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IBM's containerised Cloud Private's out in the open

Big Blue hybrid cloud organ stands up to be counted

IBM has updated Cloud Private to help customers get containerised and move into hybrid private/public cloud computing.

Version 2.1.0 of Cloud Private, Big Blue's renamed Spectrum Conductor for Containers, is an on-premises platform for developing and managing containerised apps.

The standout aim is to help legacy apps transition to a more cloud-native style of construction and operation so that they can run inside a public cloud-like environment on-premises – private cloud – and connect to and/or be integrated with public clouds in some fashion. The destination in IBM's view, of the evolution of legacy apps is the hybrid cloud with private cloud as a stepping stone.

The focused public cloud, in this product release, is IBM's own public cloud. No surprise there.

IBM Cloud Private's structure is that of a platform providing support for Kubernetes, Docker containers and Cloud Foundry runtimes. Apps runnable as, or in, containers can then be readily moved from it to IBM's public cloud or to others. None are mentioned but we can assume they include AWS and Azure with, potentially, the Google Cloud Platform involved as well.

This open-source IaaS + PaaS platform is clustered, and said to be compatible with new or existing x86 systems* from every major hardware vendor and has API access. It may be interesting that HPE is not included in this public list.

The vendor list includes Cisco, Dell EMC, Intel, Lenovo and NetApp. Naturally the product is optimised for IBM's own hardware – the Z mainframe and Power Systems, and also IBM's Hyper-converged Systems operating Nutanix software.

IBM has provided containerised versions of WebSphere Liberty and Open Liberty, MQ, and DB2, plus Microservice Builder as software bundle components. For example, Cloud Private for Application Modernization provides Cloud Private capabilities plus WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, MQ Advanced, API Connect Professional, DB2 Direct Advanced and Urban Code Deploy.

The platform is integrated with PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Redis.

Its attributes include:

  • Multi-cloud management automation to help launch, monitor and manage services and ensure consistent security protocols
  • Application analytics and integrations to monitoring tools, including Kibana and Elasticsearch
  • Security vulnerability advisor to scan containers across the cloud and identify potential issues and weaknesses
  • In-flight data encryption and provision for access control by users within a cluster

IBM is offering cloud deployment, management, brokerage and storage services to help customers manage multiple clouds and migrate applications to Cloud Private.

There is a standard IBM announcement letter here. ®

Bootnote

*The Cloud Private hardware requirements do not actually spell out x86 hardware.

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