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Following on from my blog post last week here’s more on the business benefits of PureApplication System…
A new experience
Never before have you been able to draw, then deploy and then manage your complete solution topology as a single entity – and all this using IBM’s best practice. This is where the real power of PureApplication System starts to show and why it’s so much more than just a smart bit of hardware or virtualisation technology.
These patterns of expertise don’t only live at the software level. A good example is that the virtualisation technology they have in there allows them to ensure that things like HA is done for you – automatically. For instance, if you have a WAS cluster with more than one node in it then PureApplication System will do its absolute best to make sure that each of those WAS nodes is on a different physical node, giving you HA “for free”.
Let’s also cover off Disaster Recovery. There’s another youtube clip that IBM has put out there touting how few clicks Disaster Recovery set-up. Now, we can argue whether it’s really that few a clicks or not, that’s not the point for me. The point is that if we’re arguing whether it’s 2 or 10 clicks they did their job – it’s easier than it used to be – and that’s PureApplication for you!
Real value to the Business
So, to recap, from a business value perspective we’ve got a number of things now. We’ve got the best hardware IBM can make; which is extremely easy to administer because it’s got simplicity designed into it.
We’ve also got the best software IBM can make and, this software is configured and deployed at an entirely different level of problem statement than ever before – the solution pattern level, and all using IBM best practice.
Now, we’re really getting somewhere. We can now see that bringing up hardware and software is going to be so much easier on PureApplication System. It’s far different from “just virtualisation” – we are going to be saving time all over the place…
Time saving
So, we’re going to be saving time on bringing up hardware, because a) it’s all in the big box in the corner b) it’s all easier to do than ever before.
We’re going to save time maintaining that hardware because IBM is giving you things like hot swapping with some really cool tech to make sure that your applications don’t go down (remember, those applications that were the whole point of buying the box in the first place!).
In terms of bringing up the software: you can build your golden topologies once and then just redeploy them. But, let’s not kid ourselves; this is just standard virtualisation saving so everyone’s got that. No, the really big point here is that
a) IBM helped you build those topologies with their best practice
b) You’re now building solution topologies not disparate pieces of infrastructure that don’t understand what business solution is being run on them.
OK, that’s great – this is new, this is almost certainly saving you time already. But lets add to that pattern concept and re-emphasise that now you’ve got administrators who don’t just build infrastructure but they now build solutions. More to the point, they now manage solution topologies not disparate pieces of infrastructure.
Time = money?
Yes, but let’s not forget skills. Every time you use a piece of built in best practice (which is scattered all over the PureApplication box but is highlighted in the patterns of expertise) you are reducing the skills that you need to employ. So, for example, if you don’t have a huge amount of skills in some new product that you need to use, that’s fine. IBM is giving you a huge leg up so you don’t have to become that specialist. Now, we’ve got a new equation:
Reduced skills = time saving = money!
Summary
OK, so there we have it. There’s IBM PureApplication System’s business value in a ‘few’ words.
We’ve got a complete solution platform in a box, not “just another” virtualisation technology.
It’s got easier hardware configuration, it’s got easier software configuration, and it’s got the startling new concept of solution topology deployment. It’s got IBM’s best practice at all levels of the lifecycle from hardware, to software, to solution level management. It’s got simplified management of everything you can think of – from day one.
Let’s not forget that the whole point of this is to run your applications that run your business as easily as possible. With PureApplication, IBM is putting all of its huge weight into “making it so”, so that you don’t have to!