Challenge
Blueworx wanted to move its IVR solution into the cloud to be able to integrate with new services that would spur innovation for competitive benefit. It also wanted to implement agile development approaches for faster release cycles.
Results
Skytap enabled a phased approach to modernization, allowing Blueworx to integrate its core IVR application with innovative services from IBM Cloud that allow IVR customers to improve customer experience and insights.
About Blueworx
Blueworx provides Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solutions to major businesses worldwide. Its technology allows enterprises to scale on-demand for thousands of incoming and outbound customer calls every second.
Blueworx’s Challenge
Blueworx needed to offer its IVR solution as a SaaS product, as well as integrate with new services, to innovate and compete. However, the IVR platform was developed and run on data center hardware with a mix of AIX and Linux VMs. This limited, on-premise configuration prevented three key requirements to achieving the business’ goals: elastic scaling to meet SaaS call volume, introduction of new technologies and approaches (e.g., AI, containers, PaaS), and the rapid release cycles necessary to support product innovation.
Skytap Solution
Blueworx used Skytap’s phased approach to modernization, enabling it to address each challenge iteratively. Because Skytap supports both Power/AIX and x86 workloads, the business was able to modernize infrastructure by rapidly migrating IVR workloads out of its data center. Once in Skytap, teams could move towards agile development and DevOps, accelerating time to value for business customers.
With Skytap, Blueworx is able to offer its IVR product to customers as a SaaS solution with next-gen capabilities, making it an innovation leader in its industry.
Blueworx modernized the application’s architecture by using a multi-cloud approach to integrate the core IVR application running in Skytap with innovative services from IBM Cloud. This hybrid application connects to IBM Watson services, including Text to Speech, Virtual Agent, and Conversation, so IVR customers can leverage the power of Watson to improve customer experience and insights. Containers are under consideration to optimize delivery and management even further.
“We have several traditional applications that would only run on AIX Infrastructure. With Skytap, we can now run AIX and Linux workloads side by side in the cloud.”
Dean Upton, Director of Product Strategy, Blueworx
