How so? On the upside, they accurately, if simplistically, describe the technical and market dynamics of a forward-focused industry that is quick to develop innovations and products designed to enhance performance and user experience.

But on the downside, the terms reflect the industry’s longstanding obsession with building, marketing and profiting from new products to the point of claiming, often without evidence, that they are superior to solutions already residing in client data centers.

Most important, they continually enhance existing solutions and platforms to ensure that they remain relevant to the needs of modern enterprises. IBM’s new watsonx Code Assistant for Z is a good example of one such effort.

Modernization vs. Legacy Hype

That “new” doesn’t automatically translate to “better” is a bit of practical wisdom that is seldom, if ever, seen in tech industry ad copy. Instead, vendors tend to hype shiny new things—claiming the innate superiority of this year’s gear over previous generation systems and platforms.

Certainly, new or next gen CPUs, storage media, interconnects and other technologies typically deliver better and/or more efficient performance. However, the value of ripping out existing or older systems and replacing them with new hardware is usually vastly overrated, often resembling a case of “fixing what isn’t broken.” The process is also expensive for customers, sometimes hugely so, due to costs related to system integration, software upgrades and retraining and certifying IT personnel.

In addition, generational shifts can make it increasingly difficult for businesses to find new system administrators, developers and technicians as existing staff members age-out. As is true in most other industries, younger workers typically prefer to explore and use new and emerging technologies.

That is a scenario that IBM plans to mitigate and avoid with its new watsonx Code Assistant for Z.

What is it? According to the company, the new solution is a generative AI-assisted product that is designed to enable faster translation of COBOL to Java on IBM Z, thus saving developers time and enhancing their productivity. It also joins IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed (scheduled for release later this year) in the watsonx Code Assistant product family.

Both solutions leverage IBM’s watsonx.ai code model, which the company says will employ knowledge of 115 coding languages learned from 1.5 trillion tokens. According to IBM, at 20 billion parameters, the watsonx.ai code model will be one of the largest generative AI foundation models for computer code automation.

Why is this important? First, because of the sheer pervasiveness of COBOL. Enterprise developers and software engineers have written hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL code. Plus, due to its notable flexibility and reliability, COBOL is still widely used, reportedly supporting some $3 trillion in daily financial transactions. In other words, COBOL is literally “business critical” to tens of thousands of large enterprises, millions of smaller companies and billions of consumers.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

COBOL Meets Watsonx Code Assistant for Z

Despite its vital position in transaction processing, COBOL is hardly a favorite among young computer professionals. Though COBOL and other mainframe programmers earn premium salaries (according to IBM, some 20-30 percent more than their peers), employers struggle to fill available positions.

That’s where IBM’s watsonx Code Assistant for Z comes in. The company notes that the new solution is designed to make it easier for developers to selectively choose and evolve COBOL business services into well architected, high-quality Java code.

Plus, IBM believes watsonx generative AI can enable developers to quickly assess, update, validate and test the right code, allowing them to efficiently modernize even large scale applications.

The Java on Z code resulting from watsonx Code Assistant for Z will be object-oriented and is designed to be performance-optimized versus comparable x86 platforms. IBM is designing the solution to be interoperable with the rest of the COBOL application family, as well as with CICS, IMS, DB2 and other z/OS runtimes. Lastly, IBM Consulting’s deep domain expertise in IBM Z application modernization makes it a prime resource for clients in key industries such as banking, insurance, healthcare and government.

Final Analysis

Though marketing professionals may feel comfortable with portraying modern and legacy technologies as a simplistic “new vs. old” conundrum, business owners, IT management and knowledgeable staff, including developers, understand the complexities of the modern/legacy dynamic. Rather than age, the larger issue is relevance: why an organization began employing a particular technology and how or whether that solution remains relevant to its owner’s needs.

It is not unlike how people and organizations remain relevant. Industries, companies, markets and larger economies are in a constant state of evolution. People and organizations succeed by adapting to those changes, by learning new skills, exploring new opportunities, and remaining vitally relevant to customers and partners. IBM’s new watsonx Code Assistant for Z demonstrates that what is true for people can also be true for information technologies.

Read next: Digital Transformation Guide

The post Modernizing the Mainframe—IBM Introduces Watsonx Code Assistant for Z appeared first on eWEEK.

Yet the increasing role that energy-intensive cloud computing plays in numerous business and consumer services, as well as burgeoning new opportunities, including training generative AI platforms, is leaving many businesses wondering how they can balance innovation with sustainability.

What can cloud vendors do to help enterprises gain insights into and reduce business-related carbon emissions?

The new IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator is an interesting new solution that should interest customers leveraging cloud for workloads, including artificial intelligence, high-performance computing (HPC) and financial services.

Also see: Top Cloud Companies

Squeezing Carbon out of the Cloud

Why is the impact of enterprise and cloud data centers on green house gases (GHG) so important? According to the International Energy Association (IEA), the estimated electricity consumption by global data centers in 2022 was 240-340 TWh, or around 1-1.3% of global final electricity demand. That doesn’t include the energy used for cryptocurrency mining, which was estimated to be around 110 TWh in 2022.

Compare that to recent (2018-2019) data mostly compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Association, which shows that when measuring total energy consumed, global data centers as a group would be in the top 20 energy-using countries. Add in crypto mining, and global data centers would qualify as #11, just behind France.

Energy consumption is one thing, but a larger issue is how that energy is being generated. Despite the continuing, rapid progress of renewable energy sources, like solar, wind and geothermal technologies, carbon-based sources, including oil, coal and natural gas remain the largest sources for global power generation. Moreover, climactic shifts are negatively impacting many traditional renewable power sources, especially hydroelectric facilities.

In other words, the need to reduce GHG emissions has reached the crisis point.

Why Businesses Care about Sustainability

Why does this concern enterprises and the executives who lead them?

A majority of people and organizations in the U.S. believe that global warming poses an existential threat and that GHG emissions must be curtailed. Plus, consumers and businesses alike want to do business with companies that are committed to solving these challenges and creating a more sustainable future.

In fact, a recent study by IBM’s Institute for Business Value found that over half of CEOs surveyed pinpointed environmental sustainability as their top challenge over the next three years.

Additionally, regions around the world are moving aggressively to address climate issues. Sustainability is a core principle of the Treaty on European Union (EU), and in November 2022, the European Commission (EC) adopted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (“CSRD”), which significantly broadens the scope of sustainability reporting requirements for companies doing business in the EU.

Overall, any commercial organization that does business globally must adopt sustainability goals that are in line with local governments and address their customers’ and partners’ needs. That includes the owners of public cloud computing platforms and services.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator

How is IBM contributing to and advancing carbon reduction solutions? The company describes the new Cloud Carbon Calculator as an AI-informed dashboard designed to help clients access usage data based on emissions trends and patterns across IBM Cloud services and locations. The company believes the tool will be especially valuable for clients leveraging processing intensive workloads, such as AI, HPC and financial services.

In essence, the new solution is designed to spot data anomalies, outliers and patterns that may be causing unwanted or unnecessary carbon emissions. Built on technology from IBM Research and via a collaboration with Intel, the Cloud Carbon Calculator uses machine learning (ML) and advanced algorithms to reveal computing “hot spots” that are exceeding customers’ emissions targets. It also provides insights that help clients address those issues and bring them into line with emissions strategies.

The solution is designed to give IBM Cloud clients easy access to standards-based cloud emissions data and includes:

• Track emissions across various workloads down to the cloud service level, enabling clients to visualize and track GHG emissions associated with individual cloud services and locations in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The solution will support the most commonly used classic and cloud native infrastructure services, with more service coverage planned quarterly.
• Identify emissions hot-spots and opportunities for improvement, including analyzing GHG emissions by month, quarter and year, enabling enterprises to track their GHG emissions progress. By having ready, consistent access to that data, clients can adjust their strategies in near real time to optimize workloads across locations and ultimately help reduce emissions.
• Leverage data for GHG standards-based reports and audit trails to help address reporting requirements. Additionally, enterprises can also integrate their emissions data into the IBM Envizi ESG Suite for further analysis and enable reporting.

According to the company, the IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator complements its existing portfolio of sustainability solutions and consulting expertise, including the IBM Envizi ESG Suite, IBM Turbonomic, IBM Planning Analytics  and IBM LinuxONE, that help organizations set, operationalize and achieve their sustainability goals.

In addition to IBM, cloud companies and platforms including AWS, Microsoft/Azure and Google Cloud have also responded to the growing importance of sustainability with a variety of tools that help customers to understand and manage GHG emissions.

Overall, it is clear that major cloud vendors realize the importance of reducing GHG emissions and are dedicated to helping their businesses scrub the carbon out of their cloud-based workloads.

For more information, also see: Digital Transformation Guide

Final Analysis

How does IBM’s new solution stack up against other solutions and support the company’s broader strategies and goals?

Of the three biggest public cloud players—AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud—the nearest competitor is likely Google Cloud’s Carbon Footprint, primarily due to that offering’s BigQuery analytics features. There are also similarities to Google Active Assist’s unattended project recommender that uses machine learning to estimate the gross carbon emissions that customers can save if they remove abandoned or idle cloud resources.

An intriguing point about the IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator is its use of AI to find and identify carbon-hungry data anomalies, outliers and patterns. Given the company’s deep AI expertise and its success in using machine learning and advanced algorithms to enhance its other services and solutions, it seems likely that the new solution will grab the attention of IBM’s enterprise customers.

However, the most important consideration is the way in which the new solution extends and enhances IBM’s hybrid cloud efforts and partnerships. The company was one of the first cloud vendors to make hybrid multi-cloud central to its overall strategy. Plus, it has continued to build on that position through strategic acquisitions, investment in open-source tools and communities and support for global and regional sustainability goals. This includes measurably reducing carbon and other GHG emissions.

The new solution should significantly enhance the performance both of IBM Cloud and the company’s hybrid cloud partners, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Overall, the IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator appears to be a solid offering that will amply benefit IBM’s global customers and partners, as well as the company itself.

Also see: Cloud Native Winners and Losers

The post IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator: Enabling Environmental Goals appeared first on eWEEK.

This varies significantly according to industry, region and commercial markets. Plus, it is commonplace for ESG programs to evolve as priorities and circumstances change.

Recently, Dell published its new ESG Report for FY2023, updating its achievements and overall strategy. Let’s consider how the company has progressed – but first let’s take a brief look at the state of enterprise ESG issues today.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

Today’s Corporate ESG Issues

It is worth noting the importance of ESG programs. The issues covered in these programs affect all of our lives and are closely tied to organizations’ relationships with stakeholders, including customers and strategic partners. Empowering disadvantaged groups of customers and businesses is just good for business.

That is especially true in the U.S. where despite their myriad benefits, ESG policies have become bugaboos of “wokeness” among some politicians and groups. Many of those individuals and alliances are also attempting to dial-back broader environmental and social justice advances but are encountering resistance from progressive organizations and individuals, as well as from seemingly unlikely organizations. Those include large corporations, pension funds, insurers and investment firms.

Why would those disparate players actively protect ESG programs? A couple of issues are top of mind. First, disadvantaging specific groups of consumers and businesses to appease politicians and special interest groups is simply bad for business.

Equally important are the negative impacts that anti-ESG efforts can have on promising businesses and industries. Consider that earlier this year, 19 Republican state governors signed an open letter warning of the “direct threat” posed by ESG proliferation. Some connect the ‘E’ in ESG to renewable energy technologies and programs, such as hydroelectric, wind power and ethanol subsidies for farmers. Since many or most of the governors who signed the letter lead states that benefit from renewable energy initiatives, their anti-ESG rhetoric seems ironic in the extreme.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the value that ESG programs and strategies offer to companies doing business globally. Environmental, social and governance issues vary widely in importance and scope from place to place. The variety of ESG subject matter means that organizations can craft programs to maximize value for the customers and partners they believe are most in need.

Far from being the direct threat that some U.S. state governors and other politicians and groups imagine, ESG continues to deliver substantial, welcome benefits to businesses, state institutions and consumers worldwide.

Dell’s FY 2023 ESG Report

Dell Technologies has emphasized the importance of ESG-related issues since 1998 when the company published its initial Environmental Progress Report.

Beginning in 2002, the company shifted to annual reports charting its focus on and progress in key areas, including the environment, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The company has maintained these commitments through recent political headwinds because it understands these priorities are not only good for business but also for the communities in which they operate.

What are some of the key highlights in Dell’s new FY2023 ESG report?

First, the company refined the goals included in the FY2022 report and condensed its 25 top-level goals to:

• Achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2050.
• Reuse or recycle one metric ton of materials for every metric ton of products Dell customers buy by 2030.
• Make or utilize packaging made from recycled or renewable material for 100 percent of Dell products by 2030.
• Leverage recycled, renewable or reduced carbon emissions materials in more than half of the products Dell produces by 2030.
• Employ women as 50% of Dell’s global workforce and 40% of the company’s global people leaders by 2030.
• Employ people who identify as Black/African American or Hispanic/Latino as 25% of Dell’s U.S. workforce and 15% of its U.S. people leaders by 2030.
• Improve the lives of 1 billion people through digital inclusion by 2030 through efforts such as supply chain training and initiatives aimed at girls and women, or underrepresented groups.
• Provide support for and participation in community giving or volunteerism by 75% of Dell team members by 2030.

Additionally, in 2022 Dell began framing a trust model centered on security, privacy and ethics. Given the importance of those areas in terms of establishing and maintaining trusted relationships, the company is emphasizing “Upholding Trust” with the goal of having customers and partners rate Dell Technologies as their most trusted technology partner.

Finally, the company demonstrated its continuing commitment to diverse supplier spend by doing over $3 billion in business with small and diverse companies. Plus, for the 13th consecutive year, Dell was recognized by the Billion Dollar Roundtable (BDR), which celebrates corporations that spend at least $1 billion annually with minority- and women-owned businesses.

Further details, background information and customer/partner examples can be found in the full Dell Technologies ESG Report for FY2023.

For more information, also see: What is Data Governance

Final Analysis

Transformation is a concept and process that permeates the technology industry, but it also has many guises. For example, there’s the “digital transformation” strategies and solutions that so many vendors emphasize aim to help customers improve business outcomes by maximizing compute performance and data efficiency. Other efforts include process transformation, such as leveraging automation and logistical efficiencies to improve supply chain performance.

One topic less commonly discussed is corporate cultural transformation. This is when an organization continually and proactively evolves to adapt and benefit from changes in commercial markets, business practices and demand forecasts, as well as shifts in politics, economies and the environment. In my opinion, this type of transformation holds a central role in Dell Technologies’ ESG strategy and its annual ESG reports.

Many of the practical steps the company is taking—expanding the use of recycled and renewable materials, for example—simply make good business and financial sense. Others, including achieving net zero GHG emissions, reflect the company’s deep understanding of and intention to practically address climate change and other environmental issues.

Some goals enumerated in the new FY2023 report may appear aspirational but are far more practical than one might expect. At a Dell Technologies World session a few years ago, Michael Dell noted (I confess to paraphrasing here) that, “A company should look like its customers and partners.”

That is a particularly profound statement, not to mention being highly applicable to business and a wide range of public and private organizations and institutions. Without having such a vision and investing in efforts to achieve it, individuals, businesses and governments will inevitably find their vision blurring, their frontiers shrinking and their opportunities dwindling.

By embracing cultural evolution through supporting and advancing the careers of underrepresented groups, by actively improving communities and the lives of a billion people and by working to become the vendor that customers and partners trust the most, Dell Technologies will further grow its own outlook, relevance and potential for success.

Is there a greater or more important goal for any organization?

For more information, also see: Digital Transformation Guide

The post Dell’s 2023 ESG Report: Evolving Corporate Culture appeared first on eWEEK.

IBM’s announced agreement with Vista Equity Partners to purchase Apptio Inc., a leader in financial and operational IT management and optimization (FinOps) software, for $4.6 billion aims to help enterprise customers address those issues and enhance the value of their substantial technology investments.

Cloud Challenges Meet Automated FinOps Solutions

Automation has been central to business computing for decades, from replacing manual calculators with digital transaction solutions to monitoring and maintaining vital data center assets and applications. However, robust FinOps solutions are just as important as healthy systems and software to business success.

Why is that the case? Consider that modern enterprises have long embraced heterogeneous hardware and software. Working with multiple IT vendors can help ensure that the tools best suited for specific processes and tasks are being used. However, it can also pose challenges for the staff members tasked with ensuring that those solutions meet operational and budgetary guidelines.

The rise of cloud computing has effectively shifted that equation with what might be called heterogeneous services: substantial new complexities related to managing processes and data in various public and private clouds and dealing with multiple cloud service providers (CSPs). The results of poor service management are highlighted fairly regularly in the media in stories of companies dunned with unneeded services, unnecessary licenses and misunderstood fees.

Clouds, it seems, can obscure more than clear skies. Apptio’s solutions are designed to offer greater transparency into hybrid cloud environments and address the challenges cloud customers face.

Also see: Top Cloud Companies

Why Apptio?

IBM has been a leader in IT automation and management for decades, a point that should come as no surprise given the company’s central position in enterprise IT solutions and services. However, Apptio should add valuable resources to IBM’s portfolio and help the company build out offerings for new and emerging IT use cases.

Apptio’s offerings focus on three essential FinOps issues:

1. Planning – ApptioOne is designed to help companies analyze, optimize, plan and realize their investments in hybrid cloud. Enterprises can use it to develop repeatable and accurate financial planning and management processes that deliver cost and utilization insights. ApptioOne is also benchmarked against industry peers, so it is continuously upgraded and improved.
2. Management – Apptio Cloudability offers companies a clear view into how hybrid cloud budgets are being spent. By connecting multi-cloud and SaaS infrastructure costs with financial management best practices, customers can maximize the value of their cloud services and strategies.
3. Alignment – Apptio Targetprocess is an investment planning tool that enables companies to align cloud development resources with business needs and outcomes. Plus, it can be used to plan and monitor the cost of cloud-related projects and products, ensuring that they stay on track.

Apptio is an established and profitable business with over 1,500 clients, including more than half of Fortune 100 companies. IBM pointed out that Apptio’s partnerships and integration with cloud-focused companies such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle and SAP are consistent with its longstanding commitment to an open partner ecosystem.

In addition, the company said that combining Apptio technologies with its Watsonx AI platform and solutions, including Turbonomic and Instana will accelerate its IT automation efforts and portfolio and offer enterprise customers a “virtual command center” for IT spend management and optimization. Apptio will also bring $450 billion of anonymized IT spend data to IBM, potentially unlocking additional new insights for clients and partners.

Finally, IBM believes that Apptio will help drive significant synergies across several key growth areas, including IT automation, Red Hat, IBM’s broader AI portfolio, and IBM Consulting, and help strengthen its partnerships with other systems integrators like Accenture, Deloitte, EY and KPMG.

Also see: 100+ Top AI Companies 2023

Final Analysis

IT vendor acquisitions are generally both accretive and transformative, though not usually in equal measure. The former offers the acquiring vendor a means of further developing existing strategies and solutions while the latter provides rapid access or significant assets to enter and effectively compete in new markets.

By most measures, the Apptio deal fits largely into the former category since it should enhance IBM’s already robust IT automation solutions and data center management services. Additionally, acquisition is clearly well-aligned with IBM’s hybrid cloud strategy and solutions, and most of Apptio’s strategic cloud relationships are with vendors that also partner with IBM.

One of the more interesting points to consider is how fully and effectively IBM will integrate Apptio’s solutions with its Watsonx AI platform. The company is certainly promoting Watsonx as central to its AI ambitions. Delivering reliable AI-enabled and enhanced tools for FinOps would provide IBM a means of setting itself apart from and ahead of other cloud transparency solution providers, like BMC, ServiceNow and VMware.

In essence, the acquisition of Apptio should significantly expand IBM’s existing hybrid cloud management solutions and provide leverage points that benefit the Watsonx AI platform build-out. Apptio should also prosper from access to IBM’s deep relationships with global enterprises, as well as the company’s operations in 175 countries. Overall, the deal is likely to provide ample benefits to both companies, along with their customers and partners.

Also see: Best Artificial Intelligence Software 2023

The post IBM Acquires Apptio: Reducing FinOps Complexity with Automation appeared first on eWEEK.

Chuck Whitten joined Dell Technologies in 2021 where he became co-Chief Operating Officer in partnership with Jeff Clarke. Together, Whitten and Clarke own company-wide strategy and execution. Whitten oversees the day-to-day financial and operating plans and performance, as well as long-term planning for emerging technology areas like Cloud, Edge, Telecom and as-a-Service.

Prior to joining Dell, Whitten worked at Bain and Company for over two decades where he served as the managing partner of Bain Southwest and was a two-time elected member of Bain’s Board of Directors.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

Technology and Business

Pund-IT (Charles King): A couple of decades ago, vendors spent a lot of their time explaining and proselytizing the importance of technology to businesses. Today, that’s a common understanding or belief. So, you might say that Dell’s approach has benefited from that evolution and maturation of the links between technology and business.

Whitten: For sure. Technology has never been more essential to our customers and to society. That is also why there’s been this blurring of technology and business budgets, because it’s one and the same. You’re either born a technology company or you evolve a technology-led strategy very quickly, or you go away. There’s also the realization and the profound impact of digital transformation sweeping across industries. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a board or a C suite anymore that doesn’t talk about the criticality of technology to their business and their future. Dell is in the business of helping them solve whatever those problems are.

Dell’s Management Profile

Pund-IT: Since you and Jeff Clarke share the co-COO title, can you talk about that relationship and how your individual responsibilities work?

Whitten: When I joined Dell in August 2021, it was for two reasons. The first and most important was to share responsibilities for better coverage and speed decision making to accelerate our growth potential and deliver outcomes for customers.

The second was to capitalize on these big opportunities in front of us. We are facing a pivotal time in our company’s history, and expanded leadership capacity helps us to do that. The COO scope at Dell is really broad, so my first job was to jump on the moving train, listen and learn. Then, over time, we began to create executive capacity to divide and conquer responsibilities where it makes sense for our customers.

Pund-IT: How does that work practically?

Whitten: So today, Michael, Jeff and I share responsibility for the strategic direction of the company, as well as the talent agenda. Jeff tilts his time more toward technical strategies and the architectures that are going to define our next era. That is logical given his unmatched experience as an engineer. He also drives the critical ecosystem relationships that he’s built over decades at the company. My responsibilities are the day-to-day execution of Dell’s business like delivering for the quarter and the year, taking solutions to market, making sure we’re supporting customers in the here-and-now, and driving shareholder value.

Pund-IT: That sounds like a sensible division of labor.

Whitten: Look, Jeff and I are quite complementary. It works, I think, because we have years of deep trust, and we stay in constant communication. We’re also agile when and where we need to be. Jeff likes to say there are some problems where we need, “Four eyes, four arms and two brains.” We dig in together. It’s a model that works very well in Dell’s culture, but it takes a lot of communication and having a shared DNA. All Jeff and I want to do is win for our company and our customers, and we tend to sort out things as needed with that as the foundation.

For more information, also see: Digital Transformation Guide

The Dell Company Culture 

Pund-IT: You mentioned being attracted to the fact that Dell is a founder-led company. Does that make it a different kind of organization or entity than other vendors?

Whitten: I think founder-led businesses are differentiated in that company culture is ultimately traced back to the founders. So, the principal behaviors and practices that are instituted in the early days of a company carry forward to the present. I credit our innovative, customer-centric culture to Michael and the consistent way he’s led over the years. We have a common and real sense of purpose because of Michael—to create the technologies that drive human progress. It’s aspirational and it’s also very clear.

Pund-IT: Michael is also, to my mind, one of the most fully engaged leaders in the tech industry.

Whitten: Michael is definitely not hands-off. He is an entrepreneur to the core with incredible instincts. Look, we all admire his leadership. He has correctly predicted where technology is headed at pivotal moments in history and made some very different bets on shaping the company. That’s a real gift. I think what I’m most grateful for, and what I think differentiates founder-led companies from other enterprises, is just the long-term orientation.

Pund-IT: In what sense?

Whitten: Michael is focused on building an enduring business. We never feel pressure to drive short-term profits. We’re encouraged to wade into all these unsolved, hard problems of technology, like multicloud, security, artificial intelligence, the edge. That is a founder’s mentality at work. That’s asking, “Hey, what are the big opportunities and big problems that we can support our customers on?”

Pund-IT: We’ve talked quite a bit about culture. However, it’s a term that has become something of a bromide among some vendors. But I agree with you about the importance of culture and the value of leveraging what a company innately is to drive strategy and execution.

Whitten: Absolutely. I believe it is one of our top differentiators. We have a culture code that traces back to Michael which we all adopted when we joined Dell. It defines who we are, what we believe, how we work and how we lead our teams. It’s somewhat simple: We believe that customers and innovation are the foundation of success in the technology industry. If you never lose sight of that, you will win as long as you act with integrity and commitment. That’s what we ask our team members to embrace.

Pund-IT: What do employees receive in return?

Whitten: In return, we commit to our team members. We believe people should have fulfilling and full careers, as well as fulfilling lives. That’s culturally where we strive to build achievement inside of Dell, but also balance life at home, connections, diversity and inclusion. None of that happens without having a CEO at the top, like Michael, who says, “This matters.” We want to build a people-centric company that delivers technology and innovation for our customers as well as our team members. That’s easy to say and very hard to do.

Pund-IT: In your years working both as a Bain advisor and a Dell executive, what has impressed you or surprised you the most about the company?

Whitten: I think the biggest thing is our agility. Look, $100 billion companies are not supposed to be able to move quickly. But we do. IBM’s Lou Gerstner famously said elephants aren’t supposed to be able to dance. We dance and sing and do backflips like a smaller-scale company.

Pund-IT: What are some examples of that?

Whitten: You saw it in our performance during the last few years as we navigated the pandemic boom in PCs and supporting work-from-home (WFH), followed by the boom in infrastructure. All that time, we were supporting our own WFH employees and navigating global supply chain shortages and doing so better than the rest of the industry. We also saw the current economic caution in businesses faster than anyone else in a position to be relevant to customers. I also think you see that agility in our innovation. The rate of progress we’re making in places like telecom and AI and multicloud is astonishing. Last year in our Infrastructure Solutions Group business, we had a period of 30 major launches in 13 weeks. The ability to move that fast is a really formidable thing.

Also see: Top Cloud Companies

Dell Technology and the Future 

Pund-IT: Is there anything about Dell that you wish people outside the company knew or understood more clearly?

Whitten: I think it’s appreciated but it bears repeating. At Dell, we’ve built something that looks really different than the rest of the technology industry. We’re number one in all our core markets, and we have what we call “durable competitive advantages” that help us continue to win and reinvent ourselves. Our end-to-end portfolio puts us in the center of customers’ agendas, has the largest go-to-market and channel ecosystem in the industry, offers leading services, scale and capabilities, and benefits from the industry’s best supply chain with unmatched scale. And then, as we’ve discussed, we have a culture that I think is unmatched in the industry. Because of that and what we’ve built, we sit at the center of these great challenges our customers are facing.

Pund-IT: Such as?

Whitten: What’s the future of work and how does the PC unlock collaboration? How can companies make multicloud architectures work seamlessly? How can security be more intrinsic to infrastructure and not something that you add on after the fact? How can we accelerate AI? And how can we do it smartly and securely and ethically? How do we unlock innovation at the edge? Technology has never been more essential to customers, and never been more essential to addressing the broad problems of society. We’re in the center of all of that. I think we have the capabilities and the culture to make a difference. Building on that, we can plan and pursue our future-focused goals.

Pund-IT: Speaking of that, where do you see Dell in four or five years?

Whitten: We’ve reinvented ourselves over multiple decades, and we’re just going to continue to reinvent ourselves. There are short-term economic headwinds, but we’ve seen those before. What feels different in this cycle is that technology has never been more essential to our customers and we, as a company, have never been better positioned and prepared to help them solve those problems. Five years from now, I believe we will continue to be at the center of customers’ technology agendas, whatever those agendas are. On the way there, we’re going to help them solve the most pressing challenges that we’re seeing today so we will be at the center of whatever customers are doing. I think that’s the enduring institution that Michael built and that we’re all building together now.

Also see: Top Edge Companies

The post Dell’s Chuck Whitten on Dell Company Culture appeared first on eWEEK.

The shift away from centralized IT assets and management has also added substantial complexity to IT tasks, including asset acquisition, deployment and maintenance, management, system integration and optimization, and infrastructure security.

At Dell Technologies World 2023 this week in Las Vegas, Dell announced numerous new and updated infrastructure solutions and services. All are designed to address the increasingly complex challenges and issues that organizations are facing as they attempt to maximize the value of their IT investments.

Dell APEX: Simplifying Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud

It is common for vendors to highlight new solutions and services at their annual customer and partner conferences, but it is uncommon to see announcements of the substantial number and quality of those Dell made at Dell Technologies World 2023.

Dell APEX, the company’s as-a-Service (aaS) subscription IT infrastructure portfolio, blends on-premises servers, storage and other hardware with cloud-based assets and services. Since its launch in 2020, Dell APEX has expanded to incorporate numerous company hardware and software solutions, including turnkey systems and management consoles. Dell announced new offerings, including:

• Dell APEX Cloud Platforms, a portfolio of fully integrated, turnkey systems integrating Dell infrastructure, software and cloud operating stacks that provide multi-cloud operation models for on-premises and edge environments. The new solutions are also designed to maximize customers’ choices for hybrid and multi-cloud deployments, offering deep integration with Microsoft Azure, Red Hat OpenShift and VMware vSphere which were developed in close partnership with those companies.
• Building on its Project Alpine effort, the company introduced Dell APEX Storage for Public Cloud, extending its enterprise file and block storage software capabilities to AWS and Microsoft Azure.
• Dell APEX Navigator for Multicloud Storage and Dell APEX Navigator for Kubernetes are two new SaaS offers within the Dell APEX console that simplify multicloud data mobility, storage and container management.
• Dell APEX Compute extends the APEX subscription model to bare metal Dell servers, enabling customers to support and scale high performance compute according to their business needs.
• Dell APEX PCaaS enables businesses to fulfill their endpoint needs by customizing orders across Dell’s entire client portfolio—including notebooks, desktops, 2-in-1s, all-in-ones, workstations, software and services—with flexible one- to five-year terms and scaling orders up or down as customers need.
• Finally, Dell and Databricks announced a new partnership to connect data located in on-premises Dell storage systems with Databricks Lakehouse Platform.

Innovating Edge Computing, AI and Security

The company also made significant announcements concerning its edge computing portfolio, new AI- and security-related offerings, and its channel partner community.

• Dell announced Dell NativeEdge (formerly Project Frontier), a new operations software platform for edge computing environments. Native Edge is designed to automate, simplify and secure edge infrastructure and application deployments.
• The company is also expanding its edge portfolio with new vertical offerings, like Dell Validated Design for Retail Edge, Dell Private Wireless with Airspan and Druid and updates to Dell Enterprise SONiC Distribution.
• Dell and NVIDIA are collaborating on Project Helix which is designed to help enterprise customers deploy on-premises, generative AI systems and solutions.
• Dell’s Project Fort Zero is a new initiative that aims to deliver end-to-end Zero Trust security solutions validated by the U.S. Department of Defense within the next 12 months.
• A new Dell service, PSX for Backup, simplifies backup environment implementation and maintenance, enabling more seamless data recovery.
• At its Global Partner Summit keynote, Dell announced Project Harmony, an initiative designed to build a new collaborative services delivery. As a result of Project Harmony, Dell partners will be able to enhance their branded service offerings with Dell professional services solutions, including consulting and security.

Also see: Top Generative AI Apps and Tools

Customer Testimonials

Numerous enterprise customers profiled the initiatives they have undertaken with Dell and the resulting benefits they realized. Customers included:

• CVS Health – At last year’s Tech World conference, CVS CEO Karen Lynch lauded Dell for its help in transitioning the company to secure, productive work-from-home solutions during the Covid-19 pandemic. CVS is currently working with Dell to implement and enhance hybrid cloud capabilities across its public and private cloud infrastructures.
• Hyundai – Hyundai AutoEver, a subsidiary of Hyundai Auto Group, provides information and communications technologies (ICT) to the Group. Working with Dell, Hyundai AutoEver deployed a highly scalable IT infrastructure used in Hyundai’s smart factory innovation center in Singapore, and a cloud-based services infrastructure that supports sophisticated services.
• Lightstorm/Avatar – Dell has partnered with Lightstorm Entertainment, a film production company founded by director/producer James Cameron, since 2015, supporting projects including “Avatar” and its sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Lightstorm uses Dell workstations, storage and server infrastructure solutions to meet its high-demand scalability, performance and collaboration needs. The company is also continuing its work with Dell to simplify data collection and enhance film production.

Also see: What is Edge Computing

Final Analysis

In data center technology discussions, cost and performance are typically central subjects. However, operational issues, including acquisition, deployment, management, security, maintenance and disposal can have an equal or even more profound impact on the overall value of IT solutions. That is particularly true for enterprises, which often purchase far more servers, storage and networking systems, and client endpoints than SMBs.

Why is this important? Because it goes to the heart of Dell’s announcements at Dell Technologies World 2023.

Yes, the company unveiled a raft of innovative hardware and software solutions, including the new Dell APEX Cloud Platforms, Dell APEX Compute, Dell APEX PCaaS and edge portfolio offerings for retail, private wireless and SONIC distributions. But the central value proposition of Dell APEX is the flexibility and support it provides in relieving customers of multiple operational burdens.

A similar point can be made about the Dell APEX Navigator for Multicloud Storage and Dell APEX Navigator for Kubernetes. Both reside within the Dell APEX console and are designed to ease and speed how customers manage complicated multicloud data mobility, storage and container assets and processes.

Reducing complexity is also central to the new Dell NativeEdge operations platform and PSX for Backup. In the former case, by automating, simplifying and securing edge infrastructure and application deployments, Dell is reducing or removing the complexity that can impact the value of edge deployments. In the latter, cutting much of the pain of back-up and recovery should help enterprises protect their critical data assets.

The new strategic initiatives, Project Fort Zero, Project Helix and Project Harmony, are efforts that illustrate how Dell is working singularly and with partners to address businesses’ current and future needs. How successful are these efforts likely to be?

Consider the partnership between Dell and Snowflake and their new integrated solution to connect data located on Dell storage systems with Snowflake’s Data Cloud. The initiative was formally announced roughly a year ago and has moved from private to public preview. The effort fortifies Dell’s commitment to increasing customers’ flexibility for operating in multi-cloud environments, enabling them to meet their data sovereignty requirements and helping them turn their data assets into insights.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

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Why should organizations consider AI or quantum computing? The technologies are not mutually exclusive but deserve separate answers.

In the former case, AI offers companies new tools for analyzing and leveraging existing data resources with the aim of improving processes from IT management to supply chain operations. Consider that a company could use AI models to generate code for developers or to automate complex data center tasks. These and solutions based on other AI modalities are currently available to businesses.

While it is still in relatively early days, quantum computing is maturing quickly and, in fact, is an issue that many government agencies and businesses will need to understand and deploy relatively soon.

For example, last year the U.S. government released new requirements and guidelines for federal agencies to start transitioning to solutions to protect valuable and critically important data against quantum computing-based attacks. In part, that is due to the increasing prevalence of “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks aimed at enduringly valuable government information, like classified and strategic documents.

To achieve that, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) selected four quantum-resistant algorithms for standardization — three of which were developed by IBM, alongside academic and industry collaborators.

In addition, the National Security Agency (NSA) announced that national security systems will be required to fully transition to quantum-safe algorithms by 2035. They further define that software and firmware signing should begin transitioning immediately.

Finally, the White House ordered federal agencies to submit inventories of systems that could be vulnerable to cryptographically relevant quantum computers.

Also see: Generative AI Companies: Top 12 Leaders

IBM WatsonX Foundation Models

AI-enabled business has arrived, and the need for quantum computing is approaching quickly. IBM’s central message at Think 2023 was that it is delivering artificial intelligence business solutions today and is rapidly developing robust quantum safe technology and services for near term deployment.

According to IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna, the new WatsonX AI and data platform was, “Built for the needs of enterprises, so that clients can be more than just users, they can become ‘AI advantaged.’ Foundation models make deploying AI significantly more scalable, affordable and efficient. With IBM WatsonX, clients can quickly train and deploy custom AI capabilities across their entire business, all while retaining full control of their data.”

What are foundation models? According to the company, they are built with large sets of IBM-curated enterprise data backed by a robust filtering and cleansing process and auditable data lineages. IBM is training the models on language, as well as other modalities, including code, time-series data, tabular data, geospatial data and IT events data.

Using WatsonX foundation models alone or in concert with their own proprietary data sets will enable IBM customers to speed and scale AI training processes while reducing potential problems caused by inaccurate or “noisy” data.

As a result, AI-enabled business processes should be more stable and successful out of the block. Plus, IBM believes that the adaptable AI models combined with enterprises’ data and domain expertise will enable customers to derive competitive differentiation and unique business value.

On a related topic: The AI Market: An Overview

The WatsonX platform: A Closer Look

As detailed at Think 2023, the WatsonX platform consists of three product sets:

1. IBM watsonx.ai – an enterprise studio for AI builders to train, test, tune and deploy traditional machine learning and new generative AI capabilities. The studio provides a range of IBM-curated and trained foundation models, open-source AI models from IBM partner Hugging Face, tools and cost-effective infrastructure services that span data and AI lifecycles. Examples of foundation models include fm.code for automatically generating code; fm.NLP large language models for industry-specific domains; and fm.geospatial, which leverages climate and remote sensing data to help organizations understand and plan for changes in geophysical processes.
2. IBM watsonx.data – a fit-for-purpose data store built on an open lakehouse architecture that is optimized for governed data and AI workloads. The data store can manage workloads on-premises and across multi-cloud environments, providing a single point of entry while applying multiple query engines. It offers built-in governance tools, automation and integrations with customers’ existing databases and tools.
3. IBM watsonx.governance – an AI governance toolkit designed to enable trusted AI workflows. The toolkit operationalizes governance to reduce the risk and time requirements of manual processes, and also includes mechanisms to protect customer privacy, detect model bias and drift, and help organizations meet ethics standards.

Watsonx.ai and watsonx.data are expected to be generally available in July 2023. Watsonx.governance is expected to be generally available later this year. In addition, IBM plans to infuse WatsonX foundation models throughout its advanced software portfolio.

Finally, the company also announced other upcoming offerings designed to help drive AI adoption. Those include:

• A new GPU service on IBM Cloud.
• A Consulting Center of Excellence for Generative AI.
• The IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator, an AI-informed dashboard designed to help clients measure, track, manage and report carbon emissions associated with hybrid cloud usage.

Also see: Top Generative AI Apps and Tools 

End-to-End Quantum Safe Solution

IBM’s new Quantum Safe technology is an end-to-end solution designed to help clients remain secure now and throughout their “quantum-safe journey towards the post-quantum era.” Sounds good, but what exactly does this mean?

While some quantum computing and quantum-like solutions are available, the market is still in very early days. However, potential dangers lie ahead as quantum technologies mature and become increasingly available to valid business and government agencies, as well as to bad actors, including rogue states and organized cybercriminals.

The question, then, is how organizations can best protect themselves against quantum-based cyberattacks during this transition. These attacks include “harvest now, decrypt later” schemes designed to steal highly encrypted data in the hopes that quantum-based tools can eventually be used to decode it.

In essence, IBM Quantum Safe is designed to thwart such efforts with various tools, including:

• IBM Quantum Safe Explorer enables organizations to scan source and object code to locate cryptographic assets, dependencies and vulnerabilities. Further, they can build a Cryptography Bill of Materials (CBOM) that enables teams to view potential risks and aggregate them in a central location.
• IBM Quantum Safe Advisor allows the creation of dynamic or operational views of cryptographic assets to analyze cryptographic posture and compliance to prioritize risks and to guide remediation efforts.
• IBM Quantum Safe Remediator helps organizations deploy and test best practice-based quantum-safe remediation patterns to understand their potential impacts on systems and assets prior to deploying quantum safe cryptography solutions.

IBM also announced its Quantum Safe Roadmap, which is designed to help clients understand new threats and solutions and support them through this security transition.

Also see: What is Artificial Intelligence?

Final Analysis

So, what are we to make of IBM’s new WatsonX solutions and Quantum Safe offerings? In the former case, WatsonX is hardly IBM’s first foray into AI. In fact, the company has been at the forefront of AI R&D since the 1950s with Arthur Samuels’ checkers-playing computer.  IBM efforts continued through the Deep Blue system that beat chess grand master Gerry Kasparov in 1997 and the Watson system that triumphed over two Jeopardy grand champions in 2011.

While IBM’s commercial Watson efforts haven’t all succeeded as the company hoped, the platform remains one of the world’s most advanced generative AI solutions. Moreover, IBM’s focus on using Watson for simplifying operations and amplifying business benefits continues to find willing customers. In the weeks leading up to Think 2023, SAP announced that it will embed IBM Watson AI in SAP Start, the digital assistant that runs across all SAP instances.

With those points in mind, IBM’s plans and goals for WatsonX appear eminently sensible and achievable, and the company’s approach is spot-on. Leveraging its own substantial resources – curated foundation models, machine learning expertise, hybrid cloud assets and data management and governance tools – should make the WatsonX platform powerfully attractive to IBM clients.

Similar to its experience in AI, IBM was an early adopter and promoter of quantum computing and is actively working to bring quantum solutions to market. It also clearly recognizes the potential dangers that government agencies and enterprises face during the quantum computing transition. Along with its work on three of the four quantum-resistant algorithms adopted for standardization by the NIST, IBM also embedded quantum safe features in the z16 mainframes and LinuxONE 4 systems it launched last year.

In other words, just as it has done with WatsonX, the company is using its quantum computing investments and expertise to deliver Quantum Safe solutions to keep government and enterprise clients secure now and against future threats.

For more information, also see: What is Data Governance

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During a recent analyst briefing, Cassandra Garber, VP of Dell Technologies’ ESG organization and members of her team provided an overview of the company’s ESG strategies and programs. Dell’s sustainable approach to ESG offers a template for how other organizations can effectively consider and implement their own efforts.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

What is ESG?

So what is ESG and what subjects and areas do these programs address? In short, environmental, social and governance can be used to identify an organization’s material risks and growth opportunities. If ESG issues are weak or absent, investors can use their analyses to encourage companies to act more responsibly.

Considering ESG issues individually:

• Environmental – can cover a wide variety of points, including a company’s energy use, waste disposal and pollution, use and conservation of natural resources and climate. Additionally, these issues can help organizations analyze, understand and prepare for potential risks, such as how extreme weather events might affect their facilities, workforces and supply chains.
• Social – generally addresses how a company deals with and is responsible to its stakeholders, including employees, partners, shareholders and customers. In a sense, these points reflect an organization’s “character.” Are facilities safe and healthy environments? Are employees treated equally and respectfully? How does the organization interact with and support local communities? Does it donate profits or encourage employees to perform volunteer work? Does it treat customers ethically? Does it hold partners and suppliers to its own ESG standards?
• Governance – generally relates to the careful use of transparent and accurate accounting methods. However, it can also include the methods a business uses to select its leadership and how accountable it is to shareholders. It also includes risk issues, such as avoiding conflicts of interest when choosing senior executives and board members, and avoiding questionable, shady and illegal conduct.

ESG is often used by socially conscious investors and their advisors to evaluate businesses, and is also a subject in sustainable investing, responsible investing, impact investing, and socially responsible investing (SRI) discussions. However, ESG policies can also reflect deeper points concerning how a company conducts itself internally and externally.

As Dell’s Cassandra Garber said during her presentation, “When you dive in and look at how companies manage ESG, it is a proxy for a well-run business. Investors love talking about (ESG) because it shows you know your risks, short- and long-term. You know your supply chain, the people in it, the materials you use to make your products.

“When you have all of those topics mapped out, and you have strategies and plans to address them, you are a business that understands your risk and your opportunities. You are also running things well beyond the considerations and factors in traditional business planning.”

For more information, also see: Digital Transformation Guide

Dell and the Value of ESG

Why are ESG programs so important to Dell? At the beginning of Garber’s presentation, she noted that, “Sometimes the term is used with sustainability, even interchangeably. Sometimes corporate citizenship comes up. Importantly ESG is not a ‘nice to have.’ It is essential to Dell’s business and to society right now. Quite frankly, that is a bit of a shift from how some of these issues were looked at in the past. But we want to make it abundantly clear that ESG is imperative to Dell’s business and is a business imperative for us.”

How is Dell focusing on and delivering on its ESG vision? According to Garber, “ESG defines our purpose as a company and is at the very top of who we are. Michael Dell says that our purpose is ‘to create technologies that drive human progress.’ Our ESG strategy ladders up to that, and in many cases, we think it perfectly articulates how we are driving human progress.”

Garber noted that there are two main “buckets” that define Dell’s ESG efforts. The first includes four “goal pillars” – advancing sustainability, cultivating inclusion, transforming lives and upholding ethics and privacy. Garber said, “These are big areas, a lot of different topics, different activities, different work that fits within them. We need a way to frame and organize those topics. The Pillars give us the flexibility to think about them, where they sit in our company, how we manage them, how we process them and how we make progress when it is relevant to do so.”

What the pillars don’t do is prioritize those efforts. Given the size of the ESG subject matter, Garber and her colleagues focused on four key priorities: climate action, the circular economy, driving digital inclusion for under-resourced communities and creating an inclusive workforce at Dell Technologies.

Advancing Sustainability

Garber then focused on the two priorities aligned to the company’s work to advance sustainability:

1. Taking action on climate change – involves programs and processes that Dell is instituting in its own organization and the help it is providing customers to support the transition to net zero carbon emissions and climate resilience.
2. Accelerating the circular economy – encompasses eliminating the concept of waste and keeping materials in use longer – Dell’s work to redesign, reuse and recycle its way to a better future.

Dell is also percolating sustainability concepts and practices throughout its solutions and services. For example, it is emphasizing energy efficiency and power management in its data center solutions, including Dell PowerEdge servers. Dell APEX – the company’s as-a-Service (aaS) subscription solutions – can reduce e-waste and energy consumption by helping customers reduce over-provisioning.

Dell also offers a variety of lifecycle management services that minimize customers’ e-waste production and time obligations. Finally, APEX customers can take advantage of colocation facilities provided by Dell partner Equinix. Powered by up to 95 percent renewable energy, those facilities can reduce customers’ carbon footprints and contribute to sustainability goals.

For more information, also see: What is Data Governance

Final Analysis

Dell VP Cassandra Garber said that in a recent Earth Day discussion for all team members, Dell’s vice chairman and Co-COO Jeff Clarke wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, “Don’t Be Trashy.” As Garber noted, “That’s a great phrase to think about for accelerating the circular economy. Our goal is to not be trashy but to reuse what could be considered trash. It’s a great way to rethink business models, to rethink innovation, to rethink sustainable material use.”

That down-to-earth approach typifies the ways that Dell considers sustainability and the means to effectively achieve its environmental, social and governance goals.

The post Dell Advances Sustainable ESG Strategies appeared first on eWEEK.

However, the new single frame and rack mount z16 and LinuxONE 4 solutions the company recently announced are taking IBM’s signature enterprise platforms into new realms and potentially valuable commercial opportunities. Let’s consider more closely what IBM is doing.

Also see: Top Cloud Companies

Resilience of Centralized Enterprise Computing

Some industry observers claim that traditional enterprise systems are artifacts of a bygone era when large businesses depended wholly or mainly on servers, storage, networking and other IT hardware located in sizable, centralized data centers.

Today, those critics claim that monolithic IT facilities are increasingly outdated and have been replaced by a wider array of options, including public cloud platforms. Are these assumptions correct?

No and yes. Despite endless promotion by public cloud vendors and cloud-based software and services providers, enterprises and other organizations have come down firmly in favor of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. These approaches bolster on-premises data centers, systems and private clouds with appropriate, usually carefully chosen public cloud services and solutions.

Proof points for this issue are easy to find. For example, IBM has reported continuing, strong sales in its zSystems and LinuxONE servers to the point that global installed capacity has grown by over 3X during the past decade. In addition, IBM zSystems hardware and software play vital roles in both IBM Cloud solutions and in the company’s strategic partnerships with public cloud vendors.

In other words, cloud vs. on-prem IT is not now, nor has it ever been an either/or proposition.

That said, successful enterprises and enterprise-class computing solutions are constantly evolving to address and adjust to new developments and opportunities. Most recently, those have included:

• Extending data collection and analysis to the edges of corporate holdings
• Embracing practical artificial intelligence (AI) processes and tools
• Increasing data and device security, supporting business modernization strategies
• Employing environmentally sustainable products and processes

Also see: Top Edge Companies 

IBM’s New Enterprise Solutions

The company’s latest offerings address all these points with solutions that are far smaller, flexible and deployable than previous generation IBM zSystems and LinuxONE systems. Like multi-frame z16 and LinuxONE 4 systems, the new offerings are based on IBM’s Telum processors and support the same robust, high availability features and capabilities as their latest generation multi-frame siblings.

The new IBM z16 and LinuxONE 4 solutions are available in both single frame and rack-mount configurations. The former is a roll-in, roll-out system designed to offer single frame clients enriched capabilities and improved performance per core. The latter, the first-ever rack-mount IBM zSystems or LinuxONE solution, is designed for use in client-owned standard 19-inch racks and power distribution units.

According to IBM, the rack-mount configuration will open opportunities to include z16 and LinuxONE 4 systems in distributed environments with other servers, storage, SAN and switches in one rack. Their ability to optimize both co-location and latency should make the new systems valuable tools for complex applications and workloads, such as training AI models.

IBM believes the new configurations will create new classes of use cases for zSystems and LinuxONE, including:

• Sustainable design: Due to easier integration into hot or cold aisle thermal management configurations, with common power and cooling tools and solutions.
• Optimizing AI: The on-chip AI inferencing capabilities of IBM’s Telum processors and the newest IBM z/OS 3.1 enables z16 and LinuxONE 4 clients to train and/or deploy AI models very close to where data resides, simplifying processes and optimizing AI results.
• Data privacy: Supports clients’ data sovereignty strategies and goals. This is especially important for regulated industries with compliance and governance restrictions on data and transaction location.
• Edge computing: Efficient rack utilization in limited spaces near manufacturing, healthcare devices and other edge computing systems and devices should enhance performance and results.

According to IBM, the new z16 and LinuxONE 4 solutions will become generally available on May 17, 2023.

Also see: Cloud Native Winners and Losers 

Final Analysis

The new single frame and rack mount z16 and LinuxONE 4 offerings are not the first instances of IBM evolving its mainframe systems and architecture to meet modern clients’ needs. If you want to go way back, remember that the company was the first Tier One vendor to publicly support Linux, and the IBM zSystems mainframe was the first company solution to support Linux development and workloads.

Other examples: In 2013-14 with its 12^th gen zEnterprise platform, IBM introduced its first Business Class (BC) solutions for mid-sized enterprises and customers that wanted all-Linux systems. In 2015 with its z13, IBM formalized all-Linux systems with the LinuxONE designation, including a multi-frame “Emperor” solution in September and a single frame “Rockhopper” solution in March 2016.

Indeed, new generations of IBM zSystems and LinuxONE invariably offer technical innovations designed to enhance system performance and client outcomes. Take, for example IBM Virtual Flash Memory, which was designed to support improved availability and management of paging workload spikes compared to Flash Express adapters. Or IBM Coupling Express Long Reach, which could be more scalable than existing InfiniBand technologies.

The companion rack mount configurations are among the more intriguing IBM offerings to come down the pike in quite a while. The current and potential use cases noted by the company seem entirely likely. In addition, the rack mount solutions should provide IBM’s business and channel partners significant opportunities for developing and delivering services for both existing customers and new prospects.

Overall, the new single frame and rack mount configurations offer organizations of nearly any size workable options for capturing the robust availability, security and performance of IBM’s z16 and LinuxONE 4.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

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That said, some hybrid cloud vendors are intent on making cloud services and solutions significantly cheaper and more transparent for customers. The new hybrid cloud storage offerings announced by IBM Cloud and Wasabi are a good example of how vendors are delivering on this promise.

Also see: Top Cloud Service Providers and Companies

What is Wasabi?

IBM Cloud is a well-known and respected public cloud player, especially among enterprise customers, but Wasabi may be a less familiar vendor and brand. The company was launched in 2017 by Carbonite co-founders David Friend and Jeff Flowers with the goal of making cloud-based storage faster, simpler and 80 percent cheaper than solutions from hyperscale clouds.

Wasabi offers businesses a variety of cloud storage solutions, including pay-as-you-go object storage, reserved capacity storage and a dedicated platform for storing surveillance data.

In addition, the company’s platform incorporates management and networking functions, as well as features such as bucket replication, ransomware protection and compliance with major government and industry regulations. Wasabi is also allied with well-known technology partners, including Nutanix, Commvault and Veaam.

IBM and Wasabi Spice Up Cloud Storage

How do IBM Cloud and Wasabi plan to challenge conventional cloud storage? In short, by blending IBM Cloud Satellite and Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage.

The former is designed to consistently deploy and run apps across on-premises, edge computing and public cloud environments from any cloud vendor. IBM Cloud Satellite supports common services, APIs, access policies, security controls and compliance functions in all those environments.

The latter is a universal cloud object storage service that eliminates storage tiers and satisfies nearly all storage performance requirements. Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage treats all data equally and makes it readily accessible no matter how it is classified, with no tier-based latency delays.

According to IBM Cloud, IBM Cloud Satellite vastly simplifies the management of hybrid cloud-based data and workloads via a single control point that includes robust security and control features.

According to Wasabi, Hot Cloud Storage enables clients to store and access data however and whenever it is needed without egress or API request fees, which can result in significant cost predictability benefits and savings compared to many conventional cloud storage solutions.

Also see: Top Digital Transformation Companies

First Up: Boston Red Sox

The IBM/Wasabi announcement stated that the Boston Red Sox will be the first customer for the new joint solution. What benefits does one of professional baseball’s most iconic teams expect to gain from cloud storage?

A Wasabi case study lays out the details, but one of the most elemental points is that modern baseball (and, by extension, many other professional and many college sports) is a “game of big data.”

The Red Sox and Major League Baseball (MLB) teams routinely collect, manage and analyze petabytes of data “to help with everything from enhancing individual player performance to delivering amazing fan experiences in and out of the ballpark.”

In addition, 50+ high-speed cameras throughout the Red Sox’s iconic Fenway Park record action on the field and in the stands. That enables the team to analyze day-to-day player performance and to keep security and safety personnel apprised of accidents or incidents that require a response. Plus, video data is produced and captured at six additional ballparks from instructional, minor and major league facilities, and other venues run by Fenway Sports Management (FSM).

According to a team spokesperson, the Red Sox plan to leverage Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage in the team’s hybrid cloud infrastructure while piloting IBM Cloud Satellite. Its goal is to effectively house and manage data, including player video, analytics, surveillance data, IoT and more across Fenway Park. Additionally, the solution aims to bring the flexibility and agility of public cloud services to its secured on-premises data center.

Why is this important for the Red Sox? Brian Shield, the team’s SVP and CTO, stated that the incredible growth of the team’s data means that scalability and cost-effectiveness are vitally important. “The performance and cost reliability Wasabi delivers have already been advantageous for the Red Sox. With the addition of IBM hybrid cloud technology, we hope to take our digital initiatives to the next level. All of that ultimately funnels back to delivering a best-in-class fan experience.”

For more information, also see: Digital Transformation Guide

Impact on the Red Sox

Are the new IBM Cloud/Wasabi services and solutions likely to succeed? That seems likely given Wasabi’s already positive impact on the Red Sox.

The team noted that its past experience revealed that “Hyperscaler cloud service models break down when dealing with massive data stores that require both long-term retention and fast access to files.”

Automated tiering can help better manage infrequently accessed data but impose both costly egress fees and higher per-terabyte costs as content is migrated back to hotter service tiers. In stark contrast, the Red Sox found that Wasabi Hot Storage allows the team to store all of its data in an active, readily accessible archive and retrieve assets as needed at one-fifth the cost of the big three cloud providers.

The inclusion of IBM Cloud Satellite’s single control point design and robust control and security features seem likely to enhance Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage management functions and its customers’ experience. It should also be noted that IBM has deep experience supporting other professional sports events and organizations. Those include the US Open tennis tournament, which uses IBM Power Rankings with Watson and Match Insights with Watson. Those services run on IBM Cloud with Red Hat OpenShift and use AI and natural language processing (NLP) to analyze data and offer key insights.

In addition, IBM Consulting and Wimbledon co-created a platform using a combination of on-premises systems, private clouds and IBM Cloud that includes features built as containerized apps and deployed on Red Hat OpenShift. That allows the tournament to leverage the flexibility of hybrid cloud to help millions of tennis fans enjoy personalized digital experiences.

Last month, IBM hosted a virtual event, Future of Hybrid Cloud, where experts discussed how the sports industry exemplifies how data location is a key factor for success. Jason McGee, IBM Fellow and CTO of IBM Cloud noted, “Where the data lives and is generated becomes critical for sports teams, making it possible to be able to act on the data effectively. This is a key issue the IBM-Wasabi partnership can solve.”

Also see: Cloud Native Winners and Losers 

Bottom Line: IBM Cloud and Wasabi

Overall, the combination of IBM Cloud and Wasabi should enable the Red Sox to cost-effectively garner significant benefits and further insights from their data investments. It also seems likely that the companies’ joint solutions will interest other MLB teams and sports organizations looking to improve the price and performance of how they store and analyze data.

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