At the recent IBM Data and AI Forum in Germany, IBM discussed the latest news surrounding their
business analytics portfolio. One of the key announcements shared by Mike McGeein (Product
Management Leader – IBM Planning Analytics with Watson) and Bill Primerano (Principal Worldwide
Data and AI Technical Specialist at IBM) was the developments to the Planning Analytics Engine for
IBM Planning Analytics with Watson. The new Planning Analytics Engine will help clients gain high
availability and elastic scaling on demand. Not only will new TM1 engine be available through Cloud
Pak for Data, but IBM also announced that clients will soon be able to access the power of this new
engine through a new deployment option – IBM Planning Analytics as-a-Service on AWS.
IBM Planning Analytics Engine
During the event Mike McGeein and Bill Primerano provided a demo of the latest version of the
engine, highlighting its high availability – a feature that IBM Planning Analytics users have been
demanding. They demonstrated how if the front-end server (they call it the leader) goes down then
the follower kicks in. This allows the end user to continue their planning journey uninterrupted.
IBM Planning Analytics as-a-Service on AWS
The big announcement though was the launch of IBM Planning Analytics as-a-Service on AWS. Mike
and Bill explained how it will come with the new Planning Analytics Engine as well as Planning
Analytics Workspace and Planning Analytics for Excel. Giving clients access to all their planning tools.
They discussed the scalability of IBM Planning Analytics SaaS on AWS, noting how you’ll have the
ability to scale the resources as a customer. The customer will be able to change the things they
need – whether that’s the amount of RAM or additional users – right there within the product itself.
Mike called it “the Planning Analytics you know and love but now offered on AWS”!
We then heard from Andy Busch, the Senior Partner Development Manager for IBM Software at
AWS. He talked about the partnership between IBM and AWS and how bringing together the leader
in public cloud with the leader in enterprise software was a natural fit. At the beginning of the year
IBM signed a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS to bring a broad area of their software
catalogue onto the AWS marketplace. There are already about 50 products from IBM available on
the marketplace for easy purchase and deployment. Andy noted how AWS customers were looking
for enterprise leading software services and that he was excited that IBM Planning Analytics will
soon joining the many IBM solutions that can be accessed on AWS.
Andy Busch went on to explain that the ability to go to AWS and deploy these SaaS solutions can
greatly speed up deployment. For example, when deploying Cloud Pak for Data on top of Red Hat
OpenShift running on AWS, the solution can be up and running in 45 minutes or less.
Did you know that DataSkill can assist you with your purchase of IBM Software on AWS and that
such a software purchase through DataSkill counts to burn down committed spend on your
Enterprise Discount Program? Contact us for more information.
Find out more about IBM Planning Analytics with Watson at our IBM Analytics 101 Webinar. Sign up
at https://www.DataSkill.com/Analytics101