IT Jungle: A Little More Detail on the Smart Cube and Its Market

December 10 2008

A project I have started to get involved with since moving back into product management...

As I explained back in May, the Smart Cube appliance is not just a box with an operating system, but a box that has a consistent way of installing and maintaining software on the box and accessing remote services, be they technical support or remote processing of some kind. The idea behind this framework, which is built from a common set of APIs and a common toolkit and which is called the Smart Business Application Integrator, is to standardize how software and services link together, regardless of operating system. ...

Anyway, the idea behind the framework is to have operating systems, systems management, database, middleware, and application software all plug together in such a way that remote management, patching, and updating of the entire stack is consistent and automated. IBM and its partners also want to make the delivery of services, such as disaster recovery or data replication, absolutely transparent to the end user and to make monitoring of the underlying hardware and its software easy, too.

As described back in May, the Blue Business platform also includes an online marketplace with Amazon-style user ratings called the Global Application Marketplace, which we now know as the Smart Market. And this, according to Mike Prochaska, who is program director of the Blue Business Platform at IBM, is where the focus of the whole project really is.
Some of the work in progress from our team now is how to best package up Notes and Domino, and to provide an opportunity for Notes ISVs and partners, through the Smart Cube and Smart Marketplace.  As this article indicates, the project is in pilot in India today and will start a very gradual rollout in the US through 2009.

Link: IT Jungle: A Little More Detail on the Smart Cube and Its Market >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  IBM  Add/View Comments [11]

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  1. 1  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 12/10/2008 9:16:24 AM

    This is very cool stuff!

    Hows about launching Lotus Domino on the vmware appliance marketplace as well ?

    Cheers,

    ---* Bill

  1. 2  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 12/10/2008 9:21:39 AM

    Conceptually fantastic. I believe the biggest thing that holds back a wider operating system choice for most users, is the maintainability issues of installing/updating/removing software and settings.

    Linux desktop adoption is seriously hampered by this, IMCO. If this project can result in better standards and practices, we will all benefit.

  1. 3  Frank Paolino http://blog.maysoft.org/ | 12/10/2008 9:53:20 AM

    Interesting timing. One of our HP office servers has a SCSI problem and the management software is not on the server! Fixing this is going to be painful. An all-in-one management console would be great. I would like to not have to worry about keeping the hardware running and up to date.

    "updating of the entire stack is consistent and automated" would have prevented this from happening in the first place. I now have to apply the "pound of cure".

  1. 4  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 12/10/2008 10:15:12 AM

    Well a good thing I ruled out the name SmartCube for my new box which is premiering at Lotusphere. { Link }

  1. 5  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 12/10/2008 10:37:36 AM

    Or you could just buy a Socialtext Appliance, since we've been doing this for years. { Link } :-) Sorry Ed, I could not resist!

  1. 6  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 12/10/2008 11:04:58 AM

    @5 - Ed probably has your credit card number on file to bill you for the advertising. :)

  1. 7  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 12/10/2008 11:14:04 AM

    @6 Any leads are good leads! It is Lotus + Socialtext, not or. { Link }

  1. 8  Yancy Lent http://www.yancylent.com | 12/10/2008 12:01:33 PM

    Or you could just buy a Twitter virtual appliance clone for your organization, since I've been doing it for weeks. https://www.broadcastr.net Sorry Ed, I too, could not Resist.

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/10/2008 12:18:16 PM

    @5/8 there is a LOT more to this than just being a virtual appliance. We do that already with Foundations...maybe you can get your apps certified to run on Foundations. This is a much bigger thing...

  1. 10  Danny Lawrence  | 12/10/2008 1:28:07 PM

    OK, I'm puzzled, what is the difference from an end user (or low-volume reseller) between Foundations and the Smart Cube? Yes they are both "appliance-esque" SMB boxes that can run Domino and other apps, the linked article does a nice job describing the hardware, but from a user/integrator's perspective why would I choose one over the other?

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/10/2008 1:35:06 PM

    @10 Smart Cube will do more than just IBM Lotus software.. other IBM servers as well