A hybrid cloud is considered as the integration of multiple clouds that are aligned to the unique characteristics of different system types. IBM® defines a hybrid cloud as a secure cloud computing environment that uses services from two or more sources, such as a private cloud, public cloud, or traditional IT sources. A hybrid cloud transforms roles throughout the organization and allows business leaders and developers to innovate efficiently and faster. Applications that are built around a hybrid cloud infrastructure typically revolve around at least one of the following pillars of hybrid integration: API-centric applications Data-centric applications Event-centric applications This IBM Redbooks® Solution Guide describes Bluemix® integration services and how to use them to connect Bluemix applications to on-premise systems.

The event-centric hybrid cloud integration revolves around applications running based on events or messages. The new event-centric approach to hybrid cloud aims to simplify the task of managing these messages while increasing the overall reliability of the system. Event-centric applications work well in the cloud due to the varying intensity and frequency of events. These fluctuations fit well into a cloud infrastructure that can dynamically scale to fit those needs. An event-centric approach cuts down on communication overhead for an application, thus helping to speed up the development process. IBM® Hybrid Integration Services is a set of hybrid cloud capabilities in IBM Bluemix® that allows businesses to create hybrid clouds by connecting their Bluemix environment to on-premises systems at the application programming interface (API), data, or event level. In November 2015, the IBM International Technical Support Organization (ITSO) IBM Redbooks® team published a Redbooks publication that covers hybrid cloud scenarios with Bluemix for API and data integrations, Hybrid Cloud Data and API Integration: Integrate Your Enterprise and Cloud with Bluemix Integration Services, SG24-8277, and can be found at the following website: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/sg248277.html?Open Hybrid Cloud Event Integration: Integrate Your Enterprise and Cloud with Bluemix Integration Services, SG24-8281 is a companion book to SG24-8277 and focuses on event-centric hybrid cloud integrations with Bluemix.

IBM® Hybrid Integration Services is a set of hybrid cloud capabilities in IBM BluemixTM that allows businesses to innovate rapidly while, at the same time, providing IT control and visibility. It allows customers to quickly and easily build and operate systems that mix data and application programming interfaces (APIs) from a wide variety of sources, whether they reside on-premises or in the cloud. In many cases, you want to expose your IT assets from your private cloud as APIs and at the same time have best overall manageability and control of who uses your assets and how. Bluemix provides a set of services such as Secure Gateway, API Management, Connect and Compose, DataWorks, and API Catalog, which enable Hybrid Cloud Integration capabilities. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides preferred practices around developing cloud solutions using these Hybrid Integration Services that help you maintain data consistency, manageability, and security for critical transactions.

Today, organizations are responding to market demands and regulatory requirements faster than ever by extending their applications and data to new digital applications. This drive to deliver new functions at speed has paved the way for a huge growth in cloud-native applications, hosted in both public and private cloud infrastructures. Leading organizations are now exploiting the best of both worlds by combining their traditional enterprise IT with cloud. This hybrid cloud approach places new requirements on the integration architectures needed to bring these two worlds together. One of the largest providers of application logic and data services in enterprises today is IBM Z, making it a critical service provider in a hybrid cloud architecture. The primary goal of this IBM Redpaper publication is to help IT architects choose between the different application integration architectures that can be used for hybrid integration with IBM Z, including REST APIs, messaging, and event streams.

Focusing on event-centric hybrid cloud integrations with Bluemix, this book will show you how to create hybrid clouds by connecting their Bluemix environment to on-premises systems at the application programming interface (API), data, or event level. --

This IBM® Redbooks® publication takes you on a hybrid cloud journey with IBM PureApplication® System and PureApplication Service: from the what, over the why, and to the how. We outline the needs for a hybrid PureApplication cloud and we describe how to build a strategy. We provide advice about the components, including security. Through use cases, we define the need and the strategy for a hybrid cloud implementation with IBM PureApplication System, Software, or Service. The target audience for this book varies from anyone who is interested in learning more about a true hybrid cloud solution from IBM to strategists, IT architects, and IT specialists who want an overview of what is required to build a hybrid cloud with IBM PureApplication family members.