What are IBM Cloud Paks?

It’s been more than a decade since commercial cloud first transformed business, but even now only about 20 percent of workloads have moved to the cloud. Why? Factors such as skills gaps, integration issues, difficulties with established codes and vendor lock-in may be preventing most teams from fully modernizing their IT operations.

Business leaders have the difficult task of keeping pace with innovation without sacrificing security, compliance or the value of existing investments. Organizations must move past the basic cloud model and open the next chapter of cloud transformation to help successfully balance these needs.

Containers and the path to enterprise-grade and modular cloud solutions

Organizations focused on transformation can modernize traditional software to help improve operational efficiency, integrate clouds from multiple vendors and build a more unified cloud strategy.

As a major catalyst driving this transformation, containers make integration and modernization far easier by isolating pieces of software so they can run independently. Additionally, Kubernetes provides a powerful solution for orchestrating and managing containers.

That is why IBM has embraced containers and built its multicloud solutions around the Kubernetes open source project. Teams may need more than Kubernetes alone. Enterprises typically need to transform at scale, which includes orchestrating their production topology, offering a ready-to-go development model based on open standards and providing management, security and governance of applications.

Moving beyond Kubernetes with IBM Cloud Paks

IBM is addressing transformation needs by introducing IBM Cloud Paks, enterprise-grade container software that is designed to offer a faster, more reliable way to build, move and manage on the cloud. IBM Cloud Paks are lightweight, enterprise-grade, modular cloud solutions, integrating a container platform, containerized IBM middleware and open source components, and common software services for development and management.

IBM Cloud Paks help enterprises do more. Below are some key advantages of the new set of offerings.

• Run anywhere. IBM Cloud Paks are portable. They can run on-premises, on public clouds or in an integrated system.

• Open and secure. IBM Cloud Paks have been certified by IBM with up-to-date software to provide full stack support, from hardware to applications.

• Consumable. IBM Cloud Paks are pre-integrated to deliver use cases (such as application deployment and process automation). They are priced so that companies pay for what they use.

Introducing the five IBM Cloud Paks

IBM Cloud Paks are designed to accelerate transformation projects. The five Cloud Paks are comprised of the following:

IBM Cloud Pak for Applications. Helps accelerate the modernization and building of applications by using built-in developer tools and processes. This includes support for analyzing existing applications and guiding the application owner through the modernization journey. In addition, it supports cloud-native development microservices functions and serverless computing. Customers can quickly build cloud apps, while existing IBM middleware clients gain the most straightforward path to modernization. IBM Cloud Pak for Automation. Helps deploy on clouds where Kubernetes is supported, with low-code tools for business users and near real-time performance visibility for business managers. Customers can migrate their automation runtimes without application changes or data migration, and automate at scale without vendor lock-in.

IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Helps unify and simplify the collection, organization and analysis of data. Enterprises can turn data into insights through an integrated cloud-native architecture. IBM Cloud Pak for Data is extensible and can be customized to a client’s unique data and AI landscapes through an integrated catalog of IBM, open source and third-party microservices add-ons. IBM Cloud Pak for Integration. Helps support the speed, flexibility, security and scale required for integration and digital transformation initiatives. It also comes with a pre-integrated set of capabilities which include API lifecycle, application and data integration, messaging and events, high speed transfer and integration security.

IBM Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management. Helps provide consistent visibility, automation and governance across a range of hybrid, multicloud management capabilities such as event management, infrastructure management, multicluster management, edge management and integration with existing tools and processes. Two new deployment options, IBM Cloud Pak System for application workloads and IBM Cloud Pak System for Data for data and AI workloads enable a pay-as-you-go capacity model and dynamic scaling for computing, storage and network resources.

Each of the IBM Cloud Paks will harness the combined power of container technology and IBM enterprise expertise to help organizations solve their most pressing challenges.

The move to cloud is a journey. IBM Cloud Paks help to meet companies wherever they are in that journey and help drive business innovation through cloud adoption.

Learn more about IBM Cloud Paks by visiting www.ibm.com/cloud/paks.