IBM Press Release:

IBM Expands DevOps Portfolio with New Cloud and Mobile Offerings

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ARMONK, N.Y. - 03 Jun 2013: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new software, training and resources to help organizations create, test and deliver mobile and cloud applications.  These new initiatives expand the development capabilities of IBM’s SmartCloud and IBM MobileFirst offerings.

Mobile and cloud computing are powerful technology trends that have the potential to help businesses drive new revenue and transform the enterprise. Typical software development approaches can take weeks turn around time for code changes. Yet, user choice and ease of movement mean that speed and quality are of the essence for businesses. To succeed in this fast moving market, organizations need to deliver mobile and cloud software faster and more frequently than ever before.

Key to this transition is DevOps.  DevOps is an integrated approach to software delivery that integrates an organization’s culture, processes, and tools. It spans the entire lifecycle, from business planning and creation to delivery and feedback. The goal of DevOps is to enable continuous software delivery allowing businesses to quickly seize market opportunities and better meet client demands. To view a picture story on the importance of DevOps, click here.

Given the close connection between mobile and cloud applications, the need for a single, automated DevOps strategy for both technologies is essential. IBM’s DevOps portfolio helps businesses address the full lifecycle of software delivery with a common approach regardless of the type of application being developed.

Unlocking the value of Cloud – business transformation

Improving the development process for cloud applications is critical as organizations seek to transform their business through higher value opportunities such as big data, analytics and social business. These new offerings are designed to help companies improve the development and testing phases of the lifecycle and include:

• IBM SmartCloud Analytics - Log Analysis: IBM continues to add significant analytics capabilities to its cloud portfolio. Newest of these, Log Analysis, gives developers the ability to gain insights from the terabytes of unstructured data that is produced by infrastructure and applications. By bringing the power of automated analysis to IT asset logs, organizations can now gain the actionable insights a human expert might deliver given unlimited time-faster and more consistently. 
• IBM SmartCloud Monitoring Application Insight: Helps businesses monitor the real-time performance and availability of applications hosted on a cloud. The ability to embed monitoring capabilities during the development process, makes it easier for companies to understand how an application is being used once it has been deployed.
• Expanded IBM SmartCloud Application Services: Now, developers can use SmartCloud Application services to deploy and manage applications written in the PHP language using Zend Server 6. PHP is a popular general-scripting language that is designed for web development. Support for this new language provides organizations with greater choice and flexibility in development options and makes it easier for developers to create cloud-native applications.

“Software is the invisible thread driving transformations in businesses of all industries and sizes,” said Kristof Kloeckner, general manager IBM Rational Software.  “As organizations and the dynamic markets in which they conduct business become more complex, it is critical that they adopt a DevOps approach to continuously delivery software-driven innovations to their clients.”

DevOps & IBM MobileFirst

Earlier this year IBM launched IBM MobileFirst, a significant mobile strategy that will enable clients to radically streamline and accelerate their adoption of mobile -- giving them a way to monetize this opportunity, transform their business and expand their market in ways never before possible. 

With today’s news, IBM is expanding the development capabilities of that strategy with new tools to help a business deliver better applications, faster and at a lower cost.  User choice and ease of movement means that speed and quality are of the essence for businesses when developing mobile applications. New offerings to help businesses save time and money during the development and testing phases of the DevOps lifecycle include: 

• IBM Rational Test Workbench:  Now, developers and testers have the ability to record, modify, playback and evaluate testing scenarios to automate the hundreds, even thousands of tests that each model of a mobile device must go through. They can now also virtualize parts of the application that are not completed yet, in order to test earlier in the process. The ability to automate this testing will significantly reduce the length of the testing phase of the development process.  In addition to saving time, businesses can also save costs with deeper integration to back-end services for testing without requiring those systems to be in place.
• IBM Worklight & IBM SmartCloud Application Services: A new, no cost trial, enables developers to build applications and deploy into IBM SmartCloud using IBM Worklight technology. Businesses will be able to build mobile applications quickly while avoiding capital purchases and management costs at the outset of the project. Once the application has been developed, delivery through the IBM SmartCloud has also been simplified, giving businesses the opportunity to get their application in the hands of clients quickly

As part of ongoing efforts to support the global development community, IBM today also unveiled an expansion of developerWorks. New sites within the developerWorks network include mobile, cloud, big data, WebSphere application development and the new developerWorks Labs.  developerWorks Labs provides developers early access to the latest emerging technologies, products and open standards for mobile and cloud development.

Recently, OASIS announced that the IBM-led OSLC Community would become part of the standards organization. OSLC is an open technology that simplifies and integrates the creation and management of software such as cloud, mobile or big data applications. The process of creating any software -- whether it is an online banking application or the software running the engine of an airplane – requires a set of software development tools.  Traditionally, these tools have been based on proprietary technology and are difficult to integrate or mix and match. Because OSLC is an open standard process of communicating across disparate tools, it solves a decades old problem enabling businesses to mix and match their tools with confidence.

These announcements were made at IBM Innovate: The IBM Technical summit. For more information about IBM Innovate follow news from the event, visit:  http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/41207.wss or follow #ibminnovate, @ibminnovate on Twitter.

SmartCloud Analytics - Log Analysis, SmartCloud Monitoring Applications Insight, the new version of Rational Test Workbench and the trial evaluation of Worklight and IBM SmartCloud Application Services are expected to be available later this month.

To learn more, visit the IBM MobileFirst press kit or http://www.ibm.com/mobilefirst. Follow@ibmmobile, #ibmmobile on Twitter, and see IBM MobileFirst on YouTube, Tumblr andInstagram.

For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/smartcloud.

With more than 8 million visitors, IBM developerWorks is an industry leader in providing no charge training and resources for developers.