Middleware Consulting International

Solutions will help organizations with the challenges of implementing COVID-19 testing and vaccination requirements

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and ATLANTA, Dec. 15, 2021 — IBM Watson Health and Healthcare IT Leaders today announced the integration of IBM Digital Health Pass with Healthcare IT Leaders Healthy Returns, a comprehensive suite of enterprise COVID-19 services.

The IBM Digital Health Pass is designed to enable organizations to verify COVID-19 test results or vaccination status for employees, customers and visitors entering their site, such as a sports stadium, airplane, university, government building or workplace. Relying on a combination of encryption, QR codes and blockchain technology, the IBM Digital Health Pass is a secured, voluntary digital alternative to paper test results or vaccination cards and provides another option, if needed, for individuals to share that they have tested negative or been vaccinated for COVID-19.

In addition to the IBM Digital Health Pass, services offered through the Healthcare IT Leaders Healthy Returns practice include managed COVID-19 testing, delivered onsite or at home with enterprise-level reporting, and a range of vaccination support services.

“New regulations are challenging many organizations to implement COVID-19 testing and vaccination requirements in their workplace or businesses,” said Bob Bailey, Principal and Founder, Healthcare IT Leaders. “We are working with organizations such as the American Logistics Association (ALA) and many others to streamline and make the process of COVID-19 status verification easier with the use of the IBM Digital Health Pass.”

President of ALA Steve Rosetti added, “It’s important to provide a digital ID designed to cut through complex procedures and produce a secure COVID-19 credential that is easily produced, recognized and validated by our clients.”

IBM Digital Health Pass can help generate secure COVID-19 vaccination and test credentials through a network of labs and providers, such as Healthcare IT Leaders. Multiple types of COVID-19 health credentials, in addition to the IBM Digital Health Pass, such as Good Health Pass, SMART Health Card and EU Digital COVID Certificate, can be verified with the IBM Digital Health Pass Verify app with its multi-credential verification capability.

“We are committed to collaborating with organizations and industry groups to support the use of digital COVID-19 health credentials,” said Eric Piscini, Global Vice President, Emerging Business Networks, IBM Watson Health. “We are delighted to be working with Healthcare IT leaders to integrate IBM Digital Health Pass into their applications and existing organizational networks to deliver unique solutions to our clients.”

Samsung and IBM continue to build upon long-standing strategic partnership with challenge for developers using Samsung and IBM technology

SEOUL, South Korea and ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 26, 2021 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and IBM today announced the Call for Code Honoring Everyday Heroes Challenge for enterprise developers to encourage the development of new technology solutions to help everyday heroes. The Challenge, which was unveiled during the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC), will look to address challenges faced by delivery personnel, childcare workers, healthcare frontline workers, educators, and many more who have been invaluable to society during the Covid-19 pandemic. Application submissions will be evaluated by a judging panel from IBM and Samsung and the winner will receive a cash prize, Samsung devices, and deployment support for their solution.

“Our everyday heroes have tirelessly served us throughout the pandemic and we want to make their lives, and the lives of others around the world, easier and productive with new levels of connectivity and insights from technology,” said KC Choi, EVP and Head of Global Mobile B2B Team, Samsung Electronics. “To achieve this, innovation must be open. That’s why we’ve been working closely with IBM as well as our valued developer communities using open source platforms. It’s also why I’m honored to serve as an ‘Eminent Judge’ for this year’s 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge, along with other worldwide leaders in sustainability, business and technology. I look forward to seeing the submissions for both Call for Code challenges come to life.”

Submissions for the Call for Code Honoring Everyday Heroes Challenge must be able to run on a Samsung tablet, smartphone, and/or wearable device and make use of one or more IBM open hybrid cloud technologies such as IBM Cloud or IBM Watson. Participants will also have access to Samsung toolkits, as well as data from The Weather Company. The deadline for submissions is November 20^th, with the winner announced on December 9^th. In addition to Samsung technology and a cash prize from IBM, the winner will receive support from both companies to help bring their solution to life to make a real difference for everyday heroes.

“IBM and Samsung have a long history of proven success working together to improve business outcomes for clients and also for social good,” said Bob Lord, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems at IBM. “Earlier this year, IBM, Samsung, and others worked together to deploy the 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge winning solution, Prometeo. I look forward to seeing how developers can use our open technologies now to benefit some of the most deserving people in the world today, our everyday heroes.”

The partnership between Samsung and IBM extends over 30 years, starting with work on semiconductors and now mobility, AI, 5G, Industry 4.0 and networks. At SDC, Samsung and IBM Consulting are announcing a collaboration to modernize hybrid work environments with mobile experiences optimized for the Galaxy Z Fold3, co-designed with major financial services institutions.

Additionally, to accelerate the convergence of Industry 4.0 between cloud-native applications and mobility, IBM and Samsung are researching ways to bring containerized AI workloads to Samsung Android devices with IBM Edge Application Manager. This effort focuses on using containers on Samsung devices to enable workloads to be flexibly deployed, managed and processed across premises such as factories, retail stores, warehouses, hotels and distribution centers to help drive faster development of powerful new use cases for mobile and edge computing.

Samsung and IBM continue to work together to create services that enable businesses and enterprise developers to take full advantage of cutting-edge networks, mobility and analytics.

DAPPER combines Deloitte Analytics Platform with IBM Cloud Pak for Data on Red Hat OpenShift

ARMONK, N.Y. and NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2021 — IBM and Deloitte today announced a new offering—DAPPER, an AI-enabled managed analytics solution. The solution reinforces the two organizations’ 21-year global alliance—which helps organizations accelerate the adoption of hybrid cloud and AI across the enterprise—and 10 years of experience implementing the Deloitte Analytics Platform. DAPPER’s end-to-end capabilities will allow organizations to gain confidence in the insights that their data provides via a secured, simple to consume managed service offering that aims to resolve the challenges of adopting AI.

Relevant and actionable data can catapult companies to success in today’s competitive, insights-driven business environment. Clients across industries report they are struggling to accelerate the value of AI and analytics—due to lack of trust in data, domain expertise, and the resources to create a solution that can work across business environments—while simultaneously meeting strict security and compliance requirements. Gartner^® recommends its clients “choose AI cloud services over building custom models to address a broader range of use cases and for quicker deployment and built in scalability” (Hype Cycle^TM for Cloud Computing, 2021, Published 14 July 2021 – ID G00747400, by David Smith, Ed Anderson).

DAPPER is a result of the combined technology leadership, hands-on business experience, and industry experience of the Deloitte and IBM alliance. DAPPER combines the Deloitte Analytics Platform with IBM Cloud Pak for Data on Red Hat OpenShift to offer business users a fully-managed AI solution­–designed to avoid needing to commit the resources and lengthy time associated with developing, implementing, and managing a bespoke solution.

Built upon IBM’s modern hybrid cloud architecture and AI technology, DAPPER brings organizations the ability to scale up operations, promote an organization’s trust in its data, and enable smart reporting. DAPPER is a managed service run by Deloitte in the IBM Cloud, and available on premises or in multi-cloud environments. Its fully-managed analytics service provides a choice of service offerings and subscription model, and contains three core elements, built so that businesses can obtain maximum value out of their data:

• A cloud-enabled analytics platform: Security and analytics platform backed by IBM with streamlined administration, operations and maintenance provided by Deloitte, engineered to give business users a seamless, automated data analytics solution.
• Analytics development factory: Access to specialized analytics building blocks and methods engineered to streamline analytics development with operations, giving a DevOps experience to help accelerate the delivery of analytics assets.
• Catalog of subscription service offerings: Combines simplicity with data integrations to offer a selection of analytics services including dashboards, enterprise reporting, data management tools, and orchestration and consumption of AI.

With DAPPER, Deloitte and IBM can help data scientists and business users alike build, organize, and manage insight-providing assets to help promote reporting that can be trusted within an organization and AI solutions so that enterprises can focus on business outcomes.

For example, with DAPPER, Deloitte and IBM can help enable a government organization to address fraud, such as tax fraud or those related to employment benefits, pension, or money laundering. With DAPPER, an analytics cloud can collect and help business users report upon siloed data across disparate data centers, making data available for advanced AI algorithms and reports, operating associated use cases, and supporting clients’ regulatory compliance requirements. Delivered as a managed service offering, all of this is designed to be deployed within weeks rather than months, and draws from real-time data across various business units or in this example, government agencies.

“Today’s announcement is another proof point of the companies’ longtime collaboration to help clients modernize with advanced technology,” said Evaristus Mainsah, GM, Hybrid Cloud and Edge Ecosystem, IBM. “Together, Deloitte and IBM have created a flexible hybrid cloud engine that can extract real value for clients by using AI to make the most of their data. DAPPER will drive transformation, spur innovation, and reshape business to pave a pathway to digital dominance.”

Richard Houston, Senior Partner and CEO Deloitte North & South Europe said, “DAPPER is built on 10 years of Deloitte’s business and technology innovation. It represents another market-leading example of how Deloitte and IBM have combined technology, experience and industry knowledge to help clients turn data into insights—quickly, reliably, and repeatedly.”

Deloitte, an IBM Platinum Business Partner, is part of IBM’s partner ecosystem, an initiative to support partners of all types—whether they build on, service or resell IBM technologies and platforms—to help clients manage and modernize workloads from the mainframe to the edge and everything in between using IBM solutions and Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform.

Open source Call for Code for Racial Justice solution “Five Fifths Voter” deploys during National Voter Education Week to help educate voters and make their voices heard

ARMONK, N.Y. and LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5, 2021 — IBM and the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles announced today during National Voter Education Week the deployment of a new solution designed to help improve awareness of local, statewide, and national issues in communities lacking traditional access to and education about voting. Five Fifths Voter is a web-based application built using open source-powered technology to help educate, empower and enable disenfranchised minority voters to overcome setbacks incurred by voter suppression.

Five Fifths Voter, available for both desktop and mobile browsers, provides one place where users can check their registration status, register to vote, and access information about deadlines, ballot drop-offs, and polling locations. It also offers resources tailored for specific circumstances including parents requiring childcare, people with disabilities, convicted felons, and senior citizens.

“For decades, the YMCA has been an invaluable resource for young Angelenos and their families,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “Through this collaboration with IBM, the Y will foster civic engagement and help to make our democracy more accessible to young people across the region.”

The web app was customized to the diverse needs of Metropolitan Los Angeles’ communities based on input from YMCA-LA and members from its Teens and Government program who participated in design thinking workshops with IBM and identified challenges they have encountered in voting. The customization includes translation of the app in 11 languages prevalent in the area, resources for young voters to prepare themselves to vote in upcoming elections, and clear steps people can follow to help their community engage in the civic process given the YMCA’s focus on the youth and underrepresented demographic.

“The collaboration with IBM gives the YMCA-LA the virtual tools to educate and empower our communities with essential resources to participate in the voting process,” said Mario Valenzuela, Vice President of Equity and Inclusion, YMCA-LA. “We’re thankful for this opportunity to provide realistic solutions to this youth-led initiative to get out the vote and encourage community members to use their voice to facilitate positive change.”

Five Fifths Voter was one of seven projects IBM made available for anyone to contribute code to last year through open source as part of Call for Code for Racial Justice, an effort to bring the developer community together to create practical tools that help tackle one of the greatest challenges of our time: racial injustice. The code is containerized and can be deployed across hybrid cloud environments, including multi-cloud with Red Hat OpenShift. Some of the open source frameworks and languages used include Vue.js, Node.js, Python, Apache CouchDB, and Carbon Design System. The web app is hosted on IBM Cloud; was built using technology including IBM Watson Tone Analyzer and Watson Natural Language Understanding; and uses the Google Civic and Google Maps APIs.

The Call for Code for Racial Justice projects, including Five Fifths Voter, are shared online so anyone can contribute code to enhance them with a focus on three key areas: police and judicial reform and accountability, diverse representation, and policy and legislation reform. Call for Code for Racial Justice is part of the broader Call for Code tech-for-good initiative in which more than 500,000 developers and problem solvers across 180 nations have participated since launch in 2018 to address problems such as climate change and COVID-19 with open source-powered software.

“Working with strong community organizations like YMCA-LA was our goal when we first created Call for Code for Racial Justice,” IBM Call for Code Director Ruth Davis said. “We believe bringing together developers, ecosystem partners, and communities around the world can drive lasting impact in the fight against systemic racism and are looking forward to enhancing Five Fifths Voter’s capabilities and bringing it to more communities.”

IBM and YMCA-LA invite developers in the Greater Los Angeles area and around the United States to contribute their ideas and code to the solution to further enhance it and make it even more relevant to their local communities’ needs.

ARMONK, N.Y. and LITTLETON, Colo., Sept. 14, 2021 — DISH Network Corporation (NYSE:DISH) selected IBM to help automate the United States’ first greenfield cloud-native 5G network. DISH’s new smart network will be designed to be agile, scalable and fully virtualized, benefitting enterprise customers across all industry verticals. DISH will leverage IBM’s AI-powered automation and network orchestration software and services to bring broad 5G network orchestration to DISH’s business and operations platforms. Intent-driven orchestration, a software-powered automation process, and artificial intelligence (AI) will be utilized to drive the operations of DISH’s cloud-native 5G network architecture.

DISH has engaged IBM Global Business Services to use IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation software with DISH’s 5G network architecture. Central to this is the intent-based orchestration functionality designed to stitch hardware and software resources together more seamlessly and efficiently, expected to help DISH make network slicing possible and accelerate the creation and delivery of new services.

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation software is designed to continuously learn, provide insights and use financial impact analysis to prioritize and manage issue resolution and network function. The ability to simultaneously regulate the lifecycle, optimize the performance and customer-specific needs of each slice on the network is a key differentiator for DISH as it seeks to drive innovation benefitting the enterprise market.

DISH also plans to use advanced network slicing to offer new use cases and industry vertical opportunities that are customized to each business and customer who leverages the private hybrid 5G network. Network slices – individual pieces that comprise said network – will be managed by customers to set service levels for each device appropriate to their use of the network. For example, an autonomous vehicle can be supported by very low latency while an HD video camera can be allocated high bandwidth.

“Our 5G build is unique in that we are truly creating a ‘network of networks,’ where each enterprise can custom-tailor a network slice or group of slices to achieve their specific business needs. IBM’s orchestration solutions leverage AI, automation and machine learning to not only make these slices possible, but to ensure they adapt over time as customer use evolves,” said Marc Rouanne, chief network officer, DISH Wireless. “With IBM, DISH is combining the speed and latency advances of 5G with the customization and intelligence of the cloud, and the result will be a paradigm shift for small businesses, large enterprises and the broader wireless industry.”

“This is a seminal moment for DISH and the global telecommunications industry,” said Steve Canepa, managing director, IBM Global Communications Sector. “By utilizing IBM’s AI-powered automation and intent-driven network orchestration software, DISH can develop and deploy network offerings, applying advanced AI with IBM Watson and orchestration capabilities to help optimize network operations and performance. As a result, DISH can accelerate time to market for new innovative services powered by a secured, automated, intelligent and agile 5G network.”

IBM Global Business Services has been engaged to provide multi-vendor implementation and integration of the business support systems functions with the goal of helping to improve DISH’s customer sales and service experience for advanced, modern and highly dynamic network services. By supporting self-managed to fully managed networks, DISH will be able to offer customers the freedom to focus on other important business priorities.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.

ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 2, 2021 — Today, IBM is announcing an updated, customized experience powered by IBM Watson artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the ESPN Fantasy App designed to make the game more engaging for fantasy football players. New this year, IBM is launching customizable and more simplified projections and player comparisons in the Trade Assistant with Watson tool. Building on last season’s successful launch of Trade Assistant with Watson, the tool now allows ESPN fantasy football players to customize trade preferences, get personalized trade recommendations and view data-driven metrics to transparently explain suggested trades.

Customizing the Trades
To improve the game for fantasy players of all levels and skillsets, IBM worked with ESPN to create a more customizable, transparent and understandable experience within the ESPN Fantasy App. Trade Assistant with IBM Watson was initially introduced to reduce the complexities of fantasy football trades by using AI to suggest trades and to assess the fairness and value of a proposed trade. Now within the app, fantasy players can personalize their trade packages by identifying Players of Interest (Watch List), Players to Trade, Players NOT to Trade, and Positions to Trade.

Also new this year, Trade Assistant can offer “No Brainer” Trade Suggestions, which include basic trade recommendations designed for newer fantasy football players who may not be aware of glaring issues with their lineups, such as missing positions or too few players on their roster. In addition, Trade Assistant will focus on “1 for 1” or “2 for 2” trades, meaning trading one player for one other player, instead of more complex trade suggestions. These improvements are the result of IBM and ESPN working together to address user feedback and to engage new and less experienced fantasy players over the past few years.

More Data
This season Trade Assistant will offer more data and analytics within the app to provide a more transparent explanation for suggested trades, so fantasy players can better understand why certain trades are recommended. Within the experience, Trade Assistant will now provide a Weekly Scoring Average that compares an individual’s team to the rest of the teams in their league, showing pre- and post-trade values within the app. The app will also offer insights into “fair trades” and the “boom percentage” pre-and post-trades, meaning Trade Assistant will show whether the players in the trade are more likely to “boom” (play better than projected) or “bust” (play worse than projected) after a proposed trade.

Using IBM Watson Discovery‘s natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, Trade Assistant is based on trustworthy AI and is able to suggest trades, as well as provide additional insights by extracting, translating and reviewing inputs on football players and teams, such as player stats and experts’ sentiment from various sources, including ESPN.com, news articles, blogs, and podcast transcripts. With IBM Watson Studio’s AutoAI capabilities and the IBM Research AI Fairness 360 toolkit, ESPN can now streamline the process of constructing and training models, while providing in-depth analysis into why certain decisions were made. Within Trade Assistant, which runs on IBM Cloud, ESPN is also able to address bias or unfair predictions along selected attributes, such as a player’s team.

Insights on IBM Cloud
For the 2021 season, IBM is continuing Player Insights with Watson to help fantasy players better understand matchups, analyze players’ boom or bust chances, and assess the impact of injuries on their rosters. The redeployed Player Insights with Watson builds on features launched last year that offered player comparison and share capabilities.

The technologies behind both Player Insights with Watson and Trade Assistant with Watson use AI running on a hybrid cloud architecture to help improve the experience of playing fantasy football. These features are built on containerized apps using Red Hat OpenShift, and run on IBM Cloud. IBM developers creating these features are able to quickly build and securely deploy new solutions in any environment, due to the flexibility of the cloud.

“IBM’s technologies help to make ESPN Fantasy Football more interactive for our fans and differentiated from other products,” said Chris Jason, senior director, product management, Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, Fantasy Sports. “Players of all levels can use the IBM Trade Assistant and Player Insights tools to make more informed decisions and better compete against their friends, which creates a more engaging experience.”

“Our innovations within the ESPN Fantasy App reflect the work we do with clients all over the world. IBM Watson is helping make sense of complex data, and creating interactive, customizable experiences using AI and cloud technology. The same technologies in the Fantasy Football app that explain trades can also help streamline complexities, improve workflows and engage customers for businesses of all sizes,” said Noah Syken, Vice President of Sports & Entertainment Partnerships, IBM.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 25, 2021 — IBM Security today announced new Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) services designed to help accelerate organizations’ adoption of cloud-delivered security at the edge, closer to the users and devices that access corporate resources. The new services combine expertise and methods from IBM Security with technology from Zscaler, to help deliver a fully managed transformation to a cloud-based SASE architecture, a key element of a zero trust security posture.

According to a new commissioned study from IBM, conducted by Forrester Consulting, 78% of organizations surveyed are either interested in, or plan to, implement SASE in the next 12 months.¹ SASE helps bring together software defined networking and network security technologies into a single, cloud-based service. SASE is a new architecture model designed to address the requirements of organizations who are digitally transforming, adopting cloud and SaaS applications, and providing services to a hybrid workforce and customer base.

“Traditional approaches to network security are not as viable in a digital world where users and applications are distributed. We’re seeing this transformation happen right before our eyes as many organizations plan to operate in a hybrid model for the foreseeable future,” said Mary O’Brien, General Manager, IBM Security. “This new approach requires a shift in culture, processes and collaboration across teams alongside a new technology architecture. By focusing on business needs, our zero trust approach can help accelerate this transformation for clients thanks to the skills, methods and capabilities brought together via our alliance partnership with Zscaler.”

Announcing IBM Security Services for SASE
For many organizations, the transformation to SASE is a shift in how security is structured today. Security and IT teams are challenged with effectively implementing a SASE solution in a non-disruptive way, changing the processes and culture to accommodate the transformation and realize a quick time-to-value. IBM Security Services for SASE is designed to help organizations transform their network security, applying an approach tailored to their unique needs. This approach can help clients to support key business drivers, including hybrid workforce, seamless third-party access, merger & acquisition execution, and network transformation for the hybrid cloud, 5G, and IoT.

IBM offers a programmatic approach to SASE led by security and cloud specialists who work with clients to create SASE adoption plans while also managing the related services for clients to optimize the environment.  This is based on IBM Security’s five-step maturity model, helping clients identify a target maturity that focuses on business outcomes. IBM uses a zero trust strategy, best practices and methods to implement Zscaler’s market-leading SASE capabilities including the creation of governing processes and policies that facilitate a SASE transformation. The transformation is supported by certified deployment and integration expertise by Zscaler at a pace that suits digital business. Finally, customers can benefit from best-in class IBM Managed Security Services, the market-leading managed security services provider globally. Services can include around-the-clock security monitoring, management, and continuous improvement of the SASE solution to evolving threats.

The resulting SASE program is designed to help organizations protect their priority business drivers with a zero trust approach:

• Hybrid Workforce Access: IBM can provide a network access solution based on zero trust methods which can replace traditional VPN connectivity, help increase protection and support faster, seamless user experiences. This can provide organizations with a flexible and scalable cloud-delivered access solution that can adapt to employees alternating between working in and out of the office.
• Third-Party Access: IBM can develop a solution that allows organizations to define and extend internal workforce policies to contractor and third-party users. This includes requiring an equivalent level of authentication and offers visibility and control over who can see sensitive data and resources. Organizations can also gain the ability to set up individual policies by type of user, group, and application.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: IBM can design integrated access management using an organization’s existing identity provider solutions with the other companies involved in a merger or acquisition, which can help speed up access and transition for employees from both sides.
• Network Transformation: IBM can help organizations transform their network from a traditional model to a cloud-based framework as part of their overall SASE implementation strategy. This approach could  help provide lower latency, cost savings and is supported by a cloud-delivered network security structure.
• 5G, Edge and IoT Protection and Support: IBM can help enable edge computing to receive branch-to-cloud protection and organizations can use integrated edge computing security from the complete SASE solution, enabling additional IoT business drivers. All these items can also strategically help in cloud transformation.

“Implementing a zero trust architecture is an important step for organizations adopting SASE to effectively secure new distributed working models and safeguard mission-critical services that have now moved to the cloud,” said Jay Chaudhry, Chairman, CEO and Founder of Zscaler. “Through our expanded alliance partnership with IBM, as part of the Zscaler Zero Trust Ecosystem, customers can confidently expedite their secure digital transformation journey to support essential initiatives from ensuring secure employee productivity from anywhere to accelerating M&A transactions.”