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As organizations tap into new digital applications and services, they are poised to fully exploit the agility and scale of public cloud platforms. In today’s world, a new application can be brought to life in a matter of minutes, to provide innovative new functions from a unique combination of digital and enterprise services, such as Twitter, The Weather Company, Salesforce.com and IBM Watson. Depending on the success of this new app, it can be ramped up to unprecedented scale, or quietly sunset to make way for the next new prototype. This is the promise provided by public cloud solutions.

For many organizations, there is an elusive but essential ingredient that still limits the potential of this premise: enterprise data that sits behind firewalls or private cloud infrastructures! More specifically, the ability to combine online services with the trusted enterprise application logic and data services that reside on the system of record. Over the last 18 months, IBM has introduced new technologies to help contemporary application developers consume mainframe services as quickly and intuitively as a Twitter or Google Maps API.

One of the key tenets of the recent launch of the new IBM z14 has been the philosophy of the open and connected mainframe. The advent of technologies such as API Connect and z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition means that key applications and data services are now securely discoverable and intuitively consumable as native APIs. Better yet, the design principle for these technologies are to API-enable traditional z/OS applications and data services with no change to the underlying system of record.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, as organizations unleash the true potential of decades of investment in application logic and rich pools of data on the mainframe. Existing interfaces are swiftly being API-enabled to great effect, but this handful of services does not reflect the many hundreds or thousands of functions that the system of record provides. With technologies such as IBM Application Discovery and Delivery Intelligence, organizations can now scan their code and data sources to identify hidden and forgotten functions that are ideal candidates to API-enable. Suddenly, the capability that precisely meets the requirements of a new digital application can be surfaced quickly and efficiently – at great speed with minimum effort.

A new pattern is now emerging exploiting the latest capabilities of z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition, where core mainframe services are now calling out to external APIs to augment traditional applications with new, microservices and even public applications. Now, truly hybrid services are creating a fusion of public and private platforms, where ideas can be prototyped and monetized at an unprecedented rate. The early adopters of these technologies are disrupting start-ups at their own game; integrating with contactless mobile payments in a matter of days and augmenting core applications with the latest cloud-hosted, digital algorithms.

Seize the opportunity today, with the all-new API-fueled IBM z14. Learn more about cloud integration on z from our experts:

The post The key to a hybrid cloud for trusted digital experiences appeared first on IBM Systems Blog: In the Making.