When IT decision-makers around the world were asked which data center modernization initiative would receive the most investment from their organizations this year, almost one in five said – containers.[1]
IBM Storage understands the current and future potential and value of container technologies. In fact, while others play catch-up, IBM storage solutions are container ready today. Containerization is a key enabling technology for flexibly delivering workloads to private and public clouds and DevOps. Among their many benefits, containers allow legacy applications to run in almost any host environment without being rewritten – an enormous advantage for enterprises with numerous applications, each composed of thousands of lines of code.
Because of these advantages, among others, enterprises around the world are quickly moving container technology into their business-critical application environments. But this trend has created an urgent need for persistent, secure, highly functional storage to support and enable containerization.
IBM Cloud Paks® represent one group of IBM solutions where container-ready storage is crucial. The family of IBM Cloud Paks includes Cloud Pak for Applications, Data, Integration, Multicloud Management, Automation, and Security. These IBM solutions give enterprises the fully modular and easy to consume capabilities they need to bring their business-critical workloads into modern, cloud-based environments.
To support and enable deployment of IBM Cloud Paks, IBM has developed a flexible software-defined storage (SDS) solution set called IBM Storage Suite for IBM Cloud Paks. The suite, based on offerings of the IBM Spectrum Storage family, as well as offerings from Red Hat, brings enterprise data and storage services to container environments with a comprehensive set of SDS offerings to satisfy almost any workload requirement.
Innovation within the family of IBM Cloud Paks continues to move at a brisk pace. Recently, IBM announced release of yet another new version of the IBM Cloud Pak for Integration. This particular IBM Cloud Pak offers a powerful integrated platform for deploying containerized integration capabilities as part of a Red Hat® OpenShift® deployment environment. By making use of Cloud Pak for Integration, an organization can connect applications, systems, and services together quickly and simply as part of a managed, controlled, scalable, and secured environment.
In order to help our clients accelerate their adoption of containers and in-turn their digital transformation, Cloud Pak for Integration now bundles IBM Storage Suite for Cloud Paks. This allows IBM clients to quickly get started with their OpenShift deployment while at the same time familiarizing themselves with the industry leading Software Defined Storage capabilities form IBM and Red Hat.
IBM Storage Suite for Cloud Paks gives enterprises an even more cost-efficient pathway to integrate IBM Storage solutions into their IBM Cloud Pak-driven IT modernization initiatives. The program includes:
This new program is fully supported by IBM in customer production environments. The time limit for this free SDS offering is 36-months. If additional storage capacity is needed, or if the storage included at no extra cost in the Storage Suite Starter is needed beyond the 36-month time period, then customers can purchase additional IBM Storage Suite for Cloud Paks licensing, which of course would also include additional storage options.
Storage Suite for Cloud Paks will be part of the IBM Cloud Pak for Integration catalog as the preferred and validated storage option for these and soon other IBM Cloud Paks. This provides IBM Cloud Pak customers with additional confidence in the program – and highlights the fact that IBM can be the one-stop-shop for end-to-end IT modernization solutions.
Most enterprises around the globe have already moved many of their applications into hybrid multicloud architectures. Nonetheless, the majority of business-critical applications have not been modernized, yet.[2] Containers are a tool that can change this equation, but only if deployed with enterprise-grade, secure, highly functional storage. IBM Storage Suite for Cloud Paks offers organizations of all types and sizes a simpler, lower risk, more cost-efficient pathway toward modernization. Solutions like this are what 21st century business needs – and what IBM Storage is delivering.
[1] ESG Annual Market Survey: 2020 IT Spending Intentions
[2] IBM cloud computing news: 3 reasons most companies are only 20 percent to cloud transformation, March 2019 https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloud-computing/2019/03/05/20-percent-cloud-transformation/
@ILIANA GARCIA ESPINOSA
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