IBM/CBRE to deliver ‘smart maintenance’ for data centers
In a recent announcement made by IBM Services, the technology company has partnered with CBRE, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate services companies.The partnership will expand the two companies long term relationship to provide technological support services for clients of CBRE at select data center facilities that the company manages.
A new CBRE offering called Smart Maintenance is the latest addition to their existing suite of Converged Data Center Services. Powered by IBM Services, it leverages IBM’s AI, augmented reality technologies and deep analytics to provide vendor-agnostic, predictive and reactive hardware maintenance for CBRE’s data center clients’ technology assets.
As part of the new agreement, IBM will work alongside CBRE technicians to provide an onsite extension of IBM’s Remote Technical Support, while CBRE will diagnose and maintain IT hardware from a wide range of manufacturers by leveraging IBM’s augmented reality (AR) and Watson enabled artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
CBRE will also be supported by IBM’s global platform, including: 57 call centers, tens of thousands of IT support specialists and 585 parts centers.
With this service, it is expected that when a service call is placed, IBM’s AI technology will ask questions to identify the problem and find the quickest solution. CBRE sit4e technicians will also be on hand to perform physical repairs if required, under guidance from IBM’s central pool of expertise. In addition, IBM will utilise its analytics capabilities to provide lifecycle review for data center equipment as well as a predictive maintenance service plan.
With many enterprises with hybrid and multicloud environments relying on a combination of manufacturers and third-party vendors to provide maintenance and support for their IT systems, this new solution provided by IBM and CBRE is designed to reduce complexity and create a path for implementation and maintenance of the next generation of hybrid workloads. As a result clients of CBRE will benefit from reduced costs.
“This opportunity was made possible by the history of success between CBRE and IBM,” commented Jim Harding, President of Data Center Solutions for CBRE’s Global Workplace Solutions segment. “We’ve been exploring areas that make sense for innovative collaboration, and we’re very pleased to be backed by IBM Services and its leadership in AI and multi-vendor technology support.
”Due to COVID-19, the adoption of cloud and software has become an essential aspect of business operations for many organisations, however this has highlighted the complexities of managing costs and usage for the technology and its maintenance.“We’re pleased to provide multi-vendor services for CBRE with IBM’s diverse set of technology capabilities, software knowledge and predictive operational management,” added Mike Perera, General Manager, Technology Support Services, IBM. “IBM Services is committed to innovations in analytics, AI, AR and other technologies to enable organizations to manage the toughest of circumstances, minimize outages and secure their data.”
With this solution service, CBRE could benefit from:
- Reduced maintenance and support spending
- Reduced time spent on hardware support tasks
- Minimised management overheads
- A shift in focus to more value added tasks
Analytics, predictive maintenance, fault avoidance and speed to resolution will also be available to clients.
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