At its recent Impact event in Las Vegas, IBM announced it added more than 30 new cloud services to its BlueMix Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). BlueMix is designed to help developers more quickly integrate applications and speed deployment of new cloud services. In addition, IBM said it is launching a service called BlueMix Garages, a set of collaborative locations where developers can create new apps on BlueMix, learn new development skills, and access IBM's developer ecosystem.
BlueMix, which is based on the open source Cloud Foundry project, now includes cloud integration services intended to enable a secure connection between an organization's public applications and private data, as well as rapidly connect, via the cloud, the Internet of Things and machine to machine devices.
IBM is leveraging BlueMix's foundation on SoftLayer for this expansion, combining IBM's cloud middleware software with third-party and open technologies to create an integrated development experience in the cloud. The service is designed to help developers combine a variety of services and APIs to compose, test and scale custom applications.
"Rapidly growing numbers of beta participants are embracing our model of extending their existing assets and services into a cloud-based, open-source development platform,” said Steve Robinson, general manager of IBM Cloud Platform Services. “This allows our clients to bridge between the tools they are planning for the future and the workloads and services they use today."
Since BlueMix launched in February, clients and partners including GameStop, Pitney Bowes, Continental Automotive and start-ups including EyeQ have signed on to the service.
BlueMix now includes pre-defined connectors for accelerated integration, as well as tools to develop custom APIs. Integrated API management capabilities provide a mechanism to publish self-service APIs, that can be shared with the broader API economy.
IBM also is facilitating Internet of Things services, intended to enable developers to register and connect networked devices such as microprocessors and embedded machine-to-machine sensors to the cloud. The solution also includes data and analytics services for developers to deliver data-centric mobile, web-scale applications. New services include geospatial, time series, predictive scoring, and reporting.
IBM also announced the launch of BlueMix Garages - physical, collaborative spaces for developers, product managers and designers to collaborate with IBM experts to deliver new cloud applications to be deployed onto BlueMix. The first IBM BlueMix Garage will be located in San Francisco’s South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood. The Garage will sit in Galvanize, a startup hub which will provide a shared home to approximately 200 San Francisco startups by the end of 2014. Working side-by-side with IBM consultants, partners and entrepreneurs, Garage users will transform application development with modern cloud technologies and highly disciplined agile processes.
For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit www.ibm.com/cloud.