Kategorie: technology

Take the InterConnect celebrity challenge

As I mentioned in my last blog, I’m the person you want to talk to if you’re looking for the inside scoop on finding fun at InterConnect. I’ve already shared where you can find beer, enjoy some video games and even hang out with Wayne Brady. Now, I want to give you the inside scoop on a very famous guest.
Let me put it this way.
What if I told you  one of the most talented rappers in history, one of the most hilarious comedic actors in the world and one of the biggest dramatic actors ever was going to InterConnect? What if I told you this one person had broken box office records, won Grammys and been nominated for Academy Awards? Sounds like someone who understands how to redefine possible, doesn’t it?
Drumroll please…
Will Smith will be joining us at InterConnect.
With a resume like this one, Will Smith knows better than just about anyone what it means to redefine yourself. It wasn’t enough to succeed with his music, he had to push himself by becoming a comedic icon. It wasn’t enough to have a list of hit TV and film comedies under his belt, he had to branch out to become one of the most successful and beloved dramatic actors in the world.
Not only is Will Smith a talented performer, but he also calls to mind a valuable business lesson. To remain culturally important and continue to give the most to your customers and fans, it’s essential to explore, challenge and redefine. If Will Smith can go from hit rapper, to hilarious agent in Men in Black, to the inspiring embodiment of the American dream in The Pursuit of Happiness, your business can redefine itself too.
Will Smith reminds us that the ability to redefine yourself is not only an asset. It is essential to thriving at the highest level. Be sure to hear him share his thoughts on innovation and redefinition — only at IBM InterConnect.

The post Take the InterConnect celebrity challenge appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

How organizations are measuring cloud success

Cloud adoption has entered the mainstream.
Organizations are embracing cloud to drive enterprise-wide innovation that improves customer relationships while delivering operational efficiencies.
But how are they measuring the success of their cloud initiatives? What criteria are they using to decide which workloads should move to the cloud? How are they using return on investment (ROI)?  What other key performance indicators (KPIs) are they tracking?
Data collection for our latest IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study titled “Tailoring Hybrid Cloud” reveals how organizations are evaluating their progress throughout their cloud adoption journey.
Criteria for which workloads move to cloud
Since not every workload is suited to the cloud, organizations must decide which functions should be migrated to the cloud and which should stay on premises. We discovered four predominant metrics that organizations employ to determine which workloads should move to the cloud: cost, security and compliance requirements, timing/speed to market, and estimated ROI.

ROI calculations for evaluating cloud initiatives
In organizations we surveyed, ROI is used extensively throughout the cloud adoption process. Most enterprises (80 percent) say that ROI is a key input for their decision-making process for future cloud initiatives.  Nearly as many (77 percent) of executives surveyed are confident in their abilities to effectively use ROI to accurately measure their cloud initiatives. Nearly three-fourths (74 percent) of business leaders say they consistently and objectively compare their achieved ROI with the original, expected ROI for their enterprise cloud initiatives.

ROI calculations are important in evaluating cloud initiatives in other ways.  More than half (60 percent) of enterprises use ROI as a process metric to help prioritize their portfolio of cloud initiatives. This popular use of ROI is closely followed by 59 percent of organizations employing ROI as a results metric, measuring the impact of a cloud initiative after it has been implemented.

KPIs for measuring cloud adoption success
More than 50 percent of the executives surveyed rely heavily on financial metrics — principally, cost and ROI— to determine the path to success for their cloud initiatives. We also asked survey respondents to name other key performance indicators they track when measuring the benefits of cloud adoption.
Once again, a financial metric is the most popular. Nearly half (47 percent) of organizations report they track increase in revenue margin.  Yet another financial metric, rate of change in the reduction of total cost of ownership (TCO), comes in a close second with 45 percent of executives emphasizing this key performance indicator.

For more findings on how hybrid cloud can answer an enterprise’s unique needs, including more recommendations for getting started, read “Tailoring hybrid cloud: Designing the right mix for innovation, efficiency and growth.”
The post How organizations are measuring cloud success appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

3 keys to unlocking unstoppable process transformation

In today’s fast-paced and competitive world, business depends on continual innovation. As customers’ expectations continue to grow, delivering a stellar customer experience is more important than ever before. Eliminating process inefficiencies and increasing productivity and innovation are critical to success.
To accomplish customer-driven innovation, businesses need a process transformation strategy that includes three key factors: automation, augmentation and rapid digital innovation.
Automation
Consider seeking to eliminate repetitive tasks and inflexible processes by automating significant parts of the process. This drives efficiencies at every stage, which leads to savings on costs, faster issue resolution and more opportunities for high-value customer interaction. A great example of automation in action: PNC Financial Services Group reduced the number of loan applications that the bank had to manually review by 80 – 90 percent.
Augmentation
Arming IT teams with cognitive capabilities empowers them to understand and anticipate customer needs early. As a result, they can make better decisions for the company. Augmentation is essentially about making people more effective. It hits at the heart of high-value customer interaction: stronger service, vendor management and knowledge work.
Rapid digital innovation
Processes that are redundant and cannot be adapted quickly to ever-changing business needs can hamper the flow of great ideas. Continual innovation is the lifeblood of growing and thriving organizations that focus on consistently delighting customers.
Accordingly, IBM process transformation capabilities aim to drive faster experimentation, which  favors model-driven environments in the cloud. One example: Travis Perkins plc recognized that its customers’ expectations were shifting alongside growing trends in technology. With a process transformation solution, Travis Perkins created a high-quality customer experience that not only delighted their customers but also improved their own data collection process.
Embrace the cognitive era
Cognitive technologies open new avenues to connect with customers at every point of interaction. You can leverage actionable insights from data not available via traditional tools in business processes and decisions. Just a few examples include:

Digital self-service and engagement solutions that take input, learn from that input with human assistance, put the content into context and make relevant, evidence-based recommendations.
Faster information compilation for agent-assisted client interactions, employee onboarding and adding machine learning to human knowledge in the business moment.
Improved triaging of issues by engaging the right person in the organization for a more efficient workflow.

Please join me at the business process trends and directions session at InterConnect 2017. The session is titled Automating work across the enterprise for stellar customer experience and top-line eesults. We’ll discuss more about infusing cognitive capabilities into your business operations. We will also be introducing you to our latest process automation innovations. NHT Blood and Transplant will be on-hand to share their own amazing success story with IBM Process Transformation. Hope to see you at InterConnect.
 
The post 3 keys to unlocking unstoppable process transformation appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Cognitive app eases the discomfort of measuring pain

As healthcare costs continue to rise, governments, healthcare providers and insurers must find more efficient ways to maintain quality and improve outcomes for patients.
They’re moving away from traditional reliance on acute and primary care delivered by specialist physicians at hospitals and clinics toward a model in which patients and their families manage their conditions at home reducing the need for expensive hospital visits.
Huge advances have made in-home care much more practical, says Philip Daffas, CEO and managing director of ePAT Technologies, which specializes in innovative pain management solutions. A digital blood pressure monitor costs just a few dollars. Automated glucose monitors and insulin pumps help patients keep blood sugar levels in check.
But not everything is quite that easy. Pain, the so-called “fifth vital sign” has always been difficult to measure. Infants, dementia sufferers and many other vulnerable patients may be unable to tell their physicians about the pain they are feeling. Today, pain assessment is a specialist field, requiring the skills and experience of experts to ensure accurate results.
Scientists from Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, one of the world’s leading pain management research centers, founded ePat to combine cutting-edge academic research with a new generation of cognitive computing technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). One way they’re doing that is by analyzing facial movements linked to pain.
A robust architecture
Maker of AI emotion recognition software nViso and ePAT began developing an app that uses a smartphone camera to record a ten-second video of a patient’s face. It then analyzes the images using nViso’s sophisticated facial analysis algorithms. If it recognizes any muscle movements that indicate pain, it notes them.
Next, the caregiver uses the app to answer questions resulting in a total of 49 pain indicators, such as how the patient is moving, and how they are vocalizing their pain. Finally, the app calculates an overall pain score for the patient, and syncs the results with a central database in the cloud.
The design of the device needed to embrace “offline first” principles: it had to work without a data connection in case a user is temporarily unable to connect to the internet. At the same time, it needed to send data to the cloud when a connection is re-established so the patient’s data is stored and protected.
IBM Cloudant offered replication that made it easier to store data locally on the device and sync it with the central cloud data store. It’s also a fully managed service, which means no worries about database management.
Prototype to production
A number of major healthcare organizations in Australia are trying out the ePat app, and it has passed its initial validation and implementation studies with flying colors.
Yet the current version of the app is just a first step on the journey, according to Tim Llewellynn, CEO and co-founder of nViso. The companies plan to expand AI in to other areas too, using IBM Watson cognitive services to augment capabilities.
For example, Watson Visual Recognition could be used to scan barcodes on medication bottles so patients know they’re administering medication in the right amounts at the right times.
Lean more about IBM Cloud healthcare solutions.
The post Cognitive app eases the discomfort of measuring pain appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

11 ways to go cloud native with microservices and containers at InterConnect 2017

Think of a microservice within a cloud native application as similar to a Linux process: it’s designed to do one thing very well, runs only when and as long as needed, and often combines with others to work together on data.
Since microservices run in containers, how a cloud platform manages relationships and resources among containers running the components of the overall application most definitely affects performance.
Get microservices and containers right with Bluemix clients and experts in these sessions.
Featured client stories
International food company BRF takes us through how they transformed their supply chain with a Bluemix-based mobile app using a containers back-end.
Lessons Learned on Adopting the Netflix Stack to Build a Microservices Architecture on IBM Bluemix
Craftworkz reports on lessons learned in creating their intelligent chatbot application on Bluemix with a microservices architecture implemented with containers.
Creating a Highly Scalable Chatbot in a Microservices Architecture Using IBM Bluemix
Engaging the experts
Spend quality time with architects and developer advocates as they discuss how to integrate great cognitive services into your mobile applications while accelerating continuous development and delivery, securing your code at every point of  the application life-cycle, and all of that by using the IBM Bluemix Container Service.
In these sessions, architect Dan Berg explains how his team created the Container Service to drive continuous development and delivery of cloud native applications that integrate powerful cognitive capabilities:
Architecture Deep-Dive into Docker Containers, Microservices and Kubernetes
Operating IBM Watson Services with Docker and Kubernetes
Microservices and Containers (20 minutes: your questions)
In multiple sessions, Chris Rosen and Rob Osowski break-down the toolchains and real-time security that make the IBM Bluemix Container Service a safe but monstrous DevOps accelerant:
Enterprise-Ready Docker Container Capabilities
Securing Your Docker Environment with the Vulnerability Advisor Service for IBM Bluemix Containers
Hands-On Lab Demonstrating the Enterprise-Grade Capabilities of IBM Containers
Microservices: Powered by Containers-as-a-Service
Doug Davis steps back with you to help in choosing the best compute service for your purpose:
Cloud Foundry, Docker or Kubernetes—What a Choice!
Jeffrey Borok (IBM) and Sara Novonty (Google) chart the course of Kubernetes as an ongoing open source project and in its commercial implementations:
From Docker to Kubernetes to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation: Open Containers and Community
The post 11 ways to go cloud native with microservices and containers at InterConnect 2017 appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud