Kategorie: technology

Announcing IBM Cloud Product Insights for hybrid cloud

Stressful. Frustrating. Unpleasant.
That’s the trio of adjectives that surface when I think about relocation. Having recently moved from one house to another, those sentiments remain fresh in my memory.
The litany of unpacked boxes still lining my garage are constant reminders. And until the final coffee mug, picture and trinket are placed in their designated home, an unsettled feeling will reign as my shadow.
When you think about it, information technology (IT) and the professionals who support it are no different. Any change that introduces a major overhaul to how IT applications and the supporting infrastructure are implemented, managed and monitored is far from desired.
It’s especially true when proposing a total “lift and shift” of critical IT workloads from on-premises to the public cloud. The mere mention of it to IT executives is often a conversation stopper.
That’s not to say that enterprises aren’t moving toward the public cloud. They clearly are. Most understand that, in order to accelerate digital transformation, leveraging the power and flexibility of capabilities delivered in the public cloud is necessary for progressing at the required business pace.
But with the cloud, we’ve long discovered this is not either-or. In other words, hybrid cloud, which enables organizations to unlock new value with speed and flexibility while improving the ROI of existing infrastructure, is the preferred approach.
So, for those who’ve yet to dip their toes into the hybrid pool, where do you start? When, where, and how do you start taking advantage of the innovative, self-service capabilities public cloud venders are bringing to market at a rapid pace?
For existing IBM software clients, assistance with that journey is provided by IBM Cloud Product Insights. A new service recently released on IBM Bluemix, Product Insights provides IBM clients an entry point to the cloud with new capabilities that optimize an organization’s existing on-premises environments. New capabilities include:
Registration and usage
Multi-product, cloud-based dashboards provide visibility into what software products and versions are deployed. Quick and easy-to-use registration simplifies the task of getting a view of the supported products into the hybrid cloud.
Recommendations for optimization
Intelligent recommendations provide guidance on which cloud services enhance the registered software products used in your hybrid cloud environments. These recommended services can then be deployed, allowing organizations to discover, try and adopt services tailored to improve their existing environments.
Log management service
In addition to the capabilities made available through the initial release of Product Insights, a new experimental release of a Product Insights log management service is available, which provides users with deeper insight into their backend operations through log correlation, management, and SME dashboards.
Today, Product Insights and the experimental log management service supports six IBM products:

IBM WebSphere Application Server
IBM WebSphere Liberty
IBM MQ
IBM Integration Bus
IBM Operational Decision Manager
IBM Operational Decision Manager on Cloud

Throughout 2017, support for more IBM software products will be included with Product Insights. Advanced cognitive capabilities powered by IBM Watson will also be introduced, enabling users to proactively address potential problems with their backend operations before they become service impacting.
The cognitive insights that accompany IBM Watson and Product Insights are part of what differentiates the IBM Cloud from other vendors. The support of hybrid environments is another.
Because let’s face it: picking up and moving everything you own from one place to another isn’t easy. Whether it’s shifting your IT workloads to the cloud or the family to a new neighborhood, challenges surely await.
For me, the physical move was well worth it. Much of that can be attributed to a consumable process that did not include a complete lift and shift at an undesirable pace.
The extra space to give my 7-year-old more room to play football, baseball and soccer was a pretty nice benefit, too.
For more information on Product Insights, click here.
The post Announcing IBM Cloud Product Insights for hybrid cloud appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

How to combine cognitive and rule-based decision management

Jean-Christophe Jardinier, BLogic Software, co-authored this post.

Businesses selling through digital channels have a critical balance to achieve. They must minimize the cost of selling while also maximizing the likelihood of success every time they offer a product or service to a customer.
Cognitive capabilities can help slash cost. Tools such as cognitive chatbots can anticipate the customer’s needs by asking the right questions and understanding the answers. All of this happens at a low operational cost.
For the maximizing success piece of the balancing act, consider rule-based decision management. Successful selling requires delivering a highly-personalized experience to your customer. Once you know what your customer needs, you have to propose an offer that addresses these expressed needs and takes into account what you already know about the customer. And you have to do all of this while complying with regulations, best practices and policies. A quality business rules management system makes this possible.
You also need to customize the messages to each customer. You need to use a language that is likely to resonate with the customer and highlights the features of the offer that matter to her. Consider the following example that shows how rule-based decision management can increase the likelihood of an offer’s success.
Your company is promoting a credit card offer. Your data shows that specific demographic profiles would likely respond well to free rides from popular ride-sharing apps. You can use the rules and customize messages to reach the people who are most likely to respond to a specific offer or benefit. For example, if the customer is young and in a city, then you could mention your credit card offer provides free rides from ride-sharing apps.
By using customized language while combining cognitive and a rule-based decision management system, the process has not only identified key characteristics about the customer that make her a great candidate for this offer, but was also able to determine and effectively communicate which features of the offer may be most appealing to her – in this case, free rides due to her age and location.
Want to dive deeper into using cognitive and decision-management? Join us at IBM InterConnect. Here are two can’t-miss sessions.
Session 1784: Watson + ODM = understanding what your customer needs and propose the right offer
In this session, we’ll show a demo that combines the Watson Conversation service available in Bluemix and IBM Operational Decision Manager (ODM). We’ll cover how you can automate as much as possible with Watson. We’ll also cover how to constantly improve your decisions and adapt to moving market conditions.
Session 2735: A next-gen, low-code, intelligent virtual assistant—context-aware and tied to legacy and cognitive
This session will introduce the next-generation customization intelligent virtual assistant. Companies can address the need to scale expertise without overloading their knowledge workers. Explore how to implement intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) that leverage reusable assets, cognitive services such as Watson APIs, existing systems of record, decisions and workflows.
And there’s more. InterConnect will bring together more than 20,000 top cloud professionals to network, train and learn about the future of the industry. Register today.
The post How to combine cognitive and rule-based decision management appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

4 can’t-miss cloud storage sessions at InterConnect

Cloud storage can provide a flexible, scalable opportunity to help your organization grow and keep up with storage demands. It’s an excellent business opportunity, and IBM InterConnect 2017 is an outstanding place to learn how to capture it.
More than 20,000 cloud professionals will gather at the conference to network, train and learn about the future of technology. Planning your schedule? Since there are far too many sessions to mention, I’ll share four of my favorites.
1. Making sense of data with Bitly
Bitly is the world’s leading link management platform. But they are so much more. Bitly continually looks for new ways to help organizations gain actionable insights about their customers. In this session, learn how Bitly uses IBM Cloud Object Storage to quickly and easily analyze historical data from more than 10 billion clicks each month.
2. Changing photo storage with Shutterfly
Shutterfly provides its customers with free, unlimited and secure photo storage and a promise to never delete images. To do this, the company safely houses billions of images on the IBM Cloud Object Storage platform. In this session, learn how Shutterfly has created an innovative, sustainable platform that leads the industry in performance, availability and cost.
3. An introduction to IBM Bluemix apps and object storage services
IBM Cloud Object Storage provides a portfolio of robust, cloud-based object storage services designed to deliver flexibility and resiliency. Come learn about the new class of storage services for data workloads and IBM resiliency options for regional and cross-regional availability. Meet with product management and IBM subject matter experts in this interactive session.
4. An overview of current and upcoming hybrid, dedicated and public offerings
Is your organization looking to improve flexibility, cost-efficiency or security? This session addresses how IBM Cloud Object Storage answers these needs. Learn about the IBM portfolio through client use cases, and hear about solutions that integrate IBM storage with offerings such as IBM Cloud, Bluemix and IBM Watson.
Bonus: One-on-one sessions
Have a question? Is there a new opportunity you’re dying to discuss? Set up a one-on-one with an IBM executive to build a conversation around your specific needs.
There are many more sessions for all levels around IBM Cloud Object Storage. And these are only a few of the many cloud sessions at InterConnect. In all, the conference will feature over 2,000 exciting sessions, trainings and labs to help attendees position themselves to succeed in the digital economy. If you still haven’t signed up, register today.
To plan your InterConnect schedule, explore the sessions here. To learn more about InterConnect or IBM Cloud Storage, visit the website.
The post 4 can’t-miss cloud storage sessions at InterConnect appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Why true cloud adoption is increasingly important

Recently, I have noticed that the subject of cloud conversations I have with clients has shifted. They are moving away from asking “How do I start with cloud?” and focusing more on this request: “We have cloud; help us adopt and make full use of it.”
Cloud adoption is important and can be easily overlooked. By fully adopting cloud, it becomes second nature and no longer a “special” environment. It’s a fully integrated part of an organization’s IT landscape.
Often the hardest part of the cloud journey is deciding to take the first steps, such as identifying those first workloads and committing to the first cloud implementation. But like many first-of-a-kind projects, it’s not always smooth sailing. Further help and support can be required to avoid pitfalls or even project failure.
Along with the shift in a client’s focus from first steps to adoption, my role, and that of many of my colleagues, has also moved to cloud adoption and helping clients find success in their first cloud projects.
What does this mean in practice? As a cloud adoption leader, I work with clients and IBM project teams to ensure that cloud projects create the business outcomes they were designed to deliver. I provide cloud expertise and a means to engage with a range of technical experts, as well as support services within IBM who may be needed to fix and unblock issues which might otherwise lead to a cloud project stalling or even failing.
For example, I have been involved with a client project in which there were questions about how to implement the client’s security model in the cloud. This was threatening to cause delays. Once I was aware of the problem, I quickly hooked the project team up with the right security and configuration experts within IBM Cloud. They worked together to build a security model that met client requirements and the project stayed on track.
Successful adoption is not just about fixing problems, though. It’s also about keeping abreast of changes to cloud services and launching new features that might enhance or provide further transformation. Talking to clients about changes and new features is key to spread awareness and identify where changes might affect an in-flight project. This promotes a culture of proactive decision making, as well as continual enhancement and improvement, especially where projects are agile can take advantage of change.
It’s an exciting time to be around #cloud computing. An ever-increasing number of organizations are adopting a “cloud-first” approach, and overall, cloud computing has arguably become the norm rather than just a consideration for even the most complex workloads.
Accordingly, IBM is expanding its efforts to help clients be successful in their cloud adoption journey. I’m proud to be just one of a myriad of experts working with clients on such projects today.
See the latest in multi-cloud management at InterConnect.
The post Why true cloud adoption is increasingly important appeared first on Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud

Hit the IT operations trail at Interconnect 2017

IT operations is at the heart of every company’s digital transformation journey, whether you need to drive a better client experience—or just keep the lights on.
IDC analysts predict by the end 2017, more than 70 percent of the Global 500 will have dedicated digital transformation and or innovation teams. And did you know the average company uses six different public or private cloud environments?
Having a single, agnostic hybrid cloud management platform for a multicloud environment is quickly becoming a requirement for all enterprises. By combining an agile, DevOps approach with the flexibility of hybrid cloud, companies can rapidly accelerate the deployment of new applications that leverage existing investments.
Another emerging trend is ChatOps. It’s a collaboration model that connects bots, people, tools, processes and automation. With all that, IT operations is poised to get agile, get more structured and more efficient.
Planning your InterConnect schedule? Join us to see how clients leverage IBM solutions and partner ecosystem to achieve speed and control over their cloud environments and applications.
Here are some handpicked sessions and events you must not miss if you are interested in IT operations. Come hit the trail with us.

The post Hit the IT operations trail at Interconnect 2017 appeared first on #Cloud computing news.
Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud