Today, IT infrastructure services provider Kyndryl launched a platform aimed at helping IT organizations capitalize on pre-built integrations between diverse elements of its IT estates to alleviate custom development and accelerate its efforts to drive business growth.
Kyndryl Bridge provides integrations or connectors that embody the intellectual property the company has amassed through its client engagements.
“This is a phenomenal warchest of tools and capabilities that have only ever been available to our local account teams. We’ve done this for thousands of customers around the globe, in millions of iterations.”
Antoine Shagoury, Chief Technology Officer of Kyndryl
Shagoury, in fact, was one of those customers who, as a former CIO, wrestled with precisely the types of complexity and custom work that customers would otherwise need to manage internally. “We wanted to bring it to a digital consumption model and make it available at scale,” he said, noting that the platform will support virtually every major application, software-defined network, hardware platform, physical infrastructure component, and more.
The company aims to not only deliver integrations as a managed service to follow today’s prevalent IT delivery model, but it also believes this approach will accelerate the modernization and transformation efforts on which so many customers are embarking.
Specifically, Kyndryl will offer connectors for integration, automations, tools, and APIs — along with related consulting services — that are specific to the customer’s business and existing tech infrastructure, enabling them to efficiently navigate options that apply directly to their hardware, software, and cloud services.
For instance, if a customer is looking to integrate its VMware virtualization infrastructure with AWS cloud services, that functionality will be available in what amounts to a library that they can tap into so that integration can take place expeditiously.
The complexity inherent in most IT environments is generally viewed as an impediment to business agility and innovation. By providing interoperability between systems that customers already have in place, Kyndryl expects that its Bridge platform will increase the value and utility of those trusted tools.
“We have over 50 implementation patterns across the hyperscalers that are repeatable,” Shagoury says, referencing Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. “This is a cloud-native service that allows us to build virtual constructs based on clients’ needs.”
Additional functionality in the platform supports managed operations for visibility and operational capability spanning the customer’s IT estate. It includes native integration to widely used management platforms, including Splunk, Sumo Logic, and Science Logic. This means that IT leaders can gain IT insights from a single place to help prevent downtime and forecast future needs as well as costs. This type of functionality is far more difficult to deliver when the systems involved operate in silos and are not integrated for data sharing.
A twinning environment that is part of the Bridge platform will enable tech and business leaders to understand how the deployment of new technology and services would impact their current environment.
Partners and prospective partners whose tech is supported by Bridge are embracing the concept, Shagoury says. “This is being very well received across cloud providers and cloud native partners because it’s complementary; we’re closing the last mile.”
Related Kyndryl insight:
For more exclusive coverage of innovative cloud companies, check out Cloud Wars Horizon here: