How IBM is different in cloud and the data center…

1. Cloud Explained
How IBM is different in cloud and the data center…
You’ve probably heard stories about how IBM is transforming how IT
is delivered and consumed; striving to adapt cloud computing resources and services to meet
clients’ wants and needs; and responding to market demand by opening global Cloud Computing
Centers.
But many clients still have lingering questions about what cloud computing actually is. IBM has
three main data center and cloud differentiators – workload optimization, service management
and delivery choice.
Let’s take a closer look at workload optimization.
Not all workloads are created equal
As businesses become exponentially more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent, the sheer
volume of data will crush the data center as we know it now. To evolve, the data center is
reorganizing itself not around geographic locations or departments within a company, but around
the kinds of work that it needs to accomplish -- known as workloads. Each workload has unique
characteristics that make it run most efficiently on certain kinds of hardware and software. These
efficiencies are becoming critical as future workloads are much greater than what we have now.
Some workloads demand speedy transactions of countless volumes of basic data like ATMs for
banking. On the other hand, workloads more commonly associated with high performance
computing – predictive analytics, for instance – require systems with the ability to handle
mathematically intense calculations. Other workloads – such as the Web 2.0 tools – simply
demand that their systems process data and distribute it quickly across vast IT networks – putting
computing into the hands of entire workforces around the globe.
Faced with a need to grow IT capacity quickly and constantly, many organizations historically
grew their data centers one server at a time - with less concern for workload optimization than
clients have now. The result was a tangled mess of underutilized systems. Workload
optimization is a way to untangle the systems by matching tasks with the kind of performance,
reliability, security and other operational characteristics required.
The Smart Analytics System is one example of how IBM has applied this approach to a specific
workload – business analytics. IBM also recently introduced Smart Business cloud offerings for
virtual desktop as well as development and test workloads.

2. What clients want
Workload optimization isn’t just an IBM vision; it’s a reality for clients now. CIOs are making
decisions on how they run their in-house IT based on workloads. This is why new delivery
models, such as cloud, are developing around workloads.
Heavy lifting for clouds
We’ve discussed why workload optimization is important in more traditional data center
environments. But for cloud computing, it becomes a necessary ingredient for success.
We know that enterprise clients will never move entirely to a cloud platform due to compliance
and governance concerns, but there are certain types of cloud-specific workloads that can be
handled more effectively in this environment. Low risk, infrastructure services for tasks like test
and development, desktop, information back-up, some types of high performance computing and
collaboration will be handled well in this model.
Take a look at development and test. This work can consume massive amounts of infrastructure
resources and it’s a fairly painful process for developers to obtain necessary systems. To tackle
this, a large United States financial institution uses IBM’s Smart Business Test Cloud Service to
slash the time needed for internal processes from weeks to minutes. The bank’s application
developers immediately build new or improve existing customer services, such as online account
transactions. By only paying for the capacity they use, their department’s cost and time spent on
developing and testing products are expected to drop by more than 50 percent. And through
resource consolidation, the bank has seen a major reduction in the number of assets required and
a dramatic increase in utilization.
Desktop and PCs can also be a huge drain on IT resources for a company. By using IBM’s
Smart Business Desktop Cloud, users log on over a secure connection through the Internet, enter
an IP address and are connected to applications normally accessed in a PC environment. A
manufacturing company in Taiwan was facing challenges on how to keep pace in its fast moving
industry. One key area for them was enabling their researchers to collaborate more effectively,
get access to information more quickly and accelerate the speed of development.
Working with IBM, they developed a virtual research environment, a desktop cloud, which
enables both quick access to information and the ability to collaborate and share within the cloud
environment, no matter where the researchers themselves are located. They were able to
dramatically improve the overall productivity of their research and development, while
simultaneously reducing their costs and improving the service of the delivery of the desktop and
collaboration environment.
Kentucky’s Pike County school system also uses IBM’s Smart Business Desktop Cloud. The
computers may look like old PCs, but because they’re merely access points to a private cloud,
they harness the power of a remote data center. Now, all 27 Pike County schools have equal
access to education content while reducing end-user support costs by 62 percent. And they were
able to get extra life out of older PCs.

3. Leading in systems workloads
IBM has long been the leader in building systems - ATM, travel reservation, self checkout,
massively scalable super computers. Each of these was created to optimize a specific task and
each continues to provide a platform for IBM market leadership. In a world that is becoming
smarter – more interconnected, instrumented and intelligent – a one-size-fits-all approach won’t
drive the level of service that is needed to make the world work better. But aligning new
delivery methods like cloud computing with workloads, generates better performance, scale and
efficiency – paving the way for IBM’s next generation of leadership in the data center.