Trick or treat! Halloween is here in the U.S., and we have a fresh round of Bluemix announcements and Bluemix UI updates. Keep reading for details on all of the new “treats” this month:
- New IBM and Twitter partnership
- Addition of Ustream Service
- Introduction of IBM DataWorks and IBM dashDB Services
- New Object Storage Service
- General Availability of Internet of Things Foundation
- Updated Buildpacks for Java and Node.js
- Enablement of High Availability for Data Cache and Session Cache Services
- Enhanced UI functionality, such as:
IBM and Twitter
An exciting partnership was announced this week between IBM and Twitter. By combining the worldwide social pulse from Twitter with IBM’s powerful cloud-based analytics, customer engagement platforms, and consulting services, businesses will be able to gain brand new insights into their customers and market trends. Learn more in the blog post Tapping the Public Pulse of the Planet.
Addition of Ustream Service
Interested in adding video streaming to your Bluemix apps? We’ve got you covered with the brand new addition of the Ustream service to the Bluemix Catalog. You can find more details in the blog post by Balázs Kereskenyi (product manager at Ustream) as well as the Bluemix docs.
Introduction of IBM DataWorks and IBM dashDB
As mentioned in Bryan Casey’s blog post, the new beta service IBM DataWorks and an updated IBM dashDB (formerly IBM Analytics Warehouse) are now available in the Bluemix Catalog.
DataWorks is a data refinery intended to speed application development by providing REST APIs to get the data you need, when you need it. APIs are available to load data, cleanse US postal addresses, and classify data. See Getting started with IBM DataWorks for more information.
The dashDB service is a data warehousing and analytics solution. You can quickly move your data into a next-generation columnar in-memory database, start running complex analytical queries with in-database algorithms, and integrate with R language and other analytic and business intelligence tools. See Getting started with dashDB for more information.
New Object Storage Service
The new beta Object Storage service is based on SoftLayer Object Storage which is based on OpenStack Swift. It has built-in support for provisioning independent object stores and creates an individual sub-account per object store. See Getting started with Object Storage for more information.
General Availability of Internet of Things Foundation
The Internet of Things Foundation has moved from beta to general availability. It provides simple but powerful application access to IoT devices and data. See Getting started with Internet of Things Foundation for more information.
NOTE: There are changes that will require beta users to take action. See IBM Internet of Things Foundation: Bluemix Changes for details.
Updated Buildpacks for Java and Node.js
The Liberty for Java and SDK for Node.js buildpacks have been updated with fixes, enhancements, and improved integration with Bluemix services. Learn more in the blog post Updated: Node.js & Liberty Buildpack.
Enablement of High Availability for Data Cache and Session Cache Services
We’re also pleased to announce the provisioning engines for the Data Cache and Session Cache services have been enabled for high availability and now support failover and auto-recovery. Provisioning these services will perform faster, be more scalable, and more reliable.
Enhanced UI Functionality
Improved Catalog Filtering
Our Catalog keeps growing. To help you find interesting services faster, we’ve introduced a new filter panel on the left hand side of the Catalog. If you’re interested in a particular category, just select it in the tree. For example, in the screen shot below, I’ve checked Watson and only Watson services are shown.
Pricing Overview Enhancements
We’ve heard your comments about Bluemix pricing. So, this month we completed another round of improvements to our Pricing page. The calculators have been updated, and we’ve improved the explanation of how our financial relationships work. Now, it’s even easier to understand the value you get from using Bluemix!
Removal of “Add-on” Terminology
In previous releases, the UI contained a concept called “add-ons” to describe services intended to facilitate operation and management of apps (as opposed to services you leverage directly from code). While this was well-intentioned, we’ve found this terminology did more to confuse users than help them.
Starting in this release, all references to “add-on” have been removed from the UI. Functionally, there will be no difference. But, those of you who have used add-ons will notice they aren’t differentiated from other services anymore.
The services that are no longer referred to as “add-ons” include:
- App User Registry
- Auto-Scaling
- Cloud Integration
- Delivery Pipeline
- Monitoring and Analytics
- Track & Plan
Miscellaneous Usability Improvements and Defects
We’re always striving to improve overall quality so you have the best Bluemix experience possible. This month we’ve made a number of usability tweaks, infrastructure improvements, and bug fixes. One of our focus areas was performance, so we hope you notice improved page load times (especially in the Dashboard and App Details).
What’s Next?
We hope you’ll try out the new services and all of the other awesome updates this month. Your feedback is very important. If you have questions or other comments, please let us know on the Bluemix Dev-to-Dev Community or tweet us at @IBMBluemix. And, if you want to talk to Bluemix developers in person, check out one of the local Bluemix meetups in your area or look for us at a conference.
Finally, remember if you don’t already have an account, you can simply go to www.bluemix.net and get free instant access to a 30-day trial without a credit card!
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