastructure. Instead, the media agency can focus all its efforts and resources on business innovation.
As the cloud service provider, switching to the IBM Cloud saves us time and effort around day-to-day infrastructure management. The bare metal servers are extremely reliable and very easy to use, which keeps administration to a minimum. Hosting client systems on the IBM Cloud means that there’s not actually that much for us to do. Once we’ve architected something that fits the client’s requirements, the cloud infrastructure is fairly low maintenance.
Alchemy is reporting better performance, better availability and lower IT costs. They’re very impressed with their IBM Cloud service; and, if our clients are happy, we’re happy.
Since selecting IBM as our preferred cloud provider, Avetta Global has been officially recognized as an IBM Cloud Star Partner. This means that our company has the skills, expertise and resources required to meet the IBM strategy for success.
Having the IBM seal of approval gives both our existing and prospective clients a huge confidence boost in our services. We’re already looking forward to what our partnership with IBM brings in the years to come.
Read more about how Avetta Global helped Alchemy Media transform its IT in the case study.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

AI concierge built on IBM Watson transforms a bank’s service desk

“Long-term sustainable growth in the banking industry seems only possible with a radical departure from a sales- and product-obsessed mindset to one of genuine customer centricity.” So says Deloitte in its 2018 Banking Industry Outlook.
For the past several years, Credito Valtellinese, a medium-sized bank in Italy, has undergone a transformation program to provide high-quality services and distinctive experiences to its clients.
Creval Sistemi e Servizi (CSS), a fully owned subsidiary, provides IT services to the bank. During the bank’s transformation, it concentrated on operations efficiency, introducing business process management (BPM) and operational decision management (ODM) technology from IBM.
When the bank reached a point where processes became easy and fast with controlled service levels, leadership decided to look for ways to reduce the human effort by adding cognitive technology.
CSS introduced “Alfredo,” a concierge for the service desk that uses artificial intelligence (AI).
Virtual assistant supports employees

Alfredo, named after Alfred Pennyworth, Batman’s butler, is a virtual assistant that supports branch employees in their interactions with customers. It uses IBM Watson Assistant on IBM Cloud and is fully integrated in Creval’s knowledge chain. IBM Global Business Services helped Creval develop a strategic approach to the project, create a pilot program and ensure an effective launch.
Since its launch in January 2018, the virtual assistant is the first point of contact for all requests.
Alfredo interacts through chat, where it is able to interpret Italian natural language using IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding service and provide textual feedback or activate applications. Alfredo can understand requests in any banking sector. If Alfredo cannot answer a question, it delegates them to a service desk colleague, but only if necessary.
Human experts can handle multiple chats simultaneously or focus on more complex requests. The more Alfredo interacts with colleagues, the more the chatbot’s knowledge increases.

Service desk innovation
CSS has innovated the Credito Valtellinese service desk. Bank employees are now able to offer more services to customers with the same effort and at the same cost, because Alfredo eliminates repetitive human tasks.
The system can work around the clock, translating to expanded service desk hours and more timely customer response times.
Alfredo has reduced the human effort at the bank service desk by 40 percent due to its ability to respond to low-value-added requests. Additionally, Alfredo has received 92 percent positive feedback from bank’s employees since being deployed. CSS plans to extend Alfredo to all the customers of Credito Valtellinese bank next year.
Read the case study for more details.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud