Reduce Costs and Speed Your Digital Transformation with IBM WebSphere Application Server on Cloud


Book Description

Businesses are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience. They need to connect with existing and new customers in innovative ways and deliver experiences that never disappoint. They also require technology-strengthened business strategies with the flexibility to adapt to new opportunities quickly. To achieve this agile state, many are using cloud-based solutions to create personalized customer experiences and harness existing enterprise applications, data, and services for a competitive advantage. IBM® WebSphere® Application Server on cloud (WebSphere on cloud) helps businesses like yours take advantage of the cloud as a strategic environment to realize various benefits: Reduce costs by optimizing the entire application-related infrastructure. Create opportunities by rapidly creating and integrating cloud-based applications. Reap more value from existing applications by augmenting them with cloud services. Deliver compelling customer experiences across all channels. Speed time to market at a lower cost through rapid creation and deployment of APIs and microservices. Increase brand reach or drive new revenue by publishing APIs externally. Drive innovation by enhancing your Java applications with IBM Bluemix® services. Optimize existing workloads by lifting and shifting them unchanged to the cloud in just minutes, allowing you to take advantage of fast and flexible provisioning, and pay-as-you-go pricing. This IBM Redbooks® RedguideTM publication introduces the WebSphere on cloud capabilities and highlights key concepts that are associated with this IBM WebSphere offering. The guide discusses the business value offered by WebSphere on cloud, provides a high-level architectural view, and explains three common entry points (Create, Connect, and Optimize) to cloud. The guide also identifies the IBM products that play important roles in those entry points. It includes real-world examples of how customers are using WebSphere on cloud to resolve business challenges and enhance return on investment (ROI).




Systems of Insight for Digital Transformation: Using IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced and Predictive Analytics


Book Description

Systems of record (SORs) are engines that generates value for your business. Systems of engagement (SOE) are always evolving and generating new customer-centric experiences and new opportunities to capitalize on the value in the systems of record. The highest value is gained when systems of record and systems of engagement are brought together to deliver insight. Systems of insight (SOI) monitor and analyze what is going on with various behaviors in the systems of engagement and information being stored or transacted in the systems of record. SOIs seek new opportunities, risks, and operational behavior that needs to be reported or have action taken to optimize business outcomes. Systems of insight are at the core of the Digital Experience, which tries to derive insights from the enormous amount of data generated by automated processes and customer interactions. Systems of Insight can also provide the ability to apply analytics and rules to real-time data as it flows within, throughout, and beyond the enterprise (applications, databases, mobile, social, Internet of Things) to gain the wanted insight. Deriving this insight is a key step toward being able to make the best decisions and take the most appropriate actions. Examples of such actions are to improve the number of satisfied clients, identify clients at risk of leaving and incentivize them to stay loyal, identify patterns of risk or fraudulent behavior and take action to minimize it as early as possible, and detect patterns of behavior in operational systems and transportation that lead to failures, delays, and maintenance and take early action to minimize risks and costs. IBM® Operational Decision Manager is a decision management platform that provides capabilities that support both event-driven insight patterns, and business-rule-driven scenarios. It also can easily be used in combination with other IBM Analytics solutions, as the detailed examples will show. IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced, along with complementary IBM software offerings that also provide capability for systems of insight, provides a way to deliver the greatest value to your customers and your business. IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced brings together data from different sources to recognize meaningful trends and patterns. It empowers business users to define, manage, and automate repeatable operational decisions. As a result, organizations can create and shape customer-centric business moments. This IBM Redbooks® publication explains the key concepts of systems of insight and how to implement a system of insight solution with examples. It is intended for IT architects and professionals who are responsible for implementing a systems of insights solution requiring event-based context pattern detection and deterministic decision services to enhance other analytics solution components with IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced.




Enterprise Caching Solutions using IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances and IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale


Book Description

In the dynamic business environment of today, Information Technology (IT) organizations face challenges around scalability and performance. This IBM® Redbooks® publication is targeted for IT architects, IT personnel, and developers who are looking to integrate caching technologies, specifically elastic caching, into their business environment to enhance scalability and performance. Although it is helpful to know caching technologies, an introduction to caching technologies in general is included. In addition, technical details are provided about implementing caching by using several IBM products. The IBM WebSphere® eXtreme Scale product provides several functions to enhance application performance and scalability. It provides distributed object caching functionality, which is essential for elastic scalability and next-generation cloud environments. It helps applications process massive volumes of transactions with extreme efficiency and linear scalability. By using the scalable in-memory data grid, enterprises can benefit from a powerful, high-performance elastic cache. The IBM WebSphere DataPower® XC10 Appliance enables your business-critical applications to scale cost effectively with consistent performance by using elastic caching in a purpose-built, easy-to-use appliance. This publication explains the benefits of using various caching techniques in your enterprise, specifically involving the use of IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale and the IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance. Three real-world scenarios are described that use these enterprise caching technologies to solve issues that face the businesses of today.




IBM SmartCloud: Building a Cloud Enabled Data Center


Book Description

Organizations are looking for ways to get more out of their already strained IT infrastructure as they face new technological and economic pressures. They are also trying to satisfy a broad set of users (internal and external to the enterprise) who demand improvements in their quality of service (QoS), regardless of increases in the number of users and applications. Cloud computing offers attractive opportunities to reduce costs, accelerate development, and increase the flexibility of the IT infrastructure, applications, and services. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the typical starting point for most organizations when moving to a cloud computing environment. IaaS can be used for the delivery of resources such as compute, storage, and network services through a self-service portal. With IaaS, IT services are delivered as a subscription service, eliminating up-front costs and driving down ongoing support costs. IBM® has defined the Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (CCRA) based on years of experience of working with customers who have implemented cloud-computing solutions. The IBM CCRA is a blueprint or guide for architecting cloud-computing implementations. This IBM RedguideTM publication highlights the Cloud Enabled Data Center adoption pattern and describes how you can use it to define an IaaS solution. This guide is intended for chief technology officers, data center architects, IT architects, and application architects who want to understand the cloud-computing infrastructure necessary to support their applications and services by using an IaaS solution. It explains the technical and business benefits of a Cloud Enabled Data Center solution. It introduces a Cloud Enabled Data Center maturity model where each maturity level corresponds to an increase in the degree of automation and the cloud-computing capabilities that are available. In addition, this guide describes the architectural framework provided by the IBM CCRA and explains details about the Cloud Enabled Data Center adoption pattern.




IBM WebSphere Application Server V8 Concepts, Planning, and Design Guide


Book Description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides information about the concepts, planning, and design of IBM WebSphere® Application Server V8 environments. The target audience of this book is IT architects and consultants who want more information about the planning and designing of application-serving environments, from small to large, and complex implementations. This book addresses the packaging and features in WebSphere Application Server V8 and highlights the most common implementation topologies. It provides information about planning for specific tasks and components that conform to the WebSphere Application Server environment. Also in this book are planning guidelines for WebSphere Application Server V8 and WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V8 on distributed platforms and for WebSphere Application Server for z/OS® V8. This book contains information about migration considerations when moving from previous releases.




IBM PureApplication System Best Practices


Book Description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes IBM PureApplicationTM System preferred practices that are based on IBM client and Business Partner experience. It explains how PureApplication System enables industries to consolidate workloads, increase efficiency, automate routine processes, reduce costs, and become more agile to respond to continually changing business needs. This book is particularly useful to solution specialists, system or software architects, and the IT teams who implement PureApplication System cloud services.




Hybrid Cloud Data and API Integration: Integrate Your Enterprise and Cloud with Bluemix Integration Services


Book Description

IBM® Hybrid Integration Services is a set of hybrid cloud capabilities in IBM BluemixTM that allows businesses to innovate rapidly while, at the same time, providing IT control and visibility. It allows customers to quickly and easily build and operate systems that mix data and application programming interfaces (APIs) from a wide variety of sources, whether they reside on-premises or in the cloud. In many cases, you want to expose your IT assets from your private cloud as APIs and at the same time have best overall manageability and control of who uses your assets and how. Bluemix provides a set of services such as Secure Gateway, API Management, Connect and Compose, DataWorks, and API Catalog, which enable Hybrid Cloud Integration capabilities. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides preferred practices around developing cloud solutions using these Hybrid Integration Services that help you maintain data consistency, manageability, and security for critical transactions.




Getting Started with IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud Integration


Book Description

Cloud computing provides companies with many capabilities to meet their business needs but can also mean that a hybrid architecture is created that includes on-premise systems and the cloud. Integration is needed to bridge the gap between the on-premise existing systems and the new cloud applications, platform, and infrastructure. IBM® WebSphere® Cast Iron® meets the challenge of integrating cloud applications with on-premise systems, cloud applications-to-cloud applications, and on-premise to on-premise applications. It contains a graphical development environment that provides built-in connectivity to many cloud and on-premise applications and reusable solution templates that can be downloaded from a solution repository. The integration solutions that are created can then run on either an on-premise integration appliance or the multi-tenant WebSphere Cast Iron Live cloud service. This IBM Redbooks® publication is intended for application integrators, integration designers, and administrators evaluating or already using IBM WebSphere Cast Iron. Executives, leaders, and architects who are looking for a way to integrate cloud applications with their on-premise applications are also shown how WebSphere Cast Iron can help to resolve their integration challenges. The book helps you gain an understanding of Cast Iron and explains how to integrate cloud and on-premise applications quickly and simply. It gives a detailed introduction to the development tool and the administration interfaces and how they are used. It also discusses security, high availability, and re-usability. The book also includes three detailed scenarios covering real-world implementations of a Cast Iron Integration Solution.




IBM HiperSockets Implementation Guide


Book Description

This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides information about the IBM System z® HiperSocketsTM function. It offers a broad description of the architecture, functions, and operating systems support. This publication will help you plan and implement HiperSockets. It provides information about the definitions needed to configure HiperSockets for the supported operating systems. This book is intended for system programmers, network planners, and systems engineers who want to plan and install HiperSockets. A solid background in network and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is assumed.




Performance and Capacity Themes for Cloud Computing


Book Description

This IBM® RedpaperTM is the second in a series that addresses the performance and capacity considerations of the evolving cloud computing model. The first Redpaper publication (Performance Implications of Cloud Computing, REDP-4875) introduced cloud computing with its various deployment models, support roles, and offerings along with IT performance and capacity implications associated with these deployment models and offerings. In this redpaper, we discuss lessons learned in the two years since the first paper was written. We offer practical guidance about how to select workloads that work best with cloud computing, and about how to address areas, such as performance testing, monitoring, service level agreements, and capacity planning considerations for both single and multi-tenancy environments. We also provide an example of a recent project where cloud computing solved current business needs (such as cost reduction, optimization of infrastructure utilization, and more efficient systems management and reporting capabilities) and how the solution addressed performance and capacity challenges. We conclude with a summary of the lessons learned and a perspective about how cloud computing can affect performance and capacity in the future.




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