Siemens Partners with IBM on Hybrid Cloud Solution for Industry 4.0

The News: ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Siemens, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat today announced a new collaboration that will use a hybrid cloud designed to deliver an open, flexible and more secure solution for manufacturers and plant operators to drive real-time value from operational data. In one month, a single manufacturing site can generate more than 2,200 terabytes of data according to a report by IBM – yet most data goes unanalyzed. Read the full news item in IBM’s press room.

Analyst Take: Another solid partnership announcement for IBM and Red Hat as hybrid cloud continues to gain momentum. In this case, it’s a great match as Siemens Digital Industries Software (SDIS) brings its deep Industry 4.0 expertise, while IBM offers its expansive enterprise hybrid cloud solutions.

In terms of the approach itself, this new initiative between the companies is based upon SDIS applying IBM’s open hybrid cloud approach built on Red Hat OpenShift. The idea behind this is to make Siemens IoT as a service platform, MindSphere, more extensible to benefit from the flexible deployment options on-prem, in the cloud, while also focusing on improving application speed and time to insight.

I see this as a winning combination as it solves two important problems:

1. Masses of data are being created outside of the data center, and this is one of the biggest OT challenges that requires modernization of IT to solve.
2. Leveraging containers and microservices have been identified as a high-performing means to solving complex edge to cloud challenges for Industry 4.0. Red Hat has one of the most robust Kubernetes platforms providing the tools and flexibilities to manage workloads on-prem and in the cloud.

Overall Impressions of Siemens, IBM, and Red Hat Partnership

The complexities caused by the rapid proliferation of data, especially at the edge, are significant. The solutions that leverage modernized architectures and highly strategic partnerships are material to solving these problems. In the industrial space, solutions that streamline deployment and enable more robust data utilization to provide businesses with a greater runway to focus on operations rather than solving IT complexities. This space will continue to see competition as OT and IT converge and partnerships emerge. Still, this one has many important inclusions and capabilities that set the tone for what should be a fruitful partnership going forward.

Futurum Research provides industry research and analysis. These columns are for educational purposes only and should not be considered in any way investment advice.

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Image: IBM

The original version of this article was first published on Futurum Research.