Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform now available on IBM Power Systems Virtual Server

Following the announcement of Red Hat OpenShift 4.6 availability across IBM Power Systems, IBM Z, and IBM LinuxONE infrastructure alongside x86, IBM Power Systems is pleased to announce the availability of Red Hat OpenShift on Power Systems Virtual Server leveraging OpenShift’s platform-agnostic installer. Clients will now be able to further expand the cloud capabilities of their Power Systems infrastructure to deliver a resilient and secure hybrid cloud platform.

The offering is engineered so that IBM clients can easily spin up new OpenShift clusters as devtest environments as well as create highly available clusters capable of handling data-intensive workloads. Offering OpenShift on Power Virtual Server opens new doors for running a world of containerized applications including IBM Cloud Paks, Red Hat Runtimes, open-source software, and applications from independent software vendors.

IBM Cloud Paks™ provide the containerized IBM middleware and open-source software components to modernize, move and build cloud-native business applications in hybrid and multicloud deployments. Based on feedback, Power Systems clients are already speeding time-to-market and infusing AI insights into existing on-premises applications with the Cloud Pak for Data and can now extend that capability to Power Systems Virtual Server.

Why this is important for customers

As you plan to deploy containerized workloads, Red Hat OpenShift on Power Systems Virtual Server is designed to provide the flexibility and on-demand scalability to get to market faster in a secured environment. Power Virtual Server pay-as-you-go billing allows you to best allocate scarce resources and to adapt to changing needs of the business. Now you have the resources to develop modern OpenShift cloud-native container-based applications to run alongside existing AIX, IBM i and Linux-based applications. In addition, IBM Systems Lab Services provides a wealth of offerings to help you get started with OpenShift and containers on Power Systems.

Potential use cases

◉ Spin up devtest OpenShift clusters for cloud-native application development and application modernization projects

◉ Transform traditional IBM middleware into agile, cloud-native, container-based services

◉ Co-locate your IBM i and AIX applications with new cloud-native services on OpenShift on Power Virtual Server for simplified management and optimal performance

Easy to configure and operate

Our design goal has been to make it easy for customers to get started with Red Hat OpenShift on Power Systems Virtual Server. We have automated much of the installation with Ansible and other automation technologies so that even those customers new to Red Hat OpenShift and Kubernetes will find it easy to get a cluster up and running. Installing Cloud Paks and other applications is simplified with automation technology that offers a consistent deployment experience across Power Virtual Server and on premises.

IBM provides a step-by-step learning path that helps all skill levels to deploy an OpenShift cluster on Power Virtual Server and to learn about how to leverage the environment across a range of use cases.

Source: ibm.com

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IBM is recognized by Gartner as a Leader in the 2020 Primary Storage Magic Quadrant for the 13th consecutive time

IBM has been named a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Primary Storage Magic Quadrant for its ability to execute and completeness of vision and for providing advanced solutions to accelerate performance, expand security and strengthen public cloud affinity.  This is the 13th report in a row that Gartner has bestowed the Leader recognition on IBM.

The Gartner report evaluated two solutions from IBM: IBM FlashSystem all-flash and hybrid flash array portfolio and IBM high-end DS8900F all-flash array offerings.

IBM FlashSystem

IBM has simplified and consolidated its primary storage portfolio under FlashSystem. The new family provides powerful all-flash and hybrid-flash solutions for all non-mainframe environments, offering feature-rich, cost-effective, enterprise-class storage.

IBM FlashSystem family is efficient, high-performing virtualized storage designed to meet the full range of enterprise class data services across entry to mid-range to high-end requirements. These can be seamlessly extended to your hybrid cloud deployments while reducing CAPEX, OPEX, and complexity.  The family is based on a common storage software platform, award-winning IBM Spectrum Virtualize, that works across all deployment types: from data centers to containers, and also supports clients’ entire heterogenous multi-vendor storage to efficiently meet the challenges of rapid data growth and constrained IT budgets.

IBM Spectrum Virtualize capabilities can extend a wide range of enterprise class data services to more than 500 heterogeneous storage systems, dramatically reducing costs while increasing ROI. Additional advanced features include “six-nines” high availability, data migration, thin provisioning, SCSI UNMAP, and the virtualization of external storage for non-IBM storage arrays.

“IBM’s FlashSystem announcement is a transformational change for the storage market. By combining multiple award-winning solutions into one family, IBM is not only protecting existing customers’ investments, but they are providing strong innovation into the future. FlashSystem creates a highly scalable, incredibly adaptable, flexible and seamless solution from entry level to high end, extending to our clients’ hybrid multicloud environments. And since it is predominately a channel-based family, it is extremely well suited to the partner environment. I think it’s a win-win for both customers and partners.” – Bob Elliot, Vice President, Storage Sales, Mainline Information Systems

IBM DS8900F

To get the most out of hybrid cloud, organizations need cloud-native storage that is designed to match the mission-critical capabilities of IBM Z, LinuxONE and Power enterprise servers. IBM DS8900F combines unique enterprise advance functions that provide the fastest, most reliable and secure storage solution for high-speed transactional processes, business intelligence and container-based applications. In addition, IBM DS8900F helps to protect hybrid cloud environments by encrypting 100% percent of the data while significantly reducing the risk of business disruption and financial losses due to user errors, malicious destruction or ransomware attacks with IBM Safeguarded Copy technology. And of course, because container support is a must, IBM DS8900F supports IBM Cloud® Pak™ solutions to enhance and extend the functionality and capabilities of Red Hat OpenShift to give organizations a faster, more secure way to deploy and maintain cloud-native applications.

“The basic mainframe approach to data processing fits exceptionally well with modern workloads such as artificial intelligence and real-time analytics. We see a strong future for mainframe deployment and sales. This means that we must provide our clients with complementary data storage solutions that offer equal levels of performance, reliability, and security. IBM DS8900F and TS7700 VTL systems fill the bill perfectly.” – Mark Tansey, Storage Solutions Sales Director, Vicom Infinity

Once again, leading industry observers remind our customers, business partners, and the public why both IBM solutions have been recognized in the Magic Quadrant report. You can read a copy of the Gartner report here.  

To learn more about IBM FlashSystem and DS8900F, click here.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage Arrays, 30 November 2020, Santhosh Rao | Roger W. Cox | Joseph Unsworth | Jeff Vogel

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Source: ibm.com

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Cyber resiliency 101: Required learning for all

Cyber threats like ransomware, which made its very first appearance in 1989 and has been on security teams’ and law enforcement’s radar for the past 7 or 8 years, are not fads. It’s not going away. In fact, the cash-rich ransomware industry is flourishing. As a result, organizations are moving from the era of possibility to the era of probability of a successful cyber breach. It’s not hyperbole to say that it’s no longer a question of if an organization will face a cyberattack but rather when.

Protecting against ransomware is a top priority for most organizations as they look to protect themselves against lost productivity, lost brand equity or trust, and lost revenue. Protection against ransomware should be a 2-pronged approach with a focus on security and resiliency:

◉ With cybersecurity, the objective is preventative in nature. “Lock the doors to keep any bad actors out in the first place.”

◉ With cyber resiliency, the objective is to prevail in the event of a cyber breach. “The odds are we will be breached. We need to plan and prepare in order to continue operations despite a breach.”

It’s important to note: Organizations should work towards being both cyber secure and cyber resilient.

Business continuity: 4 protection practices

In the past, business continuity was comprised of 3 protection practices. We now have a 4th protection practice. I will start by reviewing the 3 well-established protection practices and then talk about where cyber resiliency fits in.

◉ Backup: Protects files, folders, drives against corruption or accidental (and in some cases intentional) deletion.

◉ High availability: Protects against a larger, localized outage or event — for example, an outage within a site: a server or a storage array goes down, or you lose power to a portion of the data center.

◉ Disaster recovery (DR): Protects against an even larger outage — for example, an outage that affects an entire site, such as a catastrophic disaster like a fire, flood or earthquake that takes out an entire data center.

◉ Cyber resiliency: The newest protection practice under the business continuity umbrella. While these cyber resiliency practices are new, they shouldn’t be too tough to understand in that cyber resiliency practices are a blend of existing backup and DR practices, which is the reason why cyber resiliency is seated between backup and DR. Cyber resiliency is similar to backup in the protection method; it involves point-in-time copies. Cyber resiliency is similar to DR in the size and scale of the data loss. While the data center may not be lost due to a natural disaster — the building is still standing, the power is still on — a virus can cause widespread damage similar to a losing a site, requiring DR-like restore operations.

Thankfully, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published a “Cybersecurity Framework” for safeguarding critical infrastructure. The framework integrates industry standards and best practices to help organizations develop or improve their cyber protection measures.

The NIST Framework is made up of 5 functions. You can think of these functions as steps, but notice that they are in a loop, signaling that there’s an expectation of continuous updates and improvements over time. Keep in mind that cyber resiliency is all about planning and preparing before a breach occurs. Not surprisingly, the first 4 functions — identify, protect, detectand respond — focus on planning and preparation to ensure a successful recovery.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework

Anyone can download and use the NIST Framework and corresponding white papers to aid them in their self-directed cyber-protection efforts. For those who would rather not go it alone, and would prefer some outside assistance and expertise, IBM System Lab Services has built the Cyber-Incident Response Storage Assessment (CIRSA) using the NIST Framework to expedite clients’ cyber resiliency protection efforts. For organizations that would like assistance and expertise, the CIRSA offering is a great vehicle for starting down the path to cyber resiliency.

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The 4 open source “secrets” your business requires

C-suite secret #1: 

Having the right people, the right infrastructure, the right mindset— is great, but if you don’t have the right tools, then you’re not going to be competitive, and open source is one of the most important tools in the toolbox.  

The feedback from the panel was that infrastructure can’t be overlooked, and more specifically, that clients should explore enterprise-class infrastructure for their mission-critical Linux workloads. IBM Distinguished Engineer and IBM LinuxONE CTO Marcel Mitran suggests that the security attributes of LinuxONE were gaining traction with client, especially for digital assets and banking workloads. My take: infrastructure is important, but you need to look more holistically at people, process and infrastructure to achieve the maximum benefit. 

C-suite secret #2:

Open source brings consistency to solutions that you wouldn’t otherwise have without massive investment. It doesn’t require rip & replace, and it offers a high level of consistency within solutions.   

The debate here was interesting. Increasingly, the panel is seeing the desire to build differentiation as a focus for proprietary innovation, but APIs and horizontal ‘plumbing’ should be open-source driven. My take: clients should look to adopt open source pervasively and then build on that layer to deliver what their business requires. Investing to replicate open-source tool functionality, be it either with ISV solutions or with in-house development, will become rarer over time for primarily economic reasons. 

C-suite secret #3:

Attracting and keeping top talent is imperative, and it means helping employees feel like they can give something back. Empowering and engaging talent through open source means letting them participate in that larger world.  

This was a hot topic for the panel, with spirited discussion. This was not surprising as the demand for talent, especially in the current business climate, is increasing. Hot new skills, largely in open source, are key to driving digital transformation projects. My take: every client should be establishing an open source program office and actively encouraging employees to take active roles in the open source community, even if this is not directly related to their core function or role. 

C-suite secret #4:

Businesses can unify old & new systems across vendors like never before, and leveraging containerization enables fast movement of data and workloads, letting business pivot as needed. 

The panel focused here on the pervasive adoption of Kubernetes as an open-source project, driving the adoption of containerization and the jet fuel for digital transformation.  This technology layer is powering the adoption of hybrid cloud and obviously what IBM is doing with OpenShift and Cloud Paks is at the heart of this adoption. My take: clients need to look more widely than just public cloud, as models show that a hybrid strategy is proven to deliver 2.5x the value on average. Specific benefits will vary based on your enterprise. Focusing on systems of record and on-premises infrastructure as part of a hybrid cloud strategy often delivers more benefit than a pure public cloud strategy.

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The Critical Roles of Big Data Architect

Big Data Architect has evolved to become vital links between businesses and technology. They are responsible for planning and designing next-generation big-data systems and managing large-scale development and deployment of applications.

Any organization that requires to build a Big Data environment will need a Big Data Architect who can handle the complete lifecycle of requirement analysis, platform selection, technical architecture design, design of application purpose and development, testing, and deployment of the recommended solution.

What Does a Big Data Architect Do?

Big Data Architects are responsible for implementing the framework that appropriately replicates the Big Data needs of a company utilizing data, hardware, software, cloud services, developers, and other IT infrastructure to align its IT assets with its business goals.

They are required in any organization that works with data sets utilizing Big Data Solutions. They operate with banks, technology firms, Information Solutions Company, payment solutions, consulting, etc.

The job description entails managing a Hadoop solution; it requires carrying out requirement analysis, selecting the platform, and creating the technical architecture. It also requires application design and development, testing, and deployment of the recommended solution.

Big data architects also support recognizing data gaps, building new data pipelines, and providing automated solutions to deliver advanced analytical capabilities and improved data to applications that support the organization’s operations.

They are also responsible for collecting data from the System of Record and establishing a real-time data feed to provide an automated fashion analysis. As a big data architect, individuals need extensive experience with standard solutions architecture before progressing to big data solutions. They must also have expertise with major Big Data Solutions like Hadoop, MapReduce, Hive, HBase, MongoDB, Cassandra, Sqoop, etc.

Big Data Architect Job Description

• You can apply the big data architect job description in completing the professional or work experience section of your resume.
• Suppose you are writing a resume for a new job, having worked previously as a big data architect.
• The IBM Certified Data Architect - Big Data professional experience part of your resume is an opportunity to let the recruiter understand that you have performed or are presently performing their duties successfully.

Launching Your Big Data Architect Career

If you work as a big data architect or in a relevant field and require to move powerfully in your career, you will need advanced skills and perform successfully at a higher level. And that means you will require to take the best training program and certification courses.

IBM Big Data Architect Certification is the best opening point for anyone involved in either moving into or up in the big data industry. IBM Certifications tell possible employers that a job applicant has the required skills and knowledge to take on a big data professional's specialized roles and responsibilities.

The related works for somebody in other professions who seek to get into the high spending big data industry or students and recent graduates seeking to start and create a successful career in the big data industry. You will demand to take the right training and courses and make the necessary certification for the big data position that you want.

If you seek a big data architect's job, recruiters will generally want you to meet specific requirements to be qualified to obtain the role. This is necessary to demonstrate to the recruiter that you will perform the obligations, objectives, and determination of the role in their organization.

Conclusion

It is also the best part about becoming a great big data architect. If you want to become a big data architect, no one can stop you. Opportunities are growing at a pace proportionate to the growth of data itself. And now, there are more tools and resources than ever available to help you become an expert.

If you are a recruiter or HR manager promising for the big data architect role, you will require to inform prospective candidates of what the job entails; the duties and responsibilities they will be assigned if hired. You can do this by posting a detailed description of the job, which you can quickly and easily write by applying the big data architect job description.

This post is also essential to individuals entertained in the big data architect career and need to learn about the duties and functions that make up the role. With this information, you will be able to make the best decision about pursuing a big data architect career or not.

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Three common approaches to app modernization

If you’re like many IT organizations, you’ve got application modernization on your mind. Maybe you’ve already assessed your enterprise applications and are ready to put the pedal to the pavement on your next project. If so, it’s time to begin building your roadmap.

In previous posts one and two. we help you get started by exploring some steps you can take right now to modernize at your own pace. Becoming familiar with some common strategies can help you to minimize complexity along the way. So, let’s explore three common app modernization patterns and use cases to propel your modernization effort forward.

Case 1: Embrace containers and surround existing enterprise applications

Containers give you all sorts of technological benefits. You can isolate individual components, refactor and test them, redeploy and scale as needed without disrupting or updating the entire app. Plus, containers carry common sets of standards and security as they travel across your hybrid cloud. They’re lightweight, quick to start, and have consistent and portable app runtime. Now, developers can easily share these assets with each other, reducing the time to build.

To that end, containers give you an easier way to approach app modernization, which is to continue running existing traditional apps while you incrementally surround them with new and innovative cloud-native services.

For example, imagine that you’re a bank that wants to create a new mobile front-end interface or leverage cloud-based location services to find the nearest ATM using a banking app. Containers provide an approachable low-risk path that won’t disrupt your existing apps, yet also pave the way for innovation and skill development with new programming languages and development methodologies.

Adopting this strategy on IBM Power Systems or IBM Z® gives you a trusted platform where you can develop, run and manage apps and workloads in a consistent way across your hybrid cloud environment.

Case 2: Transition to containers

As your app modernization journey advances further and you grow comfortable with the technology, tools and practices involved, you can evaluate packaging apps inside containers, paving a path to more

portable applications across the cloud and more frequent software updates by leveraging DevOps practices.

Assuming your apps are based on portable technology (Java, for example), this is a fairly straightforward process. You usually do not have to make many changes to the app itself to reap the operational, management and monitoring benefits of containers paired with Red Hat OpenShift. For apps running native IBM AIX or IBM i technology (RPG or COBOL, for example), consider leaving them as-is and focusing on the “surround with containers” approach described previously. This provides a path to maximize innovation with new technologies while eliminating the large risk and expense of re-platforming.

Case 3: Rearchitect to cloud-native, microservices and API-first architecture

As described, the second step to application modernization is to transition your apps into containers. That does not necessarily mean those apps are truly cloud native. Each cloud-native application has a set of microservices representing each logical capability. Each microservice also has a well-defined API that sits on top of it to expose its capability. Because this approach typically requires changes to the application, it can take longer to complete than just moving your app into containers. With that in mind, taking an iterative approach to the process will keep things manageable.

Leveraging these approaches as part of your modernization journey will open doors to tremendous benefits. These include a quicker time to market, increased developer efficiency, app deployment flexibility, seamless integration with DevOps automation and access to the latest technology innovations.

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New Generation Platform for IBM Sterling Order Management on Cloud course is available!

Do you need to know how to get started quickly on Next Generation for IBM Sterling Order Management on Cloud?  Then, we have the course for you.

After you complete this course, you can earn the badge.

DL25353G New Generation Platform for IBM Sterling Order Management on Cloud (Self-paced, 10 hours)

The course has a series of topics and videos. You must watch all of the videos and read all of the documentation provided for the best results. There are no hands-on lab exercises in this course.

By the end of the course,  you should know how to:

◉ Access the Self Service tool and understand the various roles

◉ Access the environments using mutual authentication

◉ Download and install/upgrade Docker developer toolkit

◉ Generate inbound and MQ certificates and understand how to revoke certificates

◉ Deploy customizations and configurations

◉ Monitor performance of the application

◉ Utilize the API tester and DB Query tools

◉ Test IBM MQ connectivity

◉ Use Graylogs during troubleshooting

◉ Have an understanding of Inventory Visibility

New Generation Platform for IBM Sterling Order Management on Cloud Specialist badge (2 hours)

Before you take this  quiz, you must complete the New Generation Platform for IBM Sterling Order Management on Cloud Specialist course. The quiz has 20 multiple choice questions. You must pass with a grade of 80% to earn the badge.

Source: ibm.com

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3 ways to avoid EDI pitfalls during the holiday season

Despite the disruptions of 2020, total U.S. retail sales are projected to grow to more than $741 billion this holiday season. To help make this time of year a bright spot for customers, retailers and their suppliers need to know they can meet rising expectations and deliver the right products at the right place and time. What does this mean for IT leaders and B2B managers? Having confidence that the B2B infrastructure operating behind the scenes – connecting retailers, distributors, manufacturers and suppliers throughout the lifecycle of a customer order – can keep pace as demand spikes.

As you face a holiday season like none other and the certainty of change, here are three things to be mindful of as EDI transaction volumes increase across your B2B systems and infrastructure:

1. Keep orders flowing

As orders for products surge and are fulfilled, you need to replenish that inventory – fast. Orders must continue to flow up your supply chain to ensure distributors ship additional products to stores or warehouses, and manufacturers have the supplies they need to make more products and keep the pipeline full. But if your EDI system slows under mounting transaction volumes or worse, completely fails, you lose the ability to communicate with your trading partners and receive orders from your customers. Critical transactions, like orders and ship notices, are delayed.

Eric Doty of Greenworks Tools keeps orders flowing without hiring more staff by moving their EDI services to a cloud-enabled multi-enterprise business network that enables reliable, secure and scalable B2B exchanges. As this power equipment manufacturing company expands its global presence, the network provides a more efficient and cost-effective way to track the increasing number of orders. The solution digitizes and automates transactions and uses AI technology to deliver deeper insights into B2B processes. With visual reports and natural language queries, business users can quickly track the status of an order without help from IT to make faster and more-informed decisions to deliver better customer service. Greenworks Tools is keeping up with global B2B transaction growth and realizing a 40% IT cost savings by putting EDI insights into the hands of business users.

2. Flexibility to scale up and down

If 2020 has taught us nothing else, it’s that peak events can happen at any time for a variety of reasons. There are black swan events like a pandemic, but weather, seasonal, regional, and industry-specific events are far more common. Sometimes you can anticipate disruptions, and other times you can’t. Either way, you can eliminate much of the worry by being prepared. A business network that’s available as a cloud or hybrid solution, makes it fast and easy to scale up or down to support growing or slowing transaction volumes and manage costs.

Cinram links some of Europe’s biggest media producers and retailers with consumers of music, TV shows and movies, helping to keep shelves stocked with popular titles. Volumes spike during holiday periods, but also when highly-anticipated media releases become available. With a cloud-based business network, Cinram has maintained close to 100% uptime and can easily scale up the system when business volumes spike. They can add EDI connections rapidly without having to worry about provisioning new hardware to deliver the consistent, fast response and reliable service their clients have come to expect.

3. Proven B2B infrastructure

To keep pace with holiday shopping spikes or demand peaks, like those some industries saw due to COVID-19, your trading partners need to have seamless connectivity to exchange necessary information without disruption. IT leaders are doing this now with B2B infrastructure built for multi-enterprise connectivity and visibility that repeatedly demonstrates the ability to process unprecedented year-over-year transaction volume growth.

Li & Fung, a global leader in supply chain solutions, puts their B2B infrastructure to the ultimate test each year. The company oversees logistics for China’s Singles’ Day – the biggest shopping event in the world. For IT leader Manuel Fernandez, infrastructure that runs smoothly and is scalable for flawless performance is vital. Li & Fung integrates with 15,000 suppliers and thousands of customers using a single platform to automate B2B exchanges and gain data visibility to catch issues, allowing them to standardize and save costs. With flexibility to scale to handle ever-increasing transaction volumes, as well as exponential spikes – peaking at 1.5 million transactions per hour on Singles’ Day, four times the volume of the previous year – Li & Fung operates worldwide with speed and accuracy to meet service level agreements consistently.

This year, transaction numbers started to climb as early as October, reflecting an elongated holiday sales cycle. With a B2B infrastructure that continuously sets new transaction processing records and is available as a cloud or hybrid cloud option, there’s no need to worry about keeping orders flowing with your customers and suppliers. And that’s making this time of year a bright spot – not just for customers, but for IT leaders and B2B managers too.

Source: ibm.com

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Consumers score big during Cyber Week as retailers pivot big

Like the Ghost of Christmas Past, doorbusters on Black Friday became the story of yesteryear.  And, while the holiday shopping season is shaping up like no other, the clear winner of Cyber Week was the consumer.

Consumers significantly increased holiday shopping online, but often picked up their orders in-store or at the curb – never having to forgo a Cyber Week deal. They influenced a major shift in buying behavior – avoiding busy department stores and respecting social distancing guidelines by using contactless services like curbside pickup and lockers.

At the beginning of the year, many retailers saw the urgency caused by the pandemic and rapidly accelerated their digital transformation roadmap to accommodate growth and unpredictability in online sales. They shifted to cloud and enhanced their digital experience, sometimes transitioning stores to online fulfillment centers in only a few months.

Changes in buyer behavior continue to provide a preview of what the store of the future might look like – perhaps an online fulfillment center that accepts walk-in traffic. And for some retailers, the physical store could become the e-commerce powerhouse by offering same-day delivery, improved customer satisfaction and the potential for exponential growth. The ability for retailers to have a platform that can quickly pivot to handle volume is essential.

Retail stores become fulfillment centers

While brick-and-mortar was potentially a hindrance to growth, the pandemic has turned physical stores into the heroes of fulfillment. Many traditional retailers have undergone a radical transformation, including upgraded or new technology, revamped process workflows and employee training to support new order management and fulfillment tactics in their stores.

Buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) has been a fulfillment channel available for many years and utilized in the last few years by only a handful of large retailers. The pandemic catapulted the demand for – and use of – this service. The technology that empowers retailers to offer BOPIS, as well as curbside pick-up, same day delivery and other capabilities, grew exponentially in 2020. Smart retailers quickly adjusted and amended their digital services that align with evolving customer preferences.

In addition to BOPIS and curbside pickup, the need for greater flexibility saw many stores evolve into fulfillment centers so they could ship-from-store (SFS). SFS can not only reduce costs by shipping to customers who live closer than they do to a traditional distribution hub, but it can also help mitigate the risk associated with the busy transportation and logistics sector, particularly during the peak holiday season. It’s a customer satisfier and potential cost saver.

Many leading retailers are now leveraging a cognitive analytic engine that enhances their existing order management system in an effort to drive more volume to their stores, balance workload and provide more accurate delivery dates to customers. When a distribution center is overwhelmed with the bulk of sales volume during peak demand, delivery days and customer service are directly impacted. AI-infused technology enables retailers to understand and act on changes in the market as they occur and strike a perfect balance between protecting margins, utilizing store capacity and meeting delivery expectations. These sourcing decisions can dramatically increase profits, especially during peak periods.

Being able to have a clear, real-time picture of inventory is key to the above fulfillment capabilities. Smart inventory management ensures that retailers understand demand and can appropriately stock store locations to have just enough inventory to satisfy customers’ requests. Conversely, having too much stock means retailers run the risk of markdowns or deadstock – there’s a very low margin for error as the ability to ‘say yes’ to customers is the hallmark of a great brand.

Versatile technology is critical for managing peaks

IBM helps retailers get ready for their ‘big’ event – whether it’s back to school, a flash sale, or even the Superbowl. In preparation for this year’s holiday season, IBM worked with customers who were anticipating upwards of 50% increase in their Cyber 5 per-hour order line workloads. Retailers that planned and worked with their technology partners were undoubtedly the most successful last week. And, having a cloud-based solution like IBM Sterling Order Management, means that peaks can easily be satisfied without any overall service deterioration. That type of flexibility and adaptability is crucial during unprecedented times like we are experiencing.

Looking ahead

Traditional lines are blurring everywhere. What were historically siloed sales channels, eCommerce and brick-and-mortar stores are now unified as extensions of the other. Likewise, a busy month of holiday shopping, kicked-off in early October, has morphed into an elongated holiday shopping experience intended to relieve extreme 1-day demand on retailers.

While the remaining weeks of the holiday shopping season will no doubt prove to be a trying time for retailers, they also represent an opportunity to delight consumers and gain their continued loyalty in the new year. Organizations can find a way to thrive by ensuring a global, accurate understanding of inventory, elegantly leveraging stores as a key part of the fulfillment strategy and improving the agility and resiliency of their supply chains through new technology like AI and hybrid cloud.

Source: ibm.com

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Cyber defense: resilience and security go hand in glove

The interest in cyber defense as a way to mitigate the risks in today’s environment is understandably high. I recently hosted a session on Quora to answer questions on cyber security, resilience and the infrastructure needed to provide safe enterprise computing. The response was far beyond my expectations, with 25 questions asked and over 20,000 session views.

I answered twelve queries during the session, ranging from “How to build a secure hybrid cloud,” to “What are the emerging threats and security trends in the next ten years?” In this blog post, I’d like to recap and expand on a few of my responses.

Q: How can companies overcome cybersecurity challenges?

A: A company can’t overcome the cybersecurity challenges. You can only mitigate the risks the challenges present. Cybersecurity and cyber resiliency are two complimentary methods for mitigating the risks from determined attacks and events. Security helps you block and avoid disruption, while resiliency enables you to keep functioning when security is breached.

A consistent assessment of risk, using a method like FAIR, Factor Analysis of Information Risk, from the Open Group is valuable to reach consensus with all the stakeholders in your company on the magnitude of the risk. IBM Security uses this approach as part of the assessments it conducts for clients. FAIR looks at the frequency of the threat event and the potential impact on the business to rank risks. The other critical factor in addressing cybersecurity challenges is to identify the signs the provide indications and warnings of active attacks to trigger timely responses. Too often attacks go unnoticed for months before the impact is realized. 

Q: What types of emerging threats do I need to be prepared for?

A: AI is creating new types of security issues, and quantum computing and cryptography present new challenges. At the root of these new emerging threat vectors is the same criminal profit motive that makes cyberattacks so prevalent. The good news is that these new technologies can be used for defense as well. AI can be tied to indications and warning systems as well as keeping up with response tactics. Cryptography can be used not just for data at rest and in transit but in process as well. The in-processor cryptographic engines in IBM z15 systems remove the performance penalty of encryption at scale. Quantum computing has the potential to vastly increase the encryption strength protecting data.

The Internet of Things (IoT) encompasses a wide range of commercial and consumer devices and everyday items that are connected to the Internet, and communication occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems. Our transportation, factories, hospitals, offices, and homes are evolving into a complex networked ecosystem of interconnected data sharing software, services and devices. IoT devices, communications, and data stores need to be safe and secure and IBM believes the responsibility for ensuring security must be shared among device manufacturers, solution developers, and users.

Q: When organizations move data and workloads to the cloud, what are the cybersecurity considerations?

A: Organizations plan on spending notable sums on cloud security. Forrester predicts that the market for cloud security solutions will more than double by 2021 ($3.5 billion from $1.5 billion in 2017). Cloud security solutions must be able to address all security needs on premises, in private clouds and across multiple public clouds. Security for the cloud isn’t something that will be solved by bolting on new security tools. It must involve a holistic strategy and security capabilities to directly address: securing identity and networks, protecting data and workloads and managing threats and compliance.

There were also questions about security for hybrid cloud environments. As a member of IBM Garage, this was a great way to introduce our comprehensive approach to innovation and transformation that brings designers and developers together with business and IT stakeholders to address cyber defense for multiclouds. Take a look at this webinar, “Secrets from the C-Suite: Building a Secure Hybrid Cloud,” to learn more.

My takeaway from doing this session is that there is a keen interest in cyber defense, particularly in the resiliency and security of hybrid clouds.

Source: ibm.com

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5 steps to start your enterprise app modernization

Prepare to modernize! Every well-executed plan begins with a bit of preparation. Your enterprise application modernization project should be no different. As a first question, we like to ask, “Is our project aligned with the priorities of the business?” Sure, it’s simple—but it’s an important first thought.

Understanding and articulating the business value of modernization clearly will go a long way in helping to align your project scope and deliverable goals with that of your leadership. You can only go so far alone. So, to help keep you on track, we’ve put together a rundown of some of the top tips we have for keeping your modernization project moving forward.

Step 1: Assess your applications

Are they traditional, composite or cloud-native applications? Categorize them. This will help you see the full scope of your application landscape so you can start making decisions about where to focus your efforts. Identify applications that can be readily deployed in the cloud and take note of those that will require refactoring. This is an ongoing process. And, as you continually reassess your journey and address the most impactful projects, there will be new prioritizations that must take place. 

Step 2: Be realistic with your scope

As you prepare to build your business case, narrow the scope. For example, it’s not advisable to create one massive business case to modernize hundreds of apps in one fell swoop and to create a project timeline that spans several years. Rather, focus your initial effort on a specific application . . . or even a specific component of a more complex application. By narrowing your project scope, you can make an immediate impact and lay the groundwork for modernizing other applications.

Step 3: Build your business case

Build your case around an app that will provide the biggest ROI. This will help you secure executive approval for the modernization project. For example, an online retailer may need to get a mobile user interface into the hands of users as soon as possible, while a financial institution might need to release new versions of a web interface weekly instead of monthly, without sacrificing software quality. Ensure that your own business case includes the desired outcomes and benefits from both a business perspective (that is, long-term financial savings) and a technical perspective, the estimated cost to perform the project, and the timeframe in which the project should be completed.

Step 4: Execute

You’ve identified a business need, you’ve narrowed your scope, you’ve convinced leadership and now it’s time to begin your project. Well done! If along the way you realize that your initial assumptions about either the business value or project timeline were incorrect, revisit the business case and adjust the scope accordingly. An advantage of narrowing your modernization project scope to one app or business need is that you can be flexible in your execution.

Step 5: Evaluate and repeat

As you complete each project, you will learn a lot about the technologies, what worked well, and what didn’t. Perform a post-mortem to note what went well and what went sideways. You’ll have more DevOps experience and can use that knowledge to inform your next modernization project.

What four actions can you take right now to modernize your apps? In our next post we will provide you with the technical know-how you need to initiate the process of modernizing your core applications. We’ll help you define a roadmap so you can tackle this project one piece at a time rather than attempting to transform your entire enterprise infrastructure all at once.

Source: ibm.com

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Health checks: You get them, so why not your storage?

Like many IT leaders, your IT environment is likely comprised of a mix of on-premises and cloud solutions. You’ve also likely found that a hybrid multicloud approach is better able to meet your and your customers’ needs. Whether your data storage is on premises or in the cloud, it’s critical that you keep your storage infrastructure in good health—after all, data can be a business’s most valuable resource. As an IT leader, you should be asking the question, “How healthy is my storage?”

What’s the best way to make sure your storage or software-defined storage (SDS) environment is in optimal health? Regular checkups. In this post, I want to address the concept and reality of storage health checks for software-defined storage (SDS) environments— why you need them and what they involve. Health checks for block, file or object SDS storage will be similar.  

Why your SDS needs regular health checks

Just like your health, the health of your storage environments can change over time. Workloads change, requirements change and use cases change. When they do, you need to review your infrastructure to make certain it can keep up with an ever-evolving environment. Your storage needs periodic checkups, just like you do.  

Think of it like this: as you age, there are changes in your health, some good, some not so good. To maintain good health, some people work out, change their diets and get regular preventative care. Others don’t adapt to the changing requirements and workloads of life and thus suffer from poor health. Your storage and SDS environments also need regular checkups to keep them in top shape. Moreover, as your use cases evolve, it’s important to make sure your storage or SDS infrastructure can meet those evolving needs.  

If you’re still wondering why you would need a storage health check, ask yourself: 

◉ Are there operational issues with your current SDS infrastructure? 

◉ Are you curious about the current configuration? 

◉ Does it meet best practices for the storage vendor and your use case? 

◉ Are there any areas of your SDS infrastructure you should be concerned about?  

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might want to think about engaging your storage or SDS vendor to perform a basic health check and help you improve your storage performance. 

Storage and SDS health: What you need to think about 

When performing a storage health check, you should review the following areas. This is not an all–inclusive list, but it’s a good starting point. From this initial review, you can dive deeper as needed.  

◉ Networking – Software-defined storage such as IBM Elastic Storage Server and IBM Spectrum Scale, are highly dependent on healthy, well-functioning networking. To accurately review the health and performance of the different types of network dependent storage, you need to select the correct tools for the networks being used.  

◉ Performance – For SDS, specifically file storage, it’s important to do an assessment of the file system and the network using tools that mimic the writes and reads of the file system. For instance, when dealing with IBM Spectrum Scale or IBM Elastic Storage System, there are two tools that can mimic the protocol of the parallel reads and writes of Spectrum Scale. These tools are gpfsperf, which measures the performance of the file system, and nsdperf, which measures the performance of the Spectrum Scale or ESS high speed data or daemon network.  

◉ Storage media – How is it functioning? There are several tools to use when reviewing health and performance. Keep in mind that NVMe, SSD disks and HDD disks will all use different tools, so make sure to match the disks to the tools for storage media type. Disks are the most likely item to fail in a storage infrastructure, so consider taking a deeper dive into the performance and functionality as part of the health check. 

◉ Operating system – Do we have enough cores? What is the CPU usage? How much memory is being consumed?    

◉ Scope of the health check – What is the health check measuring and reviewing? Some health checks and assessments don’t evaluate performance but rather evaluate the basic health of the storage subsystem. You need to determine what type of health check or assessment you need, because it will require different tools and skills. 

Keep in mind: this list is by no means exhaustive. A health check could include additional assessments and recommendations, depending on your environment and reasons for seeking this type of service.

Source: ibm.com

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Is it time to modernize your enterprise apps? A field guide

How do you know when it’s time to modernize an application? Rapid changes in the world over the last two years (including COVID-19) are impacting IT profoundly. For many of us, this means accelerating our IT strategies and digital transformation plans to serve a world that’s always-on.

In its simplest form, app modernization is the process of updating an app so that it can be maintained, extended, deployed and managed in a way that allows it to meet current and future decisions. But where does app modernization start for you?

Let’s go through a few best practices for building modern apps in an incremental, safe and economically sound manner. For more detail, you should check out our field guide to application modernization where we will describe the process in full for modernizing with IBM servers as your foundation. We’ll also provide tips to avoid some of the common pitfalls that enterprises fall victim to (such as no clear business value, projects taking too long, vendor lock-in, and more) so that you know what to keep an eye out for as you embark on this journey.

3 Motivations and benefits of modernizing apps

Let’s take a closer look at some of the ways in which modernization can unlock several business and technical benefits for your organization. These advancements— big and small— can have a lasting and positive impact on your organization.

1. Accelerate digital transformation

More than ever, organizations need to find new ways to provide innovative, engaging experiences that satisfy existing customers, attract new ones and gain a competitive edge. A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by IBM on the business value of modernizing applications with IBM and Red Hat® container solutions found that modernization efforts can help accelerate release frequency by up to 10x, improving customer engagement, time-to-market and operations.

2. Gain a superior developer experience

Your organization’s most valuable assets are its people. When it comes to gaining a competitive advantage through IT, you want to ensure your app developers always have the right set of technologies—and the most up-to-date apps—at their fingertips to unleash their creativity and build truly amazing customer experiences.

3. Deploy enterprise apps anywhere in the hybrid cloud

As enterprises further embrace a hybrid cloud strategy, it’s critically important that apps have the flexibility to be deployed anywhere across this landscape to reap the full benefits. This will allow you to leverage the continuous innovation across your hybrid cloud with the security, data privacy and reliability of your own data center. Secure access to your core mission-critical apps and data, with a common set of tools, brings greater value to clients. This choice, flexibility and accessibility are paramount for successful competitive differentiation in today’s market.

The case for modernizing your apps

With a clear sense of the business benefits, it’s time to pick how you go about transforming your applications. Fortunately, we have a field guide for that. What are the best ways to make a business case for the investment?

Check out our Field Guides to Application Modernization on IBM Z and LinuxONE and on IBM Power Systems and build a better case for modernization step by step. Leverage your strengths to make a change now. It’s just not about managing the present or innovating for the future. It’s both.

Source: ibm.com

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How to successfully navigate the new holiday shopping season

While this year has been mired in uncertainty, there is one thing we can be certain of – you’ve never seen a season like this. Online sales are already 2x what analysts originally forecasted, and with ‘buy online, pickup in store’ options for shoppers, local retailers win, too.

As retailers navigate these uncharted waters, here are five tips to help you make the most of this holiday season and meet evolving customer expectations based on the increased online order volumes you may be experiencing:

1. Rethink your stores. With little foot traffic, particularly in shopping malls, a good deal of inventory is still in store and at risk of becoming dead stock. Ship-from-store, curbside pickup and buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) are all strategies to keep inventory moving while reducing the risk of rising shipping costs and delivery date uncertainty. To create satisfying customer experiences, you need to ensure products ordered online are actually available for customer pickup in store, something 86% of retailers say is a challenge.* Retailers can set the right expectations and get ahead of this with inventory visibility capabilities that help ensure there’s adequate inventory in store, and by aligning promotions to product availability. In addition to new store capabilities, consider same-day delivery services. While there may be overhead costs, it’s another way to offer customers peace of mind. Also, set up dedicated pick-up areas, like Best Buy and Tractor Supply, to ensure quick and efficient fulfillment. Then, position popular holiday gift items close-by since nearly half of all shoppers report making more purchases while picking up in-store. For shoppers who want to buy something on-the-fly that may not be in store, arm sales associates with handheld devices to place online orders and capture incremental sales.

2. Put customers’ minds at ease about safety. Estimates vary, but anywhere from 40-60 percent of consumers plan to shop in-store. Regardless of geography or age group, clearly communicated safety protocols are the second most important factor to shoppers right now. As you drive traffic to your stores for curbside or in-store pickup, make sure you communicate how you are complying with guidelines around social distancing, mask wearing, sanitization, handling merchandise and contactless payment. Carter’s and REI are good examples. Clearly articulated policies set consumers’ minds at ease and can help with employee recruitment and retainment.

3. Expect a surge in curbside pickup & more. This year, standing in long lines hours before a store opens to grab big deals is less likely to happen. Instead, consumers will be lining up inside their cars for curbside pick-up. And to take BOPIS a step further, now is the time to consider alternatives to offer BOPAS (buy online, pick-up at store) to better enable consumers a seamless pick-up at a locker located outside the store, or just inside. One of the benefits of extending the holiday shopping season is to give shoppers more time and space, but the curbside experience must be well managed and innovated further. Consumers don’t want to experience long waits and retailers don’t want to cause traffic flow problems. If you haven’t already, plan for signage to direct traffic, designated parking areas, cameras that notify staff when a car is in a spot, and ways to make it easy for customers to alert you when they are on their way and provide an estimated arrival time.

4. Prepare for a deluge in returns. Under normal circumstances, returns are inevitable. And with the anticipated increase in online shopping, plus a possible inability to promise delivery dates, returns will continue to rise through the holiday season and beyond. Flexible returns/cancellation policy tops the list of important factors for consumers right now. Several months ago, many retailers extended their return periods beyond the typical 30-day timeframe. A longer holiday shopping cycle will trigger the need to revisit these policies, extending the timeframe further and getting creative with ways to guarantee a seamless return experience and reduce returned goods – which likely will be more difficult to resell than in years prior. Smart returns provide the consumer with a label to send the product back to the optimal location based on location and demand. And, of course, customers expect to be able to return products purchased online either in-store or curbside. Optimizing how returns are processed is essential to reduce margin erosion. With an omnichannel view of inventory visibility and reverse logistics capabilities, you can support a full array of practices.

5. Enable your staff. We’ve spent the last several months shifting customers to omnichannel services, yet many retailers haven’t adequately empowered and motivated store staff to support this shift. In fact, 88% of retailers have found it challenging to manage store staff incentives and goals to align with supporting omnichannel orders, and 80% have had difficulty training store staff to properly pick, pack and ship online orders. Retailers are also asking sales associates to deliver online personal shopping services or field customer service calls. As you roll out new fulfillment services and return policies, employees need to know how to manage these new ways of engagement. If you haven’t already, start training and equipping staff with the resources they need to excel in their new roles, and aligning metrics and KPIs to new priorities.

You may already have some of these best practices in place and can adopt more during the extended 2020 holiday season. But new behaviors are here to stay. Look to 2021 as the year to fully embrace a digital strategy. How consumers shop will vary by situation — constantly switching between online and in-person experiences. Increase agility, like leading retailers Walmart and Home Depot who are gearing up to support this reality, to deliver on customer promises – whatever may come.

Source: ibm.com

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