IBM and Colt collaborate on new 5G and edge solutions
Colt Technology Services has announced a collaboration with IBM to help customers adopt a new edge computing strategy for moving data and applications seamlessly across hybrid cloud environments.
The network and voice connectivity company says it plans to work with IBM to explore new use cases with IBM Cloud Satellite and Edge Application Manager.
"Organisations are adopting new cloud technologies designed to address business challenges, but managing this new distributed infrastructure paradigm is not simple," says Colt.
"In particular, when these applications have stringent location-dependent requirements like low latency, regional data compliance and resiliency."
The Colt and IBM collaboration, in a lab setting, has shown how deploying IBM Cloud Satellite on Colt's edge platform can be simplified for customers.
IBM Cloud Satellite is a hybrid cloud platform built on Red Hat OpenShift, allowing 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.
Colts on-demand networking capabilities are designed to help critical connectivity be achieved in near real-time to enable distributed cloud deployments with IBM Edge Application Manager for its customers (in industries such as retail and healthcare) across 29,000 enterprise buildings.
A recent IBM Institute for Business Value report revealed that 91% of the 1,500 executives surveyed say their organisations plan to implement edge computing strategies within five years.
IBM Edge Application Manager, an autonomous management solution that runs on Red Hat OpenShift, 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 IBM Edge Application Manager is the industry's first solution powered by the open source project, Linux Foundation Open Horizon.
"We look forward to collaborating with Colt to help customers deploy, operate, and manage thousands of endpoints throughout their operations with IBM Cloud Satellite and IBM Edge Application Manager," says GM, IBM Hybrid Cloud and Edge Ecosystem, Evaristus Mainsah.
"Together, we can help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation by acting on insights closer to where their data is being created, at the edge."
Colt's VP Partner Development and Success, Mark Hollman, says, "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 serving our joint customers.
"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."
