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Sycomp Building IBM Spectrum Scale Solution on Azure

Situation

As the lead for developing the IBM Embed program in the West region, I was approached by Sycomp, a key partner, to create an IBM Spectrum Scale offering on Microsoft Azure. This initiative was driven by Microsoft’s directive for LinkedIn to migrate to Azure, where no Spectrum Scale solution existed. Sycomp had developed proprietary IP to implement and manage such a solution but required integration with IBM to maximize client value. This offering was critical to retaining LinkedIn as a major client for both Sycomp and IBM, while also unlocking growth opportunities with other enterprise customers.

Tasks

IBM’s reputation for complex business processes, especially in custom embed engagements, posed significant challenges. The involved products—Spectrum Scale, Spectrum Protect, Guardium Key Lifecycle Management, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)—lacked a unified consumption-based licensing model. My responsibilities included:
My responsibilities included:
  • Define technical and business requirements for the offering.
  • Identifying gaps in requirements.
  • Developing a comprehensive business plan.
  • Engaging multiple IBM business units (Red Hat, IBM Storage, Program Management/Licensing, Arrow stakeholders, and Legal teams for both IBM and Red Hat) to enable a custom offering.
  • Securing stakeholder agreement and finalizing contracts.
  • Overseeing deployment, management, and success measurement.

Actions

To address these challenges, I crafted a robust business case that articulated the opportunity, investment justification, risks, and value for all stakeholders.
Key actions included:
  • Collaboration and Sponsorship: Partnered with the IBM storage sales team to gain sponsorship from product offering managers.
  • Developed a custom consumption-based pricing model to ensure market competitiveness, requiring deeper cost flexibility than typically allowed without commitments.
  • Navigated legal complexities by working with IBM and Red Hat legal teams to create a unique contract structure outside the standard embed program, overcoming their initial resistance.
  • Business Case Development: Authored detailed business justification cases for each product group and a comprehensive plan on Sycomp’s behalf. The plan emphasized client retention risks, the strategic importance of the solution, and growth potential for IBM and Sycomp.

Results

Unlike many difficult situations where “no” is accepted when proposals didn’t align with standard processes, I leveraged my deep knowledge of IBM’s operations and priorities to advocate relentlessly. By crafting a compelling, partner-focused business case that highlighted impactful customer outcomes with significant future growth, I ensured alignment across stakeholders and drove the project to success.
The initiative was a resounding success:
  • Sycomp completed the IBM Embed process and deployed the Spectrum Scale solution on Azure.
  • Successfully migrated multiple petabytes of LinkedIn data to Azure, securing a critical client.
  • Forged a strategic partnership with SAS to support their customers’ Spectrum Scale migrations to Azure.
  • Inspired Sycomp to explore additional IBM Embed opportunities, including a Bayesian optimization accelerator solution.