IBM, Cast Iron Deal Opens New Chapter in Cloud Integration 
IBM’s acquisition of Cast Iron Systems will bring a new level of automation and accuracy to cloud integration, and in so doing open a new chapter in IBM’s plan for enterprise-caliber cloud integration for public, private and hybrid models. Integration Developer News spoke with many key execs involved in the deal.
IBM’s acquisition of Cast Iron Systems will bring a new level of automation and accuracy to cloud integration, and likely open a new chapter in IBM’s plan for enterprise-caliber cloud integration for public, private and hybrid models. To explore the details and implications of the IBM/Cast Iron deal, Integration Developer News spoke with many key execs involved.
As IBM released the news it had acquired Cast Iron, it also released estimates which put the global cloud computing market at $125+ billion by 2012, an annual growth rate of 28%. For those numbers to become real, IBM execs say cloud delivery and cloud integration must become simpler, automated and more accurate.
The following from IBM’s press statement on the Cast Iron acquisition, put it this way:
A key challenge businesses face in successfully adopting cloud delivery models is integrating the disparate systems running in their data centers with new cloud based applications. In the past, this involved time-consuming and resource-draining coding work.
Through Cast Iron Systems, IBM is gaining the ability to help businesses rapidly integrate their cloud-based applications and on-premise systems. The acquisition also advances IBM's capabilities for a hybrid cloud model, which is attractive to enterprises because it allows them to blend data from on-premise applications with public and private cloud systems.
Craig Hayman, IBM’s general manager for WebSphere, said of the deal: “The integration challenges Cast Iron Systems is tackling are crucial to clients who are looking to adopt alternative delivery models to manage their businesses. [The acquisition] will make it easy for clients to integrate business applications, no matter where those applications reside.”
Inside Cast Iron’s Appeal to IBM
It’s 100s of Cloud Integration Templates
Cast Iron System’s OmniConnect is an appliance that allows customers to quickly and safely tie their on-premise applications and data directly into a wide range of off-premise SaaS (software as a service) options. Under the covers, Cast Iron OmniConnect can house hundreds of “integration templates: that automate the tough and labor-intensive job of mapping a customer’s on-premise application or data with a wide number of off-premise SaaS providers.
These templates are more than simple A-to-B APIs. Rather they include a rich and deep set of maps and interconnect patterns that allow customers to connect on-premise applications and data between partners and with SaaS providers – with little if any code, Walter Falk, IBM’s Worldwide Cloud Executive, told IDN.
This approach means that Cast Iron’s template libraries take on both sides of the integration handshake, tying together leading on-premise applications (including SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, etc.) with top off-premise SaaS options, such as Salesforce CRM, ADP and others
As an example, Cast Iron is used by a unit of Allianz insurance to integrate Salesforce CRM with its on-premise underwriting applications for real-time visibility into contract renewals. The project was completed in less than 30 days. Other clients include Amerisource Bergen NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group.
“Cast Iron’s approach provides a powerful set of automation integration capabilities in an appliance form factor that drives down cost and complexity of cloud projects, eliminating the need for any coding” Falk told IDN. “So, not only does cloud integration take less time, but it is more reliable and even takes up less network bandwidth. Now that Cast Iron is part of IBM, we can build on that approach.”
While Falk was reluctant to share a detailed roadmap about how IBM would build forward, he did say added new templates and enhancing cloud management services were logical enhancements.
“We clearly understand the integration patterns, data schema and other implementation issues” critical to successful to inter-enterprise integration, including on-premise to SaaS and cloud,” Ken Comée, president and chief executive officer, Cast Iron Systems. "As part of IBM, we will be able to offer clients a broader set of software, services and hardware to support their cloud and other IT initiatives,”
For his part, said Jerry Cuomo, an IBM Fellow and one of IBM biggest cloud infrastructure engineers said Cast Iron’s OmniConnect brings “application fluency” to public cloud integration. Cuomo is now working on cloud and infrastructure virtualization and is credited with the creation of WebSphere application server. “Cast Iron’s hundreds of integration templates offer specific integration implementations [which serve as] pre-canned maps for connecting applications to one another with no coding,” Cuomo told a packed keynote during Impact 2010.
The Cast Iron templates allow for a rich array of ‘no coding’ projects, including;
UI Mashups — To bring information from disparate sources together for crunching or display within a single application, a mashup can present a single unified view -- without requiring the desktop user to leave the current application.
Process Integration— To orchestrate business processes across multiple cloud and
on-premise applications in real-time.
Data Migration — To let companies access, cleanse and migrate data from legacy systems to a new SaaS application in real-time.
Cast Iron’s suite of templated “integration solutions” help users solve many recurring application integration problems, including;
- Order to Cash integration between CRM, ERP, warehousing and financial systems
- Billings, Bookings and Backlog visibility from ERP to CRM
- Candidate information from HCM to recruiting systems
- Employee payroll data from HCM to payroll systems
- Pricing and product catalog information between ERP and customer portals
- POs, shipping notices and payments with suppliers
- Repair and warranty information between call centers and customer portals
Notably, one of IBM’s top appliances executive, Bruce Burdumy, Director of Product management for SOA Appliances, told IDN IBM’s DataPower engineers will be working with Cast Iron engineers to see what they might learn for new and/or improved SOA appliances. “You’ve heard that 1 + 1 equal 3, and that’s applies here to more than just bringing a new product into IBM, ” Burdumy told IDN. “From our side, we’ll be working with Cast Iron to look for ways we can make all our [SOA] appliances more automated, and simpler to use, deploy and manage.”
