IBM's Smarter Storage Solutions

When you notice your hard drive is about to become 100 percent capacity you always run around in circles and feel you're about to lose it. Now just imagine that same time when you tried to partition  your drives the first time you bought your laptop or desktop computer and looked helpless seeing it wasn't enough space you allocated for your files and you can't do anything about it and had no where else to back up files. Your pathetic attempt to put everything on USB drives and DVD was laughed upon by your peers because they know it would take you hours upon hours to do that and make it one of the most unproductive days at work. Your network administrator suddenly took out the whole network down so he can backup your office files and you go way past your deadlines, truly not a fun situation to be in.

All along, it should have been an enterprise level system that should have handled all of these for you. IBM as part of their smart computing initiatives, announced a new approach in planning, designing and managing big data infrastructures that utilizes their energy efficient, smart and intelligent software and hardware storage solutions that minimizes legwork in strategical ergonomic processes. Seen in the photo above, Jeff Barber, the Vice President for Mid Range Storage, Systems and Technology Group for IBM explains that the data we are gathering from an enterprise and corporate standpoint are increasing exponentially. The Asean region alone utilizes a huge chunk of these storage requirements and the only way you can cope up with this is by smart systems that has the intelligence and efficiency of handling this big data. We were shocked to see the numbers but it looks like they've got that covered. With things that can understand and automatically manage your data for you even in several brands that would normally not work together, the IBM Smarter Storage can run with your evolving infrastructures which even in some way future proof your systems. Now isn't that smart? 

If you know about Watson and the wonderful things he did for championing Jeopardy, that's exactly what they are going to be implementing in these storage systems. The proper management of data via virtualization, de-duplication, automated (even multilevel) tiering and cataloging can't be done by other known systems but IBM has that on their sleeve. You should check out these services that can complement your existing storage systems and have that enhanced via Intelligent Storage Service Catalog (ISSC) and utilize Cloud Systems (which in my books is inevitable) via IBM SmartCloud Services for Storage that can improve your data backup, manage massive quantities of data even in real time. 

Check out what they can offer over at http://www.ibm.com/storage or follow them on Twitter @IBMStorage for more information.

IBM Philippines

IBM: On Smarter Financial Decisions and Analytics

 Mr David Parmenter and Patrizio Calitri

It is a complex and difficult world to actually tackle yet it is VERY essential to a company's operations. Now that the country is bullish and the economy has got recent upgrades from financial entities, it is time to take care of it and analyze risks - whilst doing the legwork on future-perfect goals for your brand.

The Chief Financial Officer is now more than ever important to hone the landscape of the Philippine organizations and the economy. Each corp's capability to adapt and plan ahead sparks so many opportunities to earn and learn. We were invited a few days ago over lunch and a media briefing about the IBM Finance Forum where kiwi based best selling author and consultant David Parmenter and IBM's own Business Unit Executive Patrizio Calitri talked about key performance indexes and how to make smarter financial decisions through the application of analytics.

IBM Smarter Analytics offer several solutions that can help manage events, gather insights so you can outperform the competition. Managers these days somehow have common functions as CFO's and if you think about it they are naturally the end persons to implement whatever the executive decides upon. IBM Analytics was designed to increase collaborations and simply make such system work with each other faster and easier. It follows 3 particular elements namely time, control and confidence so it could add value in an organization. It might look too simple but if you perfect these functions well upon first salvo then you'll have better chances to achieve the goal of making your whole organization work together. This was one of the points raised by Patrizio Calitri early on who's not new to IBM's business analytics.  

Having your people work with these tools would make them consolidate elements of your corporation very quickly. It's one of the ways how technology is used at an advantage to create a more adaptive way of planning which is important to any entity. In exemplar, we probably are used to having all our plans set for the fiscal year when budgets are planned and given a set amount of things that you plan to do the whole duration. The things is, these things change and if you do not have it on your plans then you'll end up like a duck with its head chopped off. Pardon the comparison but I have seen this happen to the biggest corporations. If you implement something set on a fiscal year, you'll be on constraints with money, manpower and you wouldn't be able to delegate it on other entities in your structure because they probably have the same allotted limitations. Corporations should try and practice "adapting"; like making a quarterly or monthly plan that can change with the time. In this sense, you would easily make headway automating processes, increase your organizations agility if change is needed and make it better for everyone to gain new insight. You need this to simply plan ahead for your business. It is important to achieve analytical insight so you can paint the whole picture. Having something like performance narrative gives a clear structure to the organization and this way you can gain consensus on a plan and execute. This goes the same with your on going reports and analysis since it applies to that as well.The process entails gathering of financial and performance data of your manpower, having the right disclosures, the capability to review, edit, approve and certify, so you can easily publish the data to shareholders and regulators alike. Admittedly we spend close to 77% of our operations in manual preparation of reports so making errors are quite expected. IBM Analytics knows how to handle this and make you start to reduce risks of error via automation through software, minimize insider leaks and eliminate late filings of reports.

They use IBM Cognos TM1 Software which can produce on-demand enterprise planning software for budgeting, forecasting and data analysis. They can design this to work in various ways that would be applicable for you and your business. IBM makes sure your analytics goes personal because this tool is configurable. It's capability to adapt to the set data and have it produce customized results would make your business better understand the things to analyze. You'll have the power to produce rapid development and deployment of flexible products, including profitability data essential for your business' growth. It's so cool to have IBM share this opportunities to the Philippines; congratulations on your 75th year of operations in our country!

David Parmenter dubbed as the "King of KPI's" also discussed a bit about how important it is to measure, monitor and change performance. He also dispels myths about having these numbers depict performance related bonuses and in turn have people do well at work. There is no truth that this apparently works and there are certain flaws in this methodology. We've seen this happen most of the time in our own backyards and yet to find something that would exactly work for our businesses in general. KPI's should be measured 24/7 he laments and should be non financial in nature. It was so astounding to have a great mind tell that particular fact because I felt we were doing these things at work now. There should probably be a change in culture and how we do things to measure this. We would love to expound on this soon. You can take a look at his great work over at http://davidparmenter.com and it'll change the way you see these numbers. It made me realize a couple of things and I'd probably implement one or more changes for the people I manage where I work. It was a pleasure meeting someone so gifted as he is. We definitely learned a lot and we'll have this information utilized in IBM's goal of a smarter Philippines and a smarter planet!

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Simplify Computing: IBM PureSystems

Mr. Scott Firth, Director for Systems Software Marketing and IBM Virtualization shows the next era of IT through IBM PureSystems.

Last night while I was writing this article I was thinking of something complicated to press on the keyboard because this was a pretty technical discussion. I guess I was missing the point right from the beginning; because in a nutshell IBM is making things simpler. 

Running any IT infrastructure would require a lot of resources. Software, hardware components plus virtual storage through clouds and other media. This entails a lot of money and corporations; no matter how big or small they are, need all the help they can get. IBM knows this and they are rolling out a new, simpler era of computing via their new "expert integrated systems" which would make life easier for you and me. This would integrate all IT elements, both physical and virtual. This is a new enterprise computing model which would simplify and minimize resources needed to set up and maintain whilst running your businesses. 70 percent or more of budget allowances go to this particular function. Imagine how much that would cost in a larger scale. This is where IBM PureSystems come in.

Karl Wee Lead of Strategic Business IBM Asean Software Group, Scott Firth Director for Systems Software Marketing and IBM Virtualization and Sang Yoong Yi Country Manager for IBM Systems and Technology Group answering questions from the press.

IBM invested around $2 Billion for R&D and acquisitions over four years in order to achieve this feat. Imagine a world where key functions no longer need to be done over and over again. It is possible now by merely simplifying these processes with actual software that contains these things; in which some are free and some can be purchased much like an in house "conceptual app store" for IBM. You can literally make things work in minutes, often out of the box.

The new PureSystems family boasts of three advances in managing IT infrastructures.

“Scale-In” System Design: With PureSystems, IBM is introducing a new concept in system design that integrates the server, storage, and networking into a highly automated, simple-to-manage machine. Scale-in design provides for increased density – PureSystems can handle twice as many applications compared to some IBM systems, doubling the computing power per square foot of data center space.

Patterns of Expertise: For the first time, IBM is embedding technology and industry expertise through first-of-a-kind software that allows the systems to automatically handle basic, time-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements.

Cloud Ready integration: Out of the box, all PureSystems family members are built for the cloud, enabling corporations to quickly create private, self-service cloud offerings that can scale up and down automatically.

This has in effect changed a lot in the computing landscape. With its thrust also touching on cloud technology and using that platform to generally also simplify processes, this would be something that ordinary people can actually use to maintain resources. Later on, they could make data accessible to any place and have it with the right amount of security too. When asked about other vendors selling hardware/software components similar to PureSystems, Scott Firth and Karl Wee affirms IBM is different because they have a more wholistic package. It's a tougher cookie to bite these days but the selling point is indeed the convenience in setting it up and maintaining it with a single press of a button using the right software/applications. In the long run, this is pretty good investment and can save enterprise/corporations millions of dollars.

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IBM's Initiatives and the 2011 CIO Study

IBM in it's continued love for investing a lot in research and development added another feather in their hat last September 1, 2011 at the Press Briefing held at the Mandaluyong Ballroom, Shangrila Makati. I was excited since this was in the line of the programs I was running for my day job and true enough I had some great inputs from experts in the industry who had experience from the ASEAN, Philippines and US perspective. This study was conducted over a four month period from October 2010 to January 2011. I learned a couple of things specifically on the roles of CIO's (Chief Information Officers) and how it is essential in the structure of a corporation.

Mr. Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services talked about the importance of CIO's as resulted from the 2011 CIO Study. The ASEAN perspective was somewhat different from what the Global perspective is but there are quite a number of similarities. "With technology becoming both an enabler of competitive advantage and embedded in every facet of the enterprise, the role of the CIO has never been more essential." says Mr. Bruni.

CIO's play an important part in running companies. It shows on the technology and innovation that they bring to the table. CIO's must think business first just like the CEO's. In their centennial year IBM is bringing to the table a research that includes the best CIO's in the US and elsewhere in the world. They wanted to show the importance it plays in the structure and survival of the complex organization you are in. They initially gave importance to the CIO position in the 50's and 60's. Almost all these critical positions and its studies were started by IBM at that time. Today they take Business analytics and other significant studies to another level. They started interviewing real deal CIO's from different companies and started asking about three key takeaways.

- How the CIO's role become fundamental
- How CEO's and CIO's way of thinking should be very closely aligned
- How to be successful and how CIO's need to identify and communicate their mandate weather it would be to have leverage, expand, innovate, pioneer it or transform.

It was a pleasure to also meet Mr. Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, IBM Philippines gave a small talk about how this study reflects in the Philippine Market. He also gave a funny anecdote about so called government experts that were not quite experts at all. I beckon more studies on the regional perspective should be done so it would reflect the real comparison between local conditions and those which has been done by first world countries. We'd be able to see where they are succeeding and we are failing. I'd like to make that a point of comparison so to speak.

They sampled around 3018 CIO's around the world to get this data with the mandate that not one is better than the other. Rodney Regalado of the C-Suite Study Series campaign mentioned some basic facts on what this data actually means for the local Philippine market. The services business in the Philippines is where IBM eventually wants to play. They want to make and support infrastructure, give importance to basics and immerse people in situations that can add value on current businesses. It was really enlightening for people like me in the Programs Management field.

Mr. Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC giving us a few ideas what to ask in the press briefing. He asked a couple of hypothetical questions about the industry's insights and the impact of this study to various existing public and private corporations.

IDC a third party firm who works in analysis and market research said that they make stern conclusions on studies about how corporations would be able to use these fields to create products quickly and what similarities the CEO and CIO should have in order to achieve it. It's one of the ways that a corporation would be able to add value to "current services" and know the industry per ce so they in return can support more and over deliver. They advised me to try and show more value even if the client corporation doesn't need it even on a very limited project such as IT infrastructure projects.

Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services; James Velasquez, President and Country General Manager, Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, both from IBM Philippines, and Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC

They predicted that the Philippines is more focused on the basics right now but will veer away in the next few years specially in the banking and mobile communication industries. CIO's and CEO's should be aligned in this integral transition. IBM realizes that business intelligence and analytics will continue to stay as top priorities for businesses and industries. CIO's must stay pro active and IT must be presented as a "cool" thing again. This is still part of IBM's goal of a Smarter Planet!

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IBM's Business Analytics & Risk Management Solutions for a Smarter Planet

Industry Solutions Leader for the IBM ASEAN Software Group Praveen Thakur discusses Risk Management and the changing roles of CFO's.

Research and development, database management, information security, consolidation, business analytics, organization and optimization are some of the things a corporation should take very seriously. Information for a corporation is vital and IBM knows this. It can actually make or break success... and scientifically predict its future; it all should be precise and complete. I also do this for a living (yes I do have a day job); and part of the tedious reports I do is manually crunching numbers, generating them 7 different ways in 7 different languages (imagine spreadsheets, multiple tabs). Yes, it is tedious; but VERY necessary... otherwise, there wouldn't be any data to support bigger decisions in operating projects.

Charles Manuel Business Unit Executive of the Business Analytics Division - IBM ASEAN Software Group mentions how important Analytics is in an organization. Ms. Noona (right) explains how the acquisition of COGNOS made remarkable advancements in providing solutions through IBM.


It was nice to see people from the IBM Finance Forum last May 20, 2011. I knew my reports were hard but believed there was a way to automate things of this scale. Charles Manuel Business Unit Executive of the Business Analytics Division - IBM ASEAN Software Group explained the importance of tools used for "Business Analytics and Optimization". It's a holistic approach to integration of large/small scale enterprise data. Their solution is a combination of software, systems, services and research which standardizes business processes and automates generation of information needed to utilize pre-existing and valued information. It also clears out redundancies and inconsistencies found in most stored data silos and only keeps those which are important; saving a lot on resources. He also mentioned the importance of knowing that brands change in real time. Corporations must know how to do it with tools that would be able to manage risks, generate metrics and support forecasting because there should always be a deeper analysis of trends and patterns from previous months/years. Together with COGNOS, SPSS, OpenPages and Clarity Systems they would be able to support the infrastructure and software requirements of enterprise scaled businesses in the ASEAN; one emerging market.


Industry Solutions Leader for the IBM ASEAN Software Group Praveen Thakur discussed ways how we can use Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Platform to Improve Risk and Compliance Initiatives. This particular subject touched on how to manage large data and social media's effects on information explosion. Risk reduction and management costs should be an integral part of any organization. There ought to be a fail safe process and a "way" to use these large chunk of data to the advantage of the business. IBM can work with corporations for analysis of structured and unstructured information but still stay cost effective. This will be one of their main thrusts until 2015. Mr. Thakur also mentioned the changing roles of CFO's in organizations. They are no longer just the plain auditing department and become one of the integral parts of the organization and its operations. IBM's line of Software, Hardware and services for integration are standardized and can cut costs by limiting redundancy, preventing risks and determining trends that would greatly affect the business. OpenPages of IBM can make consolidating risk management practices a cinch!

For the best advise you need about these subjects, you know where to turn to. After all, 100 years experience in the industry might be the best convincing factor in their resume right?!

Kapish!?

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New 9th Planet: TYCHE

Nope! You are not reading something out of the book. We were all part of the crowd who said WHOA! when space agencies said that Pluto was not part of our Solar System. We now had only 8 planets and so far it has not been that pretty in the skies these days. There are also times we get depressed in one way or another because who's going to represent the underworld without Pluto right? Well don't despair! Because scientists are currently searching evidence about a very weird one right in our Solar System. Yes we are probably going to have a confirmed 9th planet before the year ends, and it will be called TYCHE (Ty-kee) I know you guys are going to be as excited as I am but we have to wait til NASA and other Space agencies would be able to take a look at it!

The one who discovered this new planet are actually two astrophysicists named Daniel Whitmire and John Matese from (Kamuning joke! hehe) the University of Louisiana at Lafayette which might not have been doing that much down south. They are pretty old already but said that if this discovery becomes official they promise to do cartwheels. It will be all up to the International Astronomical Union though, maybe they can trick them first to do the cartwheels before they announce if its real or not. The planet by the way is very far and a lot like Jupiter in structure and form. Mostly gas and trying to cool down but it is taking a long time to do that so the release of those hydrogen and helium is making the planet look big. It is almost boiling point there so you get the idea how hot it is. The heat they say came from its formation (so you have to study your Big Bang theory to understand that).

The only thing we can do for now is watch that sky and enjoy the night while they confirm if this is orbiting on our Sun making this the real 9th planet! By that time teachers can put up the old posters of the solar system and just erase the name of Pluto and make it Tyche hehehe!

Something Cosmic

I admit I haven't been listening that much to radio programs or mp3's in the last few months. You know how busy we all are! But I have been pretty much disturbed on Bruno Mars being number one on RX93.1 since a couple of weeks ago. I don't know who he is or what he looks like I thought it was someone that bares the second coming of lady gaga since his name sounds so cosmic.... (Get it? Mars?! LOL) well I was wrong... I played his video and got hooked to it. I said to myself ahhhhh.... sooo.... this is the think they were playing on clubs. I didn't know they mixed it up hehehe. Anyway, I get him... I got the message of his song. This one in particular is awesome.. lighting, positioning and timing of the shot was great. I hope those flare thingys are true and not computer generated heheh.

I think now is the time to download the latest songs. I'm right now in the process of bribing someone in the local pizza place to get me one of these.


Yeah I know. I would kill to get me one of these and they ran out of it so I'm kinda reserving one for myself via that guy in the pizza place. I would pay more than what it costs just so I get one. I am unfortunately dead serious. I'll take every process or magical whisks of a wand just to get one! Don't even stand in my way because by hook or by crook this will be mine! Buwahahah!

Sorry, I just had to say that! =)

Venus, Jupiter and the Moon Smiles at the Philippines

In our part of the world, this is the greatest thing celestial bodies did for this country. It showed up around 6-8PM in the evening smiling at us. This is the best planetary gathering of the year, simply because it involves three of the brightest objects in the sky after the sun. From the eight official planets in the solar system, five are visible at night without the aid of a telescopes or binoculars. Jupiter and Venus are particularly bright (no not the sailor warriors lolz) , partly because both have highly reflective clouds that completely envelop them, but also because Venus is Earth's closest neighbor while Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.

Awe! what a sight to behold last night! To those who missed it, it looked like this!