“This crisis has proven, beyond a doubt, that hybrid cloud is underpinning platforms that are redefining businesses and ecosystems as we emerge smarter and more resilient through COVID-19,” said Brenda Harvey, GM, Asia Pacific, IBM Cloud, during her keynote for the virtual event “IBM Cloud 2020.”

The pandemic has been doing sweeping changes in business operations across all industries. The lockdowns forced companies to hastily adopt digital transformation or accelerate changes to avoid any type of disruption.

Harvey said that the crisis revealed how companies responded in common tactical challenges to ensure that supply chains are more resilient in resisting global shocks. Some organizations have promptly moved the right workload to the right workloads to the public cloud to keep critical functions up and running, while quickly deploying new services.

IBM launches new AI designed for IT ops automation

IBM: COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation

Cloud, AI

A single open IT architecture, that is hybrid or multicloud, enables organizations’ speed and agility in responding to the changing requirements of business operations. Even highly regulated industries like banking can easily move mission-critical workloads by enabling hybrid cloud strategies.

Marrying cloud and automation further accelerated business transformation.

“By automating the right IT tasks, the workforce can now focus on higher-value priorities,” Harvey said. “Secure IT infrastructure enables remote working and using AI (artificial intelligence) to handle the massive increase in calls and requests (from customers).”

As its response to the shift, IBM continues to address Cloud Managed Services needs on top of its Automated Cloud Migration services so it can assist clients in their multicloud management.

IBM Watson Works

Harvey announced the launch of IBM Watson Works, a curated set of products that embed Watson AI models and applications to deliver data-driven insights to address COVID-19 and return to workplace challenges, from space allocation to contact tracing and even mass detection built with data privacy and ethics.

Watson AI for Ops, which was launched early this year at IBM’s Digital Think event, is designed to provide organizations a complete and accurate view of IT incidents and also aimed to give real-time insights and recommendations to address complex IT issues to quickly to minimize service disruptions and prevent outages.

“We rearchitected our public cloud based on Red Hat openshift container platform built on Kubernetes and delivered across 60 global data centers,” Harvey said. “IBM Cloud and Red Hat have brought together market-leading security, enterprise scalability and open innovation for increased agility business. We are actively assisting clients by running virtual garages to help them with their cloud strategy and speeding application modernization.”

As the world wades through the tsunami that is COVID-19, organizations across all industries found themselves looking for realignments and recalibrations to adapt to the new reality. Since the pandemic wreak havoc, technology proved to be a critical tool in surviving and thriving in learning how to do business in the middle of a health crisis.