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LAS VEGAS–IBM announced more than 30 new cloud services for its BlueMix platform as a service (PaaS) to help developers quickly integrate applications and speed deployment of new cloud services.
In addition, IBM launched BlueMix Garages, collaborative locations where developers can create new apps on BlueMix, learn new development skills and access IBM’s developer ecosystem. IBM announced the garages and the new BlueMix services at the IBM Impact 2014 conference here.
IBM is trying to accelerate the pace at which cloud computing will transform global industries. BlueMix features cloud integration services to enable a secure connection between an organization’s public applications and private data; swift, secure and fast connections, via the cloud, between Internet of things and machine-to-machine device to store, query and visualize data; data and analytics-as-a-service to allow the rapid design and scale of applications that turn big data into competitive intelligence; and DevOps services that support the complete developer lifecycle.
Moreover, IBM is leveraging BlueMix’s foundation on SoftLayer for this expansion, combining the strength of IBM’s middleware software with third-party and open technologies to create an integrated development experience in the cloud. Using an open cloud environment, BlueMix helps both born-on-the-Web and enterprise developers build applications with their choice of tools. With the ability to easily combine a variety of services and APIs from across the industry to compose, test and scale custom applications, developers will be able to cut deployment time from months to minutes.
“The adoption rate of BlueMix has been nothing short of phenomenal since being announced only a few short weeks ago,” said Steve Robinson, general manager of IBM Cloud Platform Services, in a statement. “Rapidly growing numbers of beta participants are embracing our model of extending their existing assets and services into a cloud-based, open-source development platform, allowing our clients to bridge between the tools they are planning for the future and the workloads and services they use today to get them to market faster.”
In the first eight weeks of BlueMix’s open beta launch, IBM has seen rapid adoption of the open platform with key clients and partners such as GameStop, Pitney Bowes, Continental Automotive and start-ups including EyeQ.
“BlueMix has helped us grow and scale our resources at a rapid pace, assisting us in deploying a cost-effective solution to our clients that helps us get to market faster,” said Michael Garel, CEO and founder of EyeQ, in a statement. “With BlueMix, we are able to reduce the amount of time spent on monthly server maintenance by 85 percent and turn our attentions back to greater innovation.”
IBM Delivers New BlueMix Services
The BlueMix cloud integration services securely connect and integrate an organization’s applications and information in the cloud. Developers can use predefined connectors for accelerated integration, or develop custom APIs as needed to easily and securely tie back into systems of record behind their firewall. Integrated API management capabilities provide an easy mechanism to publish self-service APIs that can be shared with the broader API economy. This allows developers to mix cloud-based PaaS, third-party cloud applications, and on-premises systems behind security gateways, moving between cloud and on-premises systems in a hybrid, integrated environment, IBM said.
The platform’s data and analytics services enable developers to rapidly create scalable, data-rich mobile and Web applications, using built-in analytics to drive actionable insights. By using the Geospatial Analytics service, developers can build applications that analyze streaming data from any Internet-of-things device, and enable organizations to take action in milliseconds. Additionally, a new Cognos Reporting service will make it easy to add reporting features such as data visualizations to applications.
In addition, BlueMix’s Internet-of-things services enable developers to register and connect networked devices such as microprocessors and embedded machine-to-machine sensors to the cloud, easily aggregating and reacting to data and events in real time. Organizations can build applications which efficiently manage, analyze, visualize and interact with the massive quantities of temporal and spatial data generated by vehicles, wearables, mobile phones, cameras, computers, sensors, and other intelligent devices, IBM said.
And the platform’s DevOps services enable developers, IT departments and business teams with an open, integrated rapid development environment. The DevOps Continuous Integration service will provide end-to-end “build” capabilities to speed changes through the development process, DevOps Mobile Quality Assurance (MQA) will help analyze user sentiment to spot problems before they go viral, and the Monitoring and Analytics service will identify application problems during development. In addition, DevOps will include a new RapidApp service that requires no coding, using visual tools to expand the scope of Web and business applications developers can create.
Underpinned by a strong ecosystem, IBM aims to accelerate the pace at which cloud computing will transform global industries. Currently, IBM’s education, mentoring and innovation initiatives reach more than four million software developers worldwide, and more than 1,000 startups across retail, health care, finance, agriculture, automotive and more. The continued growth of the BlueMix community, as well as launches of additional BlueMix Garages, will help provide this network with the skills, innovation and tools needed to leverage the power of cloud to revolutionize the use of mobile, big data and more.
Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 17 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high-value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more than 5.5 million client transactions daily through IBM’s public cloud. IBM expects to achieve $7 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2015.