A View from 40,000 feet: IBM Interconnect 2016 Interesting Turn of Events!

Bryon Kataoka, iSOA Group, Inc. CTO and Though Leader

This year’s IBM InterConnect conference was full of interesting turns of events!  Although I was not a scheduled presenter and ended the conference with what seems to be the “Vegas” flu, there was much to learn and exceptional energy at the conference!

IBM continued its focus on Hybrid Cloud leveraging IBM’s Cloud capabilities, along with key offerings for security, integration and more.  The focus on Hybrid Cloud complemented my presentation at Interconnect in 2015.  I presented with a customer on developing a Hybrid Cloud integration framework, that provides secure integration between cloud based applications and key on-prem solutions.  This was also our focus this year at our Integration Roundtable breakfast.

As far as new announcements, what stood out to me was the new IBM APIM version 5, now called “IBM API Connect”, as well as some of the complementary capabilities announced with IBM’s DataPower 7.5.  IBM is listening to its partners and customers and subsequently delivering on a completely integrated API Management offering that incorporates Strongloop, which IBM acquired in 2015, creating an industry leading API Management solution for the development, management and security of developing and consuming API’s.

I was also impressed with where IBM is going with security.  IBM’s Security portfolio, including QRadar and its XForce security threat intelligence, shows IBM’s strong commitment to security. It was also beneficial to see IBM return to known product names, such as BigFix, as IBM removes the obfuscation that occurred when they originally purchased the product.  Lesson learned, don’t mess with a well known brand name!  

I was so amazed with IBM’s Security direction, that I have directed my team to expand our security focus in 2016 to incorporate some of these key IBM offerings. With these new editions to our portfolio, we can assure our customers that we can deliver the integrated security required into today’s digital age.

Although my week was terminated early by contracting the flu (and darn! I missed out on the Elton John concert), I was still able to present at the DataPower Customer Forum, standing in for a client, and thus making 2016 the 9^th year that I have presented at IBM’s conference.

Taming Las Vegas: iSOA's IBM InterConnect 2016 Recap

2016 brought another exciting week at IBM’s Interconnect Conference.  If you were not able to join, let us share what we observed while attending the event of over 20,000 people that spanned across the MGM Hotel and the Mandalay Bay.  

The energy across the conference definitely seemed more electric and connected than in 2015.  There were multiple keynotes and the conference was a great opportunity to see the future of IBM, as well as hear what our customers, partners and IBM colleagues had to share.

Hybrid Cloud leadership was IBM’s mantra from day one and this set the tone for the conference.  IBM announced its BM Cloud and VMWare partnership, as well as expanding its support for Apple’s Swift programming language.   Apple’s VP of Product Marketing, Brian Croll, proclaimed that IBM was already the largest developer of Swift applications and their natural partnership would help move and extend the Swift language to servers everywhere.

Always eager to connect with our clients and colleagues, the iSOA Team hosted our annual Integration Round-table breakfast, with our own focus on Hybrid Cloud Integration.  We were joined by our good friends from IBM, Jeff Sinason, Certified Architect and Rich Kinard, Worldwide DataPower Sales leader and author! Discussions revolved around how our customers are looking at the cloud, as well as the challenges of integration. 

iSOA Group, Inc. continued our passion for taming IT Anarchy, as shown on our Sons of Anarchy themed iSOA t-shirts.  

For more information please contact Brian at bsilverman@isoagroup.com or Chery at cbertini@isogroup.com .