The COVID-19 pandemic and recent environmental crises demonstrated that not all risks can be predicted, but that resiliency and the ability to make good decisions quickly are key to enterprises’ ability to survive and thrive through the unexpected.
So said Rishi Nirghin, Executive – IBM Systems at IBM Southern Africa, who was speaking during an IBM Hybrid Multicloud with Power Systems Executive Webinar this week.
He said the steps that need to be taken to bolster resilience, stability and security include modernising the applications environment and fully committing to cloud-based flexibility; modernising network capacity to build out for sudden demand; modernising the workplace and creating agility for productive employees; and modernising operations.
Ronnie Moodley, executive for Systems Lab Services for Middle East and Africa at IBM, added that retailers across the world had dropped customers during Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, again illustrating how important resilient infrastructure is for business. This is particularly important in a hybrid multi-cloud environment, he said. “Hybrid multi-cloud is not just a buzz, it is a practical and pragmatic way for businesses to approach IT.”
While virtually all organisations were using the cloud, an IBM-commissioned study by McKinsey & Company found that on average, only 20% of enterprise apps have moved to the cloud. Moodley said: “Why? The remaining 80% are constrained by unique workload and data needs, multiple clouds and vendors, a technology generation gap and application portability challenges – as movement entails expensive code refactoring."
He noted that 73% of enterprise companies consider movement between clouds a priority, and 67% describe consistency of management essential.
IBM said resilient organisations needed to be able to harness scalable and secure enterprise storage systems with the flexibility to run, build, manage and modernise cloud-native workloads on their choice of architecture. They needed capacity on demand, flexibility and security. IBM Power Systems supports resilient enterprise multi-cloud strategies, simplifying management and increasing security, with pay-as-you-go pricing, and private cloud solutions with a metered by-the-minute-model. The ITIC Global Reliability report has rated IBM Power Systems as delivering the highest reliability for the 12th year in a row. Power Systems are used by approximately 80% of Fortune 100 companies.
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