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IBM Cloud Pak for Applications

Score7.2 out of 10

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What is IBM Cloud Pak for Applications?

IBM Cloud Pak® for Applications (CP4Apps) is an end-to-end hybrid cloud application platform, providing flexibility for deployments, building new cloud-native applications, refactoring and re-platforming existing applications. Designed to leverage a collection of application runtimes, modernization tools and a Kubernetes container platform to adapt to their landscape needs.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about IBM Cloud Pak for Applications.
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Review on IBM Cloud Pak for Applications

Incentivized
Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We provide consulting services to the customer who are running their java-based enterprise applications on WebSphere Application Server which is now come as IBM Cloud Pak for Applications bundling all WAS offerings for customers who can optimize their previous investments with this new WebSphere Hybrid Edition. With this, our customers have the option to adopt application modernization roadmap from traditional more expensive to light-weight cloud-native transformation. They can first take the path modernize their runtime of WAS to WebSphere Liberty with minimum footprint and faster startup time for applications.

Customers can take advantage of AI-based tools such as Transformation Advisor for the recommendations for modernizing java applications and understand the efforts required in transformation. Also, mono2micro tool can convert monolithic applications to microservices based architecture.

Pros

  • WebSphere Liberty for lighter footprint
  • Transformation Advisor
  • Mono2Micro
  • Customer can benefit from their investment by optimizing license offerings in IBM Cloud Pak for Applications

Cons

  • Documents and Tutorials should be generally available
  • Should be marketed in a more aggressive way

Return on Investment

  • Positive impact: Business Innovation
  • Less to market solutions through DevOps and Cloud-native mindset

Alternatives Considered

IBM watsonx.ai

Other Software Used

IBM MQ

IBM - BIG BLUE

Incentivized
Nelson LopezView profile
CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in Research & Development at it.lopez-be.ch (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In the event of an opportunity for submitting an international application, IBM stands out not only by offering a robust and comprehensive infrastructure but also by bringing to the table the necessary expertise. This combination ensures that applicants have access to a wide array of resources and specialized knowledge, which can significantly enhance the quality and impact of their submissions.

Pros

  • Streamlining Application Development and Deployment
  • Modernizing Existing Applications

Cons

  • User Experience and Learning Curve
  • Integration with Third-party Tools
  • Pricing and Licensing Model

Return on Investment

  • Increased Development Efficiency
  • Cost Reduction in Infrastructure Management
  • Enhanced Application Performance and Reliability

Alternatives Considered

IBM watsonx.ai, IBM watsonx.data and IBM watsonx.governance

Other Software Used

IBM Watson Studio on Cloud Pak for Data, IBM Cloud Pak for AIOps, IBM Knowledge Catalog

The benefits of using IBM Cloud Pak for Applications for your modernization journey

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Provides a fantastic range of Application runtimes allowing the most suitable runtime to be selected for the app being implemented.
  • After using Transformation Advisor for quite a while, it is an indispensable tool to help modernize, specifically from WebSphere and Tomcat, towards the lightweight, fast and efficient Liberty runtime.
  • The simplicity of the licensing by wrapping many products into a single offering with a different VPC weighting.
  • Allows us to modernize our runtime from WebSphere Application Server (or ND) to WebSphere Liberty core without sacrificing our WAS licenses.

Cons

  • While the licensing is considerably simplified than it used to be, I still find it somewhat confusing. For example, WebSphere Liberty Core has an 8:1 VPC ratio. This is clear when dealing with VMs but it is still not clear to me as to whether we get an 8:1 ratio when running on OpenShift or whether we need to purchase additional OpenShift licenses to support running WebSphere Liberty Core in OpenShift.
  • Not so much related to IBM Cloud Pak for Applications, but while Transformation Advisor is an indispensable tool to help modernize to the WebSphere Liberty runtime, I wish we could run it against WebSphere Liberty itself. The reason being, we are now using TA as a single repository for our configurations. TA also highlights many potential issues when migrating to Liberty; these issues may also be applicable for apps already running in Liberty, we just don't know it yet.

Return on Investment

  • We have been able to migrate apps away from the expensive WAS-ND to the more cost-effective WAS-base without throwing away our WAS-ND licenses. With a 1:4 ratio of WAS-ND to WAS-base we've been able to we've been able to save in excess of 75% on licensing charges for these apps.
  • By having a license model based on VPC ratios (1:4:8 - WAS-ND:WAS-base:Liberty core) we've been able to move away from using license pooling resulting in over-allocating (i.e. wasting) CPU cores for each license pool, to using consolidated license pools hosting a combination of WAS-ND, WAS-base and Liberty-core. This has allowed us to reduce our licensing costs accordingly.

Other Software Used

IBM MQ, IBM Business Automation Workflow

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