The e-business on Demand Strategy

IBM has been laser focused on a strategy called e-business on demand ever since its introduction in October 2002. In many respects, you can already see the results of this focus in today's IBM products. And the $10 billion IBM is committing to e-business on demand means that this strategy will increasingly manifest itself in all IBM computer hardware, software, and services over time. Companies in many industries have already started e-business on demand initiatives.

At its core, e-business on demand refers to a business's ability to respond to change. To support this ability, the business must have a computing infrastructure (hardware, software, and services all working together) that can support current business needs and enables the migration of a business down the e-business adoption path. While the typical computing infrastructures in use today meet current needs (to a varying degree), they are not prepared to support a highly dynamic, responsive, and integrated "on demand" business environment—which is exactly where e-business is headed.

So what does this mean? Well it doesn't mean you need to throw everything away and start over from scratch. In fact, RS/6000 and pSeries users are in the enviable position of having a solid foundation on which to build. What it does mean is that not one more dollar should be spent on any new server, software package, development effort, or service contract that doesn't lead to a computing infrastructure that enables a business to head down the e-business adoption path.

In IBM language, this means you need to lead your computing infrastructure purchases and development efforts down the path of e-business on demand. In other words, you need to keep four key principles in mind as you evolve your computing infrastructure over time.

Open

The days of locking into a specific vendor's proprietary computing architecture are gone. Today, a computing infrastructure needs the flexibility (in vendor choice, in information exchange, in application integration, in application selection, etc.) that only comes when that infrastructure is built around open standards defined by vendor-neutral standards bodies—standards with names such as Java, SQL, XML, and Linux. Most businesses employ more than one type of computer/operating system. Adherence to open standards will enable these different types of systems to work together, or integrate, at a lower cost over time. Other benefits resulting from the adherence to open standards include leveraging investments/skills in existing heterogeneous computing infrastructures, speed of deployment for new projects, and freedom of choice.

Integrated

By adhering to open standards, you will be laying the groundwork for the end-to-end integration goal of e-business discussed earlier. This integration of key business processes throughout the inner workings of a business, with suppliers, and with customers is one of the crown jewels of e-business. So businesses should not allow the construction of independent computer solutions (servers, operating systems, middleware, and applications) without giving careful thought to the ability to securely integrate these new solutions (immediately or in the future) with the rest of the computing infrastructure.

Virtualized

With virtualization, what you see is not what you get. That is, virtualization masks the physical limitations of a server such that resources can be more efficiently shared by users based on their changing needs. So here we are back discussing the need to accommodate change in the e-business on demand environment. Through virtualization, a computer system can dynamically change the amount and type of resources the user receives in concert with the changing needs of that user—without disruption. This dynamic allocation allows users to get the most out of a given computer system, resulting in better service and less wasted resources. Virtualization also is used to "subdivide" a single large computer system into smaller "virtual" computer systems, each perhaps running different operating systems (e.g., AIX and Linux) and associated application programs. This flexibility, along with the reliability afforded by protecting problems in one user's "virtual computer" from disrupting the other users, plays right into the hands of e-business.

Autonomic

"Autonomic" is a term IBM borrowed from the vernacular of the human central nervous system. The goal of autonomic computing is for the computing infrastructure to manage itself just as the central nervous system manages the human body—without our conscious effort. Making computer systems self-optimizing, self-healing, self-configuring, and self-protecting reduces the costs associated with systems management and unscheduled downtime. The more complex the computing system, the more important autonomic computing becomes. Since complexity goes up as you progress along the e-business adoption path, self-managing the complexity is a critical requirement for computing infrastructures going forward.

MORE ON THE WEB

• IBM e-business on demand overview and papers from IBM

• IBM autonomic computing overview, news, library and press releases

• The autonomic computing vision on the IBM Research Web site

e-business on demand is the "blueprint" IBM is using to guide the development of its entire line of products and services—including the important IBM eServer family, as we will see next.