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IBM launches Cloud Paks, pre-integrated applications optimized for Red Hat OpenShift

The product integrations are the first hybrid cloud volley following the $34 billion purchase of Red Hat.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

IBM said it has optimized its software on Red Hat OpenShift and has created integrated cloud native applications called Cloud Paks in what amounts to the first product integrations since the companies merged.

Big Blue closed its $34 billion acquisition or Red Hat last month and said it will outline more about integration and the financial model on Aug. 2. The product news serves as a warm-up act for IBM's investor day on Friday.

Via Red Hat OpenShift, enterprises can build applications and move workloads to any cloud ranging from AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Alibaba and IBM Cloud as well as private infrastructure with containers and Kubernetes.

Hillery Hunter, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM Cloud, said the application integrations started when IBM partnered with Red Hat a year ago. "We have optimized our software to run wherever Red Hat OpenShift runs," she said. "The integration allows for coherent management and compliance and single control in multiple clouds."

Specifically, IBM is rolling out the following product integrations with Red Hat.

  • Red Hat OpenShift will run on IBM Cloud as a fully managed service.
  • Red Hat OpenShift will run on the IBM Z and LinuxONE servers. IBM already supports OpenShift on its Power Systems and storage gear.
  • Consulting and technology services for Red Hat.
  • Five Cloud Paks revolving around data, applications, integration, automation and multicloud management.

IBM's pre-integrated cloud software applications dubbed Cloud Paks cover areas such as data management, business process automation and integration. The idea is that IBM will offer a suite of applications that can operate in a multi-cloud environment.

The Cloud Pak for Data illustrates how these integrations work. The Cloud Pak for Data pulls together everything needed to run enterprise data science and artificial intelligence workloads across clouds. Applications within the Cloud Pak for Data include common metering, data source management, bias detection, Watson tools such as Watson Studio, OpenScale and support for environments such as Python and R. 

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If an enterprise wanted to use machine learning or AI services from Azure, AWS or Google Cloud, it could via OpenShift, said Hunter. "Cloud Pak for Data can be up and running in 4 hours," she added.

Pricing on Cloud Paks wasn't released. IBM's Cloud Pak effort would revolve around consumption-based pricing and customers could license the applications they anticipated using, said Hunter.

Customers have already been using IBM and Red Hat OpenShift integrations, but Cloud Paks are a new initiative designed for more streamlined cloud-only architectures.

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