🏢 IBM Tech 2024 Conference

Insights and takeaways from the IBM Tech 2024 conference

📅 2024-03-22

🎯 The Conference’s Theme

I recently received an invitation to the IBM Tech 2024 conference. IBM Tech is a technical recognition program launched by Arvind Krishna back in 2023. Being invited to this event represents one of the most notable technical recognitions within IBM. Consequently, I felt deeply honored. Moreover, I was really excited as this would be my very first experience attending a professional IT conference in person.

The conference took place in the captivating city of Dubai, drawing attendees from various corners of the globe. I had the privilege of participating in the second wave of the event, spanning from the 5th to the 8th of March. The opening plenary session, a pivotal moment of the conference, commenced on the 6th of March.

Regrettably, Arvind was unable to attend the conference in person. Nonetheless, he greeted us through a video message, extending his congratulations and conveying the overarching theme of the event, which can also be interpreted as IBM’s (and perhaps the world’s) current strategy: “Perfection is the enemy of good.”

This sentence got me thinking a lot. We live in a fast-paced world characterized by rapid change, meaning that swift adaptation becomes essential. However, it’s crucial to maintain focus and consistency as well to stay on track. On the other hand, you must also be willing to take risks and sacrifice perfection to craft something valuable and beneficial for our clients.

During the plenary session, we had some exhilarating presentations covering a range of topics including AI, Quantum, Infrastructure, Security, and Mainframe. While I won’t delve into the specifics, I would like to highlight Dario Gil’s session, as for me it was particularly captivating. Dario introduced us to the thrilling prospects of quantum technology and the future opportunities it holds for IBM.

As far as I’m concerned, I was somewhat astonished by the potential of Quantum combined with AI to accelerate development and shape trends, especially considering the already fast-paced nature of our world.

🧭 The Recreational Activity

After the plenary session, we enjoyed a delightful lunch at the Grand Hyatt. However, it wasn’t just about dining; it was primarily an opportunity for networking with colleagues from various departments and domains. Networking played a pivotal role throughout the event. I had the chance to meet numerous individuals during the sessions as well as during lunch and dinner.

After enjoying lunch with other IBMers/Red Hatters, we participated in a recreational activity. Various options were available, including a Burj Khalifa tour and a water explorer tour. Personally, I was invited to the souk explorer tour, which took us to a traditional market in the old town of Dubai. It was an exciting program, offering insight into the lifestyle of people outside Dubai’s city center and providing valuable cultural experiences within the market. Exploring the spice market and the gold market was particularly fascinating, as was witnessing almost infinite amount of merchandise available.

🎬 The Session

The sessions covered several hot topics: AI, Infrastructure/DevOps, Quantum, Security, and the intersection of these, especially the first two. As a DevOps specialist, I primarily registered for DevOps and Security-related sessions. However, these sessions almost always touched on the topic of AI. From this, it’s easy to understand that AI is not only a crucial component of IBM’s strategy, but it was also emphasized several times during the plenary session that AI presents an opportunity, and competitors who overlook it will ultimately fall behind.

🤖 Artificial Intelligence

My impression was that AI is not primarily replacing tools or technologies. Instead, it’s mainly used to enhance them and eliminate repetitive tasks. This allows developers, for example, to be more productive and resolve issues faster than they could without AI.

A good example is the Watsonx Code Assistant AI solution, primarily utilized for code generation based on specific inputs or for code translation between languages, such as converting COBOL to Java. This could prove extremely beneficial in the mainframe domain, where there’s a vast amount of code written in COBOL. Translating it to Java would facilitate codebase modularization, thereby enhancing its readability and, consequently, its reusability. In general, this would mean code modernization.

Another noteworthy Watsonx Code Assistant use case is with Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed which is a code assistant for Ansible powered by Watsonx Code Assistant. This would make the creation of Ansible content more efficient by accelerating the process of generating Ansible workbooks, while ensuring the generation of high-quality and secure code that aligns with best practices and standards.

watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed leverages generative AI to accelerate development while maintaining the principles of trust, security and compliance at its core.”

From these examples, we can see that IBM puts significant effort into AI-supported development, with the goal of simplifying developers’ lives by reducing the learning curve to adopt new languages or frameworks and automating repetitive tasks. This enables developers to focus on more valuable tasks, resulting in a more efficient and productive development process. Overall, there is a strong emphasis on improving the developer experience.

🛠️ Infrastructure

Automation also plays a pivotal role in modern IT, and IBM demonstrates a commitment to modernizing within this field. A tool that can be used to reliably accelerate the automation of your infrastructure is Ansible.

“Ansible is the de facto language of automation.”

With its agentless architecture, it offers a relatively straightforward approach to gaining control over multiple resources and consistently automating your infrastructure.

During the sessions about Ansible, the team presented their aim to make the tool fast and accessible for beginners. As previously mentioned, to speed up developer onboarding and enhance code quality, they have started utilizing the Watsonx Code Assistant to assist developers in generating Ansible content. In addition to this solution, they are continually developing new tools and solutions to further simplify the lives of Ansible developers.

Operationalizing AI is another significant challenge in today’s landscape, as highlighted in one of the sessions. It requires integrating AI into the daily operations of your organization, transitioning it from experimental stages to full-scale production. Red Hat introduced a new platform called Red Hat Openshift AI which aims to simplify and accelerate this process.

OpenShift AI is an MLOps platform designed to assist developers in building, deploying, and managing AI-enabled applications. It was fascinating to learn that this platform is built on top of other open-source technologies. Essentially, it provides a securely configured and tested set of tools that enables faster production deployment of AI-enabled applications.

“Red Hat OpenShift A platform for continuous development, integration, and deployment for AI/ML models, such as GPU support”

🛡️ Security

The sessions about security primarily centered around AI. The rationale behind this focus is clear: AI introduces new opportunities, challenges, and rules, which forces us to reassess our security protocols. Two particularly interesting perspectives have been highlighted: leveraging GenAI for security and the security of GenAI.

While one might assume that the adoption of AI weakens our defensive capabilities, the reality is quite the opposite. AI can support the defenders just as effectively. As a matter of fact, the importance of minimizing human interface latencies and prioritizing AI over human involvement was emphasized.

“Protecting foundation models, generative AI, and their data sets is essential for enterprise-ready AI”

When discussing Security for AI, it’s crucial to ensure that the AI training data remains safeguarded against theft or manipulation of sensitive data. Additionally, securing the model development process is essential, which can be achieved by running scans to identify vulnerabilities or security gaps and to force developers to apply security best practices. I believe this part could have been tied to the Openshift AI session. Openshift AI could indeed provide a solution for continuous scans and help implement security best practices.

On the other hand, AI for Security serves to automate repetitive tasks, such as scanning logs and sending summary reports to development teams. Moreover, AI can analyze workflows and security groups, alerting developers to potential security threats. Ultimately, AI has the potential to respond to specific security incidents, significantly reducing response times.

💡 Final Thoughts

The IBM Tech 2024 conference, held in Dubai, showcased the company’s dedication to technological innovation and advancement. With a focus on themes like AI, Quantum, Infrastructure, Security, and Mainframe, the event provided valuable insights into the future of technology and its impact on various industries.

Overall, the conference provided a comprehensive overview of IBM’s technological advancements and strategies, highlighting the company’s commitment to driving innovation and addressing the evolving needs of the digital landscape.

I really enjoyed the conference and my stay in the stunning city of Dubai. As this was my first in-person conference, it was an incredibly enriching experience, and I sincerely hope it won’t be my last. These events not only provide motivation to the invitees but also spark new ideas through conversations with experts from around the world. The opportunity to exchange insights and perspectives with peers is invaluable and can lead to innovative collaborations.