An Introduction to IBM Cloud

AI and Machine Learning 

IBM Cloud users have the option to build their own machine learning models, or to use IBM Watson. 

Subscribers who choose Watson have an ecosystem of tools and functions at their disposal. These include IBM Watson Assistant, which provides virtual agents that users can customize for any domain, and IBM Watson Discovery – a search and analytics engine that adapts to custom domains. The IBM Watson Knowledge Studio is a visual interface that teaches Watson domain-specific knowledge 

The IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog provides a Software as a Service (SaaS) environment for AI data management, while the IBM Watson Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for creating, running and managing AI models. 

With generative AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) now high on the agenda for many organisations, IBM Cloud’s AI and machine learning services provide extensions for Watson in this area as well.  

The IBM Watson Language Translator is an Application Programming Interface (API) for translation with domain-specific models, and the IBM Watson Natural Language Classifier provides a visual tool and API for text classification. IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding provides an API for text analysis and metadata extraction. 

At the user level, there’s IBM Watson Speech to Text – an API for real-time speech recognition and transcription. IBM Watson Text to Speech provides an API for real-time text to speech conversion. 

Analytics 

The IBM Cloud Analytics offering includes a range of data science tools, together with analytics services for streaming data. 

The IBM Cloud Pak for Data offers tools for data analysis, organization, and management. IBM Analytics Engine is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering that enables users to build analytics applications on Apache Spark and Hadoop. IBM Master Data Management on Cloud provides managed master data storage, while IBM Streaming Analytics is a dashboard for real-time analysis of data streams. 

IBM Cloud’s Analytics offering also facilitates integration with other cloud environments. Notably, IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud offers a managed data warehouse on IBM Cloud or Amazon Web Services (AWS). IBM InfoSphere® Information Server on Cloud provides a data integration suite for Extract, Transform, Load (ETL), governance, and analysis. 

Automation 

Here, IBM Cloud Pak furnishes the principal suite of tools and services for automating business processes and workflows. 

IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation provides operations management software with AI insights, while IBM Cloud Pak for Integration is an AI-powered integration software solution for connecting apps and data across any cloud. 

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation provides management software for operations on telecommunications networks, and the IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps is a DevOps management tool with AI analysis and recommendations. 

As an additional resource, IBM Cloud offers IBM Turbonomic® Application Resource Management, a software tool that automates application resource management and optimizes costs. 

Blockchain 

IBM's Blockchain Platform is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that enables subscribers to develop apps, enforce governance, and monitor a blockchain network. The IBM Cloud Blockchain Software Development Kit (SDK) is based on Hyperledger Fabric. 

Compute 

IBM Cloud offers a variety of compute resources for  enterprises to host their workloads, including bare-metal servers, Virtual Machines (VMs), and serverless computing. 

IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers provide dedicated hardware for maximum computing performance, while the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions offers hosting for virtualized workloads. IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for Classic Infrastructure offer the most flexible configuration options, and IBM Cloud Virtual Server for VPC provides virtual servers with enhanced network security. 

For serverless environments, IBM Cloud Code Engine is a Platform as a Service offering for serverless container hosting.  

In addition, IBM WebSphere Application Server on Cloud provides a runtime environment and Software Development Kit (SDK) for Java applications. For virtual desktop environments, Dizzion Managed DaaS on IBM Cloud offers a managed Desktop as a Service for virtual desktops in the cloud. 

Containers 

The IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service provides container hosting with self-healing and horizontal scaling. The platform gives user access to the Container Registry, a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering for container storage and management. 

Istio provides a service mesh for microservices in Kubernetes clusters, while Red Hat® OpenShift® on IBM Cloud offers container hosting on managed Red Hat Linux servers. 

Databases 

For the storage and analysis of structured data, IBM Cloud offers a variety of SQL and NoSQL databases, as well as data querying, warehousing and migration tools. 

Examples include IBM Cloud Databases for EnterpriseDB, a managed SQL database, and IBM Cloud Databases for MongoDB, a managed NoSQL JSON document store. IBM Informix® on Cloud offers a managed database for time series, spatial, NoSQL and SQL data. 

Developer Tools 

IBM Cloud CLI provides a Command Line Interface for developers to manage their IBM Cloud infrastructure. IBM Cloud Continuous Delivery provides a User Interface (UI) and CLI based DevOps workflows based on Tekton Pipelines. IBM Cloud App Configuration offers a Software Development Kit, dashboard and API for application feature management. 

Other development tools on offer include IBM Cloud Messages for RabbitMQ, a managed message broker, IBM Cloud Schematics, a managed service to provision resources with terraform templates, and IBM Cloud Data Engine, a serverless, interactive querying service for analyzing object storage data. 

Internet of Things (IoT) 

The IBM IoT Platform provides services to connect and manage IoT devices, and tools for analysis of the data they produce. 

For edge cloud network management (a key requirement for speedy and responsive IoT deployments), IBM Edge Application Manager provides an autonomous management platform for edge computing. 

For IoT asset management, IBM Maximo Application Suite: Remote Monitoring enables system managers to see, predict and prevent issues, using advanced AI-powered remote monitoring and computer vision for assets and operations. 

Quantum Computing 

IBM Cloud’s Quantum computing offering includes services and tools that enable organisations to run code on real quantum systems using a full-stack Software Development Kit (SDK). For example, Qiskit provides a Python SDK for open-source quantum development, while Qiskit Runtime offers a low-latency execution environment for quantum programs. 

Security 

The IBM Cloud Security portfolio includes services for activity tracking, identity and access management, and authentication. These include IBM Cloud App ID, a compliant authentication, authorization and user data SaaS, IBM Cloud Secrets Manager, a single-tenant, dedicated instance for managing secrets, and IBM Cloud Pak for Security, which provides tools for security auditing, reporting, analysis, and governance. 

In addition to the above categories, IBM Cloud has infrastructure and service offerings that cover Networking, Logging and Monitoring, Integration, and Storage. 

Pricing Considerations for IBM Cloud Users 

A number of factors will contribute to the actual cost of an IBM Cloud deployment, including resource usage, deployment model, and support levels. As of 2022, IBM Cloud has been  offering two main pricing models.  

IBM Cloud's pay-as-you-go (PAYG) accounts are billed monthly, based on resource consumption. By default, all new accounts are automatically created as pay-as-you-go plans. 

For organisations willing to commit to a minimum amount of spending, the second pricing model is a subscription account. Here, larger monthly spending commitments earn bigger discounts. 

There’s an IBM Cloud pricing calculator available, to help organisations estimate expenditure before committing to a particular type of plan.