The two have demonstrated, in the lab, that deploying IBM Cloud Satellite on Colt’s edge platform can be simplified for customers.
Colt Technology Services will collaborate with IBM to help its customers adopt an edge computing strategy that enables them to move data and applications across hybrid cloud environments, from private data centres to the edge.
Colt plans to work with IBM to jointly explore innovative use cases using IBM Cloud Satellite and Edge Application Manager, to benefit enterprise customers globally across 29,000 enterprise buildings.
Distributed infrastructure
Managing new, distributed infrastructure is not simple for enterprises; in particular when applications have stringent location-dependent requirements like low latency, regional data compliance and resilience.
IBM Cloud Satellite is IBM’s hybrid cloud offering, built on Red Hat OpenShift (Red Hat is owned by IBM), that allows customers to deploy secure and open IBM Cloud services anywhere they choose – on-premises, on any public cloud, or at the edge.
Virtual machines for IBM Cloud Satellite can be instantiated and configured using a management and orchestration tool with zero-touch provisioning.
Furthermore, Colt’s on-demand networking capabilities help provision critical connectivity in near real- time and it wants to combine this with distributed cloud deployments using the IBM Edge Application Manager for its customers. They include enterprises in industries such as retail and healthcare, and are spready across 29,000 enterprise buildings
A recent IBM Institute for Business Value report, Why organisations are betting on edge computing: Insights from the edge, revealed that 91% of the 1,500 executives surveyed indicated that their organisations plan to implement edge computing strategies within five years.
Autonomous management
IBM Edge Application Manager is described as an autonomous management solution that runs on Red Hat OpenShift. It enables secure deployment, continuous operations and remote management of AI, analytics, and IoT enterprise workloads to deliver real-time analysis and insights at scale.
The introduction of Intel Secure Device Onboard (SDO) made available as open source through the Linux Foundation, provides zero-touch provisioning of edge nodes, and enables multi-tenant support for enterprises to manage up to 40,000 edge devices simultaneously per edge hub.
IBM Edge Application Manager is claimed to be the industry’s first solution powered by the open-source project, Linux Foundation Open Horizon.
Evaristus Mainsah, GM, IBM Hybrid Cloud and Edge Ecosystem, said, “Together, we can help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation by acting on insights closer to where their data is being created, at the edge.”
Advantage at the edge
“Colt and IBM have been working together for many years across multiple markets and verticals with a focus on accelerating digital transformation. As we see an increasing demand for multi- and distributed cloud environments, we will collaborate on how we can serve our joint customers, “said Mark Hollman, VP Partner Development and Success.
“We’re exploring now how to combine our Colt IQ Network with IBM’s hybrid cloud platform, to help deliver innovative solutions designed to help accelerate digital transformation for our enterprise customers.’’
Colt is part of IBM’s partner ecosystem, collaborating with more than 30 equipment manufacturers, networking, IT & software providers to implement open standards-based cloud-native solutions that can autonomously manage edge applications at scale.