Heading into 2020, almost every enterprise we work with has been in the digital transformation process. In normal times and depending on company culture, executing digital initiatives can be difficult. The pandemic has led to challenging times for businesses across all sectors and industries, forcing all companies to implement a digital strategy overnight, literally. At this point, digital transformation is absolutely required to remain competitive, achieving digital excellence in all areas, while enhancing operations to meet customer expectations. Enterprises must also find ways to keep up with their competition and adapt their working practices if they are to thrive in what will become a post-pandemic cloud-native computing age.
Commenting on the challenges posed by the digital transformation and accelerated by a pandemic, Vice President of Research at Gartner Marcus Blosch said, “The reality is that digital business demands different skills, working practices, organizational models and even cultures.”
“To change an organization designed for a structured, ordered, process-oriented world to one designed for ecosystems, adaptation, learning and experimentation is hard. Some organizations will navigate that change, and others that can’t change will become outdated and be replaced.”
One of the most notable changes in the digital age is cloud technology. Its adoption has been growing strong over the years, and the cloud is predicted to continue its upward trajectory for the foreseeable future. For 2020, Gartner estimates that cloud revenue will grow by about 17%.
The benefits of cloud technology are manifold. The advantages include lower IT costs, improved collaboration and greater efficiency. However, many companies lose out by not adopting cloud because of the perceived challenges – this means some businesses get left behind.
What is the solution to this? IBM may have the answer with the introduction of its Cloud Paks. Let’s look at three of the benefits of leveraging IBM Cloud Paks for your business.
Easy Access to the Cloud and Integrated Security
A McAfee survey of 1,400 IT professionals showed one in four companies had lost data, and one in five fell victim to cloud infrastructure attacks. An unrelenting evolution of threats coupled with a shortage of technical security staff and requirements for regulatory compliance continue to pose huge challenges for cloud security.
In addition, the second half of 2020, focusing on an effective response to COVID-19 remains the biggest challenge for organizations.
According to a published Gartner Analysis by Peter Firstbrook, VP Analyst, Gartner, “The pandemic, and its resulting changes to the business world, accelerated digitalization of business processes, endpoint mobility and the expansion of cloud computing in most organizations, revealing legacy thinking and technologies.”
Other factors highlighted in the Analysis were a lack of expertise in cloud, along with fears over costs, stability and compliance.
However, with its Cloud Pak offerings, IBM aims to counter these barriers. For instance, IBM Cloud Pak for Security provides integrated security, allows users to gather security insights by connecting all their data sources, and enables teams to respond faster to threats.
In addition, Cloud Paks Apps allow an organization to modernize its current apps, while creating cloud-native apps that can run on RedHat OpenShift. As IBM itself explains, “A hybrid, multi cloud foundation breaks down technology and data silos to make modernization faster and more secure, and speeds development of applications built for Kubernetes, so you can access cloud services – all while meeting the technology standards and policies your company requires.”
2. Managing Data
Companies are increasingly reliant on data to make business decisions and shape their strategies. However, for many organizations, the difficulties lie in modernizing the collection and analysis of their data.
This is where IBM’s Cloud Paks can prove beneficial. IBM describes its Cloud Pak for Data as a “fully-integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize and analyze data and infuse AI throughout their organizations.”
Users can deploy IBM Cloud Pak for Data within hours, rather than days. Further, IBM says its Cloud Paks enable businesses to integrate analytics and applications. Other features of the Cloud Pak for Data include the ability to collect data securely, organize the data and then analyze it, and built-in governance across cloud properties.
3. Delivering Agility
To fully understand the benefits of agility, let’s start by defining what agility means regarding cloud. An article in Entrepreneur.com states that cloud agility means rapid provisioning of computer resources using cloud computing. Businesses can get started immediately, and pay only for what they use. Some of the top benefits offered by cloud computing technology include business agility, scalability, efficiencies and cost savings. More importantly, there is no need for a significant capital investment upfront.
In addition, cloud agility means adopting to secure cloud services and managing your IT infrastructure on the cloud to support faster application delivery and drive business agility.
IBM Cloud Paks facilitate agility through integration and interoperability. With agility, organizations can focus on development and bringing products to market quicker which potentially enhances their profits.
Conclusion
IBM’s Cloud Paks are an innovation that paves the way for businesses who have been reluctant to move to the cloud because of security concerns, potential compliance issues and other obstacles. Further, IBM Cloud Paks offer cloud accessibility to companies that they would otherwise lack, and this enables them to take advantage of cloud in the same way that their competitors do. Stone Door Group makes it easy for existing IBM customers to migrate legacy applications and develop greenfield ones using Cloud Paks via our IBM Cloud Accelerator.
About the Author
Darren Hoch is a Managing Partner for Stone Door Group, an IBM and Red Hat Apex partner, that specializes in enterprise DevOps cloud engineering solutions. At the Stone Door Group, we offer solutions to modernize your digital enterprise and to transform your business. To find out more, drop us a line at the letsdothis@stonedoorgroup.com or visit our website today.