IBM Smart Business Development on the IBM Cloud

Gain access to various downloads, podcasts, virtual webinars, articles, forums, and much more. Make the most of your IBM cloud experience!

IBM developerWorks Cloud Computing zone
Check out this collection of resources from articles, webcasts, demos and trial code from developerWorks to guide you no matter what stage of development you're in, learn key skills and solve problems to prepare for the smarter planet. We explain cloud computing concepts, technologies, and best practices and provide expert help in implementing your own cloud system and cloud-based applications.

Get up to speed with IBM WebSphere cloud and virtualization technologies
In today’s dynamic business climate, organizations are challenged with managing an ever-growing amount of business applications, often requiring extreme processing capabilities, a large amount of IT resources and about 70% of the overall IT budget. As applications continue to increase in complexity, and IT resources become scarce, organizations are in need of simple technologies that can help them reduce costs, quicken time to market and enhance their levels of customer service. Cloud and virtualization technologies from IBM WebSphere focus on evolving our customers’ application infrastructures into a more dynamic platform. Access trials, demos, virtual events and more.

Podcast: Four new things you can do in the cloud
Brian Snitzer discusses Windows image support and three other provisioning enhancements in the 1.2 release of the IBM Cloud.

Virtual Event: Cloud Computing for Developers
90% of respondents in a recent IBM survey of IT professionals say that Cloud will replace on premise computing by 2015. Are you prepared? Don't fear, IBM has a series of Cloud computing for developers on-demand events available to you free of charge. Through real-world examples of specific challenges and solutions, as well as live demos of techniques and products, you can learn about cloud computing and how to leverage the cloud. Get started building skills for the smarter planet.

IBM Smart Business Development and Test on the IBM Cloud
IBM's Cloud is designed to provide you with rapid access to a security-rich, cloud-based enterprise-class development and test environment. Our standardized development and test environment on the IBM Cloud can help you realize faster application deployment with reduced capital and operational costs. You have virtually no infrastructure to maintain and benefit from pay-as-you-go pricing for your development and testing resources. And, you can set up more accurate test environments in minutes versus weeks using standardized configurations.

Technical Briefs

Cloud computing by government agencies
The United States federal government has the largest annual IT budget of any organization, almost $80 billion in 2010 alone. To save money and improve services, the government is beginning to adopt a cloud first approach towards procuring new and replacement systems. The business cases and technical benefits for moving into the cloud are the same for the government as they are for other firms, only the savings and challenges are much bigger. Government agencies have two special challenges: procurement and security. This article briefly describes the procurement challenges and then jumps into advising government cloud service purchasers on the positives and negatives of security in the cloud, and how to manage their potential vendors' security risks. The security threats are covered from the government's point of view, but smart cloud vendors will take it as a preview of what questions the government might ask them and prepare accordingly.

Integrating WebSphere CloudBurst capabilities in an iPhone solution, Part 1: Architecture, decision model, and tools for a simple Web 2.0 application
This series of articles describes a simple Web 2.0 application that integrates the IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance with an Apple iPhone device. WebSphere CloudBurst provides a set of REST-based APIs that enables the smartphone to collaborate with the appliance. The iPhone will send a request using REST syndication to the appliance, which will receive the request and return a data response in JSON format. A client-based application like this can provide great UI flexibility, as well as a complete access to iPhone features. Part 1 provides a high level overview of the development components involved.

Solve cloud-related Big Data problems with MapReduce
At times, you need to be able to access more physical and virtual resources to achieve complex compute-intensive results, but setting up a grid system within an organization can face resource, logistical, and technical hurdles; even some political ones. Cloud computing comes to the rescue in this case. It also combines perfectly with the MapReduce function for handling lots of Big Data computations by making it both transparent and irrelevant where two numbers get added together. The author demonstrates why cloud computing and MapReduce are helpful in solving Big Data problems.

New IBM developerWorks survey shows dominance of cloud computing and mobile application development
A new IBM developerWorks global survey of 2,000 IT professionals indicates cloud computing and mobile application development are hot topics today, and are expected to emerge as the most in-demand platforms for software development over the next five years. The survey also highlights the importance of industry-specific expertise, and predicts a high demand for software development in social media and business analytics.

Enable application-centric cloud management
Learn about application-centric-style management, the three key steps to achieve it, and how to automate the deployment of a two-tier J2EE application in the IBM Cloud. This article shows you how to create an action, hook actions to events, and event handling.

Deliver cloud network control to the user
One concern for adopters of cloud technology is control -- control of data, control of access, even control of networking in the cloud, across multiple clouds, and between the cloud and private infrastructures. The authors describe how using a virtual network -- hybrid devices that act as virtual routers, switches, SSL and IPSec VPN concentrators, and protocol redistributors, all tied up in a configurable mesh -- can give the user control of addressing, topology, protocols, and encrypted communications for the devices the user deploys to the cloud. A real-world example, using existing technology, will be provided.