Big Blue has just added more than 25 new services to its Cloud Data Services portfolio. That marks an expansion that could turn the heads of IT decision-makers.
The new IBM Cloud services aim to help developers build, deploy and manage Web and mobile apps. At the same time, data scientists now have the data and analytics technology to unearth trends that may otherwise go unnoticed.
“Data is the common thread within the enterprise, regardless of where its source might be,” said Derek Schoettle, general manager of analytics platform and cloud data services at IBM, in a statement. “In the past, data handlers have relied on disparate systems for data needs, but our goal is to move data into the future by providing a one-stop shop to access, build, develop and explore data.”
Deep Data Insights
The hybrid cloud services are built on open source technologies and open ecosystems that blend in third-party and company data, as well as open architectures that set the stage for easy information flow — and the new tools are compatible across multiple cloud providers, according to IBM.
There are four pegs on the cloud data services stool: IBM Predictive Analytics; IBM Compose Enterprise; IBM Graph; and IBM Analytics Exchange. That’s on top of self-service features and functions for tasks like migration, integration, data preparation, and advanced data exploration and modeling.
Using Big Blue’s Predictive Analytics tools, developers can build their own machine learning models by tapping into a library of apps and offering specific product use case predictions — even if there’s no data scientist on staff.
“Analytics in many ways is the next big frontier in IT. There is so much data being collected,” Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, told us. “It’s hard for companies to figure out what the actual data means. From a where-IT-is-going perspective, analytics is the next big wave to help companies interpret and understand what their data means in terms of business insights.”
Why Analytics Are Vital
A managed platform, IBM Compose Enterprise aims to help development teams build modern Web-scale apps faster. According to Big Blue, IT can deploy open source databases on internal dedicated services in minutes. Analytics Exchange offers IT an open data exchange complete with a catalog of more than 150 datasets that anyone can use for analysis or application integration.
And IBM is positioning Graph as the first fully managed graph database service built on Apache TinkerPop that offers developers a full stack so they can include real-time recommendations, IoT and network analysis, and fraud detection in business-ready apps.
Kerravala, though, is most interested in the predictive analytics play. He’s also concerned that it took IBM so long to roll out this service.
“Analytics is a core part of the Internet of Things. It’s a core part of every organizations’ digital strategy. There are a lot of smaller analytics vendors out there. With IBM’s size, they could deliver a horizontal platform for a number of different customers,” he said. “I am not saying they are late to market. I am just saying they are not early. I would have liked them to [have done it] a couple of years ago and taken a market-leading position.”
