Putting back-office and front-office together in the cloud

IBM has a long history in two areas: the management of systems of record – the all-important back office applications that ultimately lie at the heart of any business, large or small – and the integration of disparate systems into often large, complex business solutions for customers.

From this background has sprung Bluemix, the company’s open cloud platform, which appeared earlier this year and is based on an open standards foundation, Cloud Foundry. It provides developers access to IBM’s large range of middleware tools for integration, security, transactions and other key functions, as well as software from business partners.

The company has just announced additional services on Bluemix, which will move from beta testing and into production later this month. These will help developers to connect the all-important back office systems of record, such as core banking and accounting systems, with the systems of engagement, such as mobile, situational and social apps, into unified hybrid cloud environments.

“Since Bluemix was launched just three months ago, we’ve seen a rapid ramp-up of third-party and IBM services available to developers who want to use DevOps in the cloud to create composable, enterpise-class apps,” said Steve Robinson, General Manager of IBM’s Cloud Platform Services. “Much of this evolution stems from work we’ve done with clients and our collaboration with our growing, open standards-based ecosystem. We can expect this momentum to continue as a bigger share of nearly 18 million developers globally move the bulk of their app development to the cloud.”

The company has added some new DevOps services to Bluemix that are specifically designed for use behind organisations’ firewall. These are specifically designed to cater to hybrid cloud models. By connecting data from systems of record to new applications and agile processes, users can increase visibility across the delivery and feedback cycle, balancing cost, security and quality concerns with rapid deployment speed.

These include continuous tesing, release and deployment services,  which include applying advanced analytics to gauge mobile app user sentiment and quality; as well as the ability to build and manage app quality on multiple platforms (i.e. iOS, Android) simultaneously, and continuous business planning and collaborative development tools such as the Rational System Architect. This provides open communication and analytics between teams to manage change faster and collaborative lifecycle management to offer a ten-fold performance improvement in reporting services. It also includes Rational DOORS to increase transparency and traceability of requirements.

“Organizations today are finding they need to quickly build and shift to mobile, social and cloud-based apps to differentiate customer experience. However, the best apps often need to reach into the volumes of data held behind the firewalls of organisations’ infrastructures,” said Kristof Kloeckner, General Manager of IBM Rational Software. “IBM’s DevOps approach helps teams connect that information to build better systems of interaction with both speed and high quality.”

There are also some big-data and analytics-related additions to Bluemix, including AppScan, which allows developers to build security by design via rapid testing in multiple environments and shared results, and embeddable reporting services to build advanced analytics within an app from the moment its provisioned.

It also comes with new workflowservices to orchestrate cloud services, evolving workflows based on their behaviour, and continuous delivery pipeline services to allow organisations to manage multiple application releases simultaneously, giving them the increasingly competitive advantage of rapid, accurate software delivery.  

Bluemix also exploits IBM’s SoftLayer infrastructure to give applications fast and extensive scaling, which can be one of the stumbling blocks of transitioning a new app from idea to production environment. This also provides links through to IBM’s own software tools and runtimes, as well as, the extensive IBM partner community and other third party services.

Combined with IBM DevOps services, developers and line-of-business operations are able to work together and develop faster than traditional methods via integrating all organisational systems, simplified testing and quality assurance, and faster access to feedback. This allows the continuous delivery of apps through more intelligent use of app analytics, better management of projects, increased ability for market tests, and a more rapid release schedule of new features.