How Open for Data Reinforces IBM's Capability to Provide CloudBased Services

Adam Kocoloski, CTO for IBM Analytics Platform Services, reached out to discuss the IBM Cloud Data Services portfolio of managed services for data and analytics which provides over 25 services on the IBM Cloud. 

The solutions are designed to help developers build, deploy and manage web and mobile applications and enable data scientists to discover hidden trends using data and analytics in the cloud. The hybrid cloud services can be deployed across multiple cloud providers and are based on open source technologies, open ecosystems that include company and third-party data, and open architectures that allows data to flow among the different services.

ADM: Can you explain the meaning behind Open for Data? 

Kocoloski: Today, the potential for data in business is so pervasive that it doesn’t really matter if you’re a developer or a CEO, a startup or an enterprise. We’re all in the data business and this new portfolio of services is making data for everyone possible. 

IBM strongly believes in an open, cloud-based enterprise. Open for Data reinforces IBM’s global capability to provide cloud-based services throughout the entire IT and business stack, from infrastructure to applications and everything in between. IBM’s Cloud Data Services business enables everyone who needs to use data and analytics to power intelligent applications and provide insights for the business.

ADM: What obstacles are IBM's new cloud data and analytics marketplace helping to solve for developers?

Kocoloski: With the pervasiveness of data also comes many obstacles, such as needing new and massive infrastructure to achieve data-driven results, or storing and accessing varied data types. Even preparing massive and varied forms of data so they’re usable, or leveraging the right tools to discover insights and act on them can be very difficult for businesses. 

The companies that find a way to enable collaboration using an integrated set of data tools and technologies on a single platform are the ones who will get data-driven strategies to market faster and realize significant advantages, which is exactly what IBM is aiming to help businesses do.

ADM: Can you talk about a few of the new services that are part of the new portfolio? 

Kocoloski: The expanded Cloud Data Services portfolio encompasses everything from data preparation, migration, and integration, to tools for advanced data exploration and modeling. There are more than 25 services now available on the IBM Cloud, but let’s highlight just two for now.

The first is IBM Compose Enterprise, which is a managed platform designed to help development teams build modern Web-scale apps faster by enabling them to deploy business-ready, open source databases in minutes on their own dedicated cloud servers. It also provides the LoB freedom of choice to use cutting edge open source systems while giving IT a standardized and robust system for managing and deploying these technologies in a highly-available fashion.

Another new service is IBM Graph, the first fully managed graph database service, built with the latest Apache TinkerPop version and provides a complete and robust graph-computing framework.  It also includes Gremlin, the powerful graph-specific query language, to uncover hidden patterns in large data sets.

It will support multiple IoT use cases such as anomaly detection of health status metrics collected by sensors as well as networked environment such as the Internet, telecommunications, utilities, and water management.  It also supports apps for real-time recommendations and fraud detection.

All of the new offerings build on IBM's significant investment in Apache Spark and complement its mission to provide enterprise class support for open source developers and data handlers of any level. 

ADM: What is the biggest “take-away” developers will benefit from with the new offerings?

Kocoloski: In the past, the management of data has often required a highly skilled data scientist. IBM's new offerings are based on open source technologies making them more easily accessible to developers of all levels. Unlike other offerings in the industry, the new services are fully managed so developers can focus their efforts on other priority projects. 

Furthermore, IBM’s open approach means that any member of a data team can add or remove services at any time, to best suit immediate and long-term needs of their business. Developers can tap IBM Cloud Data Services to openly and freely move data in, across and out of the services.  

ADM: How are businesses going to benefit from the new portfolio of services?

Kocoloski: At the end of the day, these new offerings will save businesses a significant amount of money and time. Since they are fully managed, this removes the need to have a developer or administrator monitoring the databases at all times and removes the need to pay highly specialized data scientists.

ADM: How do you see this changing the way businesses operate?

Kocoloski: Managing data will no longer just be the task of high-level data scientists, but data is now going to be easily accessible to anyone that needs to handle data in any capacity, allowing for endless opportunities for innovation.

ADM: What's next for IBM Cloud Data Services?

Kocoloski: Our strategy to deliver new capabilities cloud first began with a commitment to educate 1 million data scientists at Big Data University, and continued through our investments in Apache Spark as a key part of our next-generation analytics platform. 

We’re continuing down that path to solidify an open, cloud-based future for enterprises of all sizes, and we’ll continue using cloud technology as a fertile ground for innovation. The clients we’re speaking with today have a goal of building everything in the cloud first, rather than within their four walls and on-premises. We’re helping make that possible, and at the end of the day, our portfolio will help different departments within an enterprise to better collaborate together. 

Data serves as the powerful construct for the enterprise to become more agile, innovative and smarter - employees just need access to it.