The New Builders Podcast is back! We're now a part of the New Builders Initiative on the IBM Cloud Blog, and we're going to continue to bring you interesting guests and deep dives into fascinating topics in the cloud world.

Our new host is Joshua Carr, Head of Developer Content Strategy for IBM Worldwide Marketing, and he is joined in this episode by Simon Kofkin-Hansen, Distinguished Engineer and CTO of IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions. We covered the scene at VMworld US and the upcoming VMworld Europe, AI and machine learning, platform capabilities and converged infrastructure, and the importance of security in the cloud.

Episode Highlights

0:08: Joshua Carr Introduction

0:23: Introduction of Simon Kofkin-Hansen – CTO IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions, Director, & Distinguished Engineer

2:28: Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen at VMworld US in Las Vegas - Taking the skateboard language around tricks and feeding it into Watson AI to see what the AI can do within the skateboarding community. It's a bit of a "concept car"—something that showcases the abilities and direction that AI can go in.

4:45: Turning the skate language into machine learning – Watson AI and machine learning tech are able to take and interpret the intricate and interesting language around skateboarding tricks and show other possible trick combos. It's leveraging and showing how we can train the AI in a new particular language and how the machine learning can be applied to that language to form a result.

7:29: What is VMware? – VMware has their virtualization platform and their VMs, but they are moving very much into the network and the multi-cloud space. They're providing products for companies to move their workloads into the various clouds. They're also moving into containers—stringing together hybrid platforms.

10:20: The partnership between VMware and IBM – We've been working together for 7 or 8 years now, and the relationship has evolved over time.

11:46: What is VMworld? – VMworld US in Las Vegas in one of VMware's two premier events of the year. Everyone shows off all the cool stuff that they're into with VMware. VMworld Europe is upcoming in Barcelona, and IBM has some big announcements coming up.

14:08: Platform capabilities – IBM Cloud was showing off our platform capabilities at the US show, and we believe that we have a 12-month headstart on our competitors. While the US show was more of a showcase, the big announcement will come at VMworld Europe.

16:00: What is "the platform"? - It's a converged infrastructure—we've automated the deployment of bare metal servers and converged that together with the software stack. Clients can choose a combination of products in a standardized, supportable platform and deploy it pretty quickly. Deployment has gone from months to hours, and deployment is guaranteed.

20:00: What this means for devs – This new platform requires no new training or knowledge for admins and developers since VMware is so widely utilized.

23:37: Team IBM vs. Team AWS – We've made VMware on IBM totally open, and each client is treated with their specific needs in mind. Banks need more security and privacy, and we can provide it while maintaining flexibility. Complete transparency and full access to the platform. Watson's capabilities also provide some really interesting opportunities.

28:21: The interesting times that we live in, with machine learning, AI, and automation. 

31:02: Security and IBM's trusted role – Security in the cloud is our number one focus, and our cloud security is often more secure than many on-prem environments.

Links

• IBM at VMworld US in Las Vegas
• IBM Presents: Freestylin' the Cloud with Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen (video)
• VMworld Europe in Barcelona
• IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions
• IBM Cloud | VMware - Introducing a smarter, more seamless migration to the cloud (video)