UPDATED 14:59 EDT / MARCH 04 2014

Is IBM the new term for business cloud? #IBMpulse 2014 | #CIOAngle

IBM_Pulse_InfographicIBM is changing the picture of the cloud business services market and, in the process, purposely raising user expectations in a strategy to capture the market momentum from AWS. Until last week IaaS users basically expected a bare-bones environment that they then had to populate with their tools, services, data, etc.

IBM’s strategy is to deemphasize this base environment in part by offering an open source version with the implied message that this is table stakes that every competitor must have. Its focus is on extra services ranging from the high speed SoftLayer network and enterprise-level security, through its new BlueMix developer PaaS and IBM management and other middleware that it is porting to SoftLayer, to major platforms such as Cloudant and Watson on which developers can create and companies run core applications.

It offers on-site platforms ranging from PureSystems integrated (e.g., converged) hardware to System z mainframes optimized to run internal cloud systems that then can be run as hybrid clouds with the IBM cloud platforms and managed as a single entity. And of course IBM consulting is standing by to provide help in designing and creating those hybrid environments if you need it.

In doing all this, much of it announced last week at IBM Pulse 2014, it is redefining the meaning of business IaaS. Its goal with BlueMix is to combine all its developer tools on SoftLayer in a way that makes application development easier and faster that it is either in-house or on AWS or other rival IaaS platforms, and then to automate migrating the finished application either to a private cloud running on the IBM platform or the IBM managed cloud. One measure of its success was an amazing demonstration during last Monday’s Pulse keynotes in which Jeff Lawson, CEO of IBM partner Twilio, added a pre-built phone number management extension to an existing application and then had the application successfully dial the cell phone of IBM SVP of Middleware Robert LeBlanc on stage in less than five minutes while they discussed the advantages of BlueMix. In the process they threw down a gauntlet — “Match this, Amazon”.

“For the first time in the history of IBM conferences, on day one we actually had Twilio up there with Robert LeBlanc writing code,” said IBM Fellow, VP, and Websphere CTO Jerry Cuomo on theCUBE from IBM Pulse (see video embedded below). “A live demo, We were able to ehar the results of the demo where we were able to, in our BlueMix environment, allow Robert to place a call. We said ‘developer’ and then we developed.”

Removing the drudgery from application development

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IBm_PaaS_IBM’s message here is why should developers use AWS when they can do more faster and with less debugging and other drudgery on IBM? And over time, as it ports more of its tools and builds out more standard code like the telephone management extension that developers can use on BlueMix, that message will only gain strength. The addition of major components such as CloudAnt, a cloud-based NoSQL database that IBM is purchasing, will further differentiate it, and when it completes the port of Watson, expected in the third quarter, it will have a platform that allows developers to create classes of applications that have never been possible before.

“It starts with this notion of lean,” Cuomo said on theCUBE. “Lean is about being fast. We have this notion of MVP — minimal viable product. But the ‘V’ part, “Viable”. So it’s not just about being fast. It’s about being fast and awesome. And viable and awesome is about innovation. So getting out there, environments like BlueMix in five minutes…allows a person with an idea to fulfill that idea without stuff getting in the way. You can just freebase into your idea without worrying. Internally we’re using BlueMix to free our developers to focus on business value. The ‘V’ in ‘MVP’.”

At the same time it is targeting CIOs with the message that it provides a built-in, enterprise-class, end-to-end operating environment including high security, guaranteed service levels, a full application and asset management suite that integrates seamlessly with IBM management tools in the enterprise, and a high-speed private network on which it delivers those services. It has a strong reputation going back to the early years of computing. And virtually every F1000 company, many government agencies worldwide and a growing number of SMBs are already IBM clients, giving it a channel to deliver its cloud message to huge numbers of prospective service users.

AWS Reply

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Until now AWS has been the unchallenged IaaS leader based as much as anything on name recognition and ease of access. Basically when someone thinks about cloud they think “Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo”. Based on that, AWS has captured the lion’s share of the early IaaS activity without needing to focus a great deal on either service development or marketing. Its focus really has been building out capacity fast enough to keep up with demand.

This is not to say that AWS is a bad deal. As a low-cost, bare-bones provider it offers a basic platform on which developers can create and run applications using their existing development tools. That is a good fit for some business uses, but not for all. And given that as phenomenal as market growth has been in the last two years, it is only the start of what promises to be an explosion in demand ahead, the question is not whether AWS will continue to grow — there is enough business to keep all the players growing for the next five years at least.

But if it wants to remain a leader in the IaaS market, AWS needs to step up. Bare bones services are no longer enough, particularly for larger organizations with major concerns around issues like data security and QoS. And developers, who have a major influence on where the applications they write are run, want a development platform that minimizes the drudgery and frees them to do creative work without having to worry about issues such as security and adding common services.

Public cloud only vs hybrid

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AWS also has an issue as a public cloud-only play in a market that is clearly moving toward a hybrid cloud model. That is not to say that a company cannot build a hybrid cloud using its existing internal infrastructure and AWS, but integrating the AWS proprietary platform with a separate internal platform, based for instance on VMware or Hyper-V, is inevitably going to present some technical complexities. And AWS leaves sorting out those complexities to the customer. Indeed users have discovered that just getting someone at Amazon on the phone to provide basic information on a problem is difficult.

So the question becomes, how will AWS respond. For instance, will it offer an in-house version of its cloud that users can install as the basis of a hybrid AWS cloud? Will it upgrade its developer platform with a larger selection of tools and reusable code to allow developers to add standard extensions to their applications easily? We can expect IBM to rain a steady stream of announcements on the market as it ports more of its middleware to SoftLayer, and HP, if it is smart, will get into this game and port its middleware to its cloud platform as well. As that happens AWS is going to be left playing catchup.

We may see the first response from AWS at its West Coast Summit March 26 in the Moscone Center in San Francisco. TheCUBE will be there with interviews of Amazon executives and users. It will be an opportunity to see how this shift in the conversation around IaaS is impacting the market, and whether AWS feels pressure to respond.

Graphics Courtesy IBM


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