Pick a cloud platform that matches your hybrid cloud strategy, not the other way around
Though the CIO or CTO of a company is typically responsible for the organization’s information technology, often the technology itself takes over the executive seat, defining the strategies that a CIO/CTO feels compelled to take. A need-to list can very quickly become a wish list, with the amount of “required” tech rapidly spiraling out of control. Some organizations find themselves dealing with seven (or more!) cloud providers or technologies, a situation that can be untenable in the long term.
But what if that were no longer the case? What if one cloud platform could support your need to accelerate innovation and to drive business outcomes?
By embracing a hybrid multicloud world with an integrated cloud stack, it is possible to transition from monolithic technology needs to an automated, cloud-native world where you determine your IT strategy rather than accepting the needs and limitations of your platform.
Integrated hybrid multicloud–myth or fact?
An integrated cloud platform is an IT system—combining hardware and software—that lets you build out the business solutions you want to build at the speed you need to build them, thus focusing on the outcomes you’re trying to achieve and attaining the ability to adapt to changing situations. Essentially, this allows you to act as a disruptor rather than a disruptee, spending less time and energy building your infrastructure and focusing instead on your business outcomes.
By investing in an integrated cloud platform, you can optimize the value of your infrastructure where it makes sense. To do so while maintaining portability of applications and remaining agnostic of cloud providers is a unique value proposition that offers a distinct competitive advantage.
To stay ahead, you should consider a level of flexibility found by combining the best of on-premises solutions with public cloud, as well as a way to connect across platforms. You should also consider your need to achieve security and scalability in the public cloud without disrupting your services or processes. So how does an integrated cloud platform help you do this?
Containers, Kubernetes and server technology
When you combine containers and Kubernetes with the scalability, security and resiliency of IBM® LinuxONE
, you get a consumption model that gives you the ability to be flexible about where you want to go as your business evolves. It is an elegant, end-to-end solution that includes an integrated cloud-native stack.
Containers help enable portability across clouds that are homogeneous—but what about a hybrid multicloud which includes more than one hardware architecture?
IBM worked hard to contribute multi-architecture container technology into the Docker ecosystem, and as such, users today can get containers on Dockerhub that are able to run as is, across x86, IBM Power Systems, ARM and LinuxONE. These multi-architecture containers offer a new world of development, designed to allow you to build once and deploy anywhere. This means you can put the application or service where it makes the most sense as you develop and grow your business.
With a common integrated cloud-native platform like Red Hat OpenShift, you get the same services, capabilities, environments and cloud platform, yet you can deploy across multiple clouds and different architectures. This allows you to build once and deploy anywhere. With LinuxONE you get a platform engineered to host mission-critical applications with sensitive, personal and confidential data at scale while providing infrastructure on demand.
Client examples
Digital Asset Custody Services (DACS)— As digital asset technology enters the mainstream, start-up DACS recognized a gap in the market. DACS began developing a platform that gives users both secured and easy access to digital assets. DACS engaged IBM to help build an execution environment for digital asset transactions, based on IBM Secure Service Container and IBM LinuxONE technologies.
ICU IT Services— ICU IT Services is the first in BeneLux to deploy an IBM® LinuxONE platform, which it uses to develop innovative solutions and services that deliver significant IT savings for businesses that want to combine the best of enterprise server and Linux® technologies. As an example of the innovation enabled by IBM solutions, ICU IT has created its own multi-architecture cloud environment using OpenStack solutions and IBM Cloud Private.
Cognition Foundry—Cognition Foundry is a service provider on a mission. The company works with startups with big ambitions to make a difference in the world, whether it’s tackling climate change or fighting poverty. With an IBM LinuxONE enterprise server, Cognition Foundry is helping its clients realize their dreams and make their mark globally—for example, developing the blockchain-based solution that key client The Plastic Bank uses to support its core operations.
Why an integrated cloud platform for the hybrid multicloud?
CIOs and CTOs should be choosing their own strategy rather than letting themselves be defined by much-hyped technology trends. An integrated cloud platform on LinuxONE opens the aperture for business success.
With this kind of IT infrastructure at your fingertips, you’ll be free to make your own decisions and serve as the master of your technology, rather than letting your technology master you. Take the opportunity to truly leverage today’s hybrid multicloud world and emerge as a champion and a disruptor.
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