Maximo Application Suite on OpenShift

Maximo Application Suite (MAS) is the latest version of Maximo and a move from Maximo EAM, this is a big move for many organisations as it moves the deployment from servers to OpenShift and some different ways in licensing. One of the coolest things to see was a big push towards DevOps good practices, getting everything as code and getting automation for everything, including tests in place. Moving from pets to cattle as a way of thinking about the application stack.

Why are we talking about MAS?

Through Florian Jacquin, one of my fellow BBs here in EMEA, we were invited to attend an event with IBM to talk with IBM developers and Maximo customers about OpenShift and the MAS application(s).

This event took place in IBMs Hursley campus and actually in the old house. A very impressive place to hold any kind of event.

As a MOBB we were there to help people understand what OpenShift was, how it works underneath the hood and how it wasn’t just for MAS. The flexibility that it brings in terms of deployable locations, how easy it is to install and how choices can be made in terms of how much they want to interact with the platform, from the fully self managed to the hyperscaler managed offerings. Highlighting that it is hybrid cloud plus, i.e. you have the option to run it from deep disconnected within your DC all the way out to your edge devices. (as usual, if this kind of flexibility for your application platform is of interest to you, reach out to me for a chat and let's see if we can get you started). I hope that it helped some of the people present to feel a bit more at ease with this change and understand that it will likely bring more options for them in other areas.

The reason I felt this event was worth posting about was the fact it was good to be working so closely to the teams at IBM. Maximo EAM was a beast, MAS is certainly no different but the thought around how organisations want to consume, where they want to consume and how they interact with the product was very obvious at the event. One of the key parts of helping them meet this is the move to OpenShift. It was pointed out that no customer of MAS is the same, but there is the flexibility in the deployment tool to help the teams that are doing the deployments, making it as easy as possible for them. The great thing about this, it, once again, is using the power of OpenShift managed operators, the OpenShift Pipeline, to deploy the application suite. It's a huge pipeline and something that the dev team has obviously spent a lot of time and effort on. As an engineer and geek it is something that I would consider a work of art. All of this is very much part of the focus, from the conversations with the engineering team at IBM, about making sure that there is a move from pets to cattle, make sure your environment is built in an automated way, and make sure your tests are in place. The team will make sure that bug fixes are just that and shouldn’t break things, then upgrades bring a slightly greater risk but the changes are highlighted. This will allow you as a customer to hit the levels of test required to match the changes. A deep dive on this was part of the second day and the team was showing how they are moving very much to making everything code, and the practices they are deploying that support the SaaS MAS version and the goal for zero downtime deployments.

I would really like to thank Tessa Olson CMgr FCMI , Benoit Cotnoir and Glenn Mitchell for letting us be part of the day. It was an amazing event. Even as someone that's not running MAS there were so many exciting things to see I am sure that the customers will be even more excited at the changes that are happening!