Watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed and
watsonx Code Assistant for Z are now available
ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today IBM (NYSE:
IBM) launched watsonx Code Assistant, a generative AI-powered
assistant that helps enterprise developers and IT operators code
more quickly and more accurately using natural language prompts.
The product currently delivers on two specific enterprise use
cases. First, IT Automation with watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat
Ansible Lightspeed, for tasks such as network configuration and
code deployment. Second, mainframe application modernization with
watsonx Code Assistant for Z, for translation of COBOL to Java on
IBM Z.1
Designed to accelerate development while maintaining the
principles of trust, security, and compliance, the product
leverages generative AI based on IBM's Granite foundation models
for code running on IBM's watsonx platform. Granite uses the
decoder architecture, which underpins large language model
capabilities to predict what is next in a sequence to support
natural language processing tasks. IBM is exploring
opportunities to tune watsonx Code Assistant with additional
domain-specific generative AI capabilities to assist in code
generation, code explanation, and the full end-to-end software
development lifecycle to continue to drive enterprise application
modernization.
According to a recent IDC report, "Because it relies on a model
trained on curated data, watsonx Code Assistant can help
enterprises improve code quality by propagating best practices
through code recommendations, instead of polluting enterprise code
bases with code generated by models trained on unvetted
repositories."2
"With this launch, watsonx Code Assistant joins watsonx
Orchestrate and watsonx Assistant in IBM's growing line of watsonx
assistants that provide enterprises with tangible ways to implement
generative AI," said Kareem Yusuf,
Ph.D, Senior Vice President, Product Management and Growth, IBM
Software. "Watsonx Code Assistant puts AI-assisted code development
and application modernization tools directly into the hands of
developers – in a naturally integrated way that is designed to be
non-disruptive – to help address skills gaps and increase
productivity."
Additionally, IBM Consulting brings deep domain expertise across
these use cases working closely with clients across industries such
as banking, insurance, healthcare and government, to build
strategies to allow them to take advantage of the potential of
generative AI and code generation to accelerate modernization.
IT Automation - IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat
Ansible Lightspeed
The Ansible Automation Platform helps enterprise developers and
IT operators implement automation, using Ansible Playbooks, for IT
tasks including infrastructure management, hybrid cloud deployment,
network configuration, application deployment and more. With IBM
watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed, platform
users can input plain English prompts to automatically generate
task recommendations for Ansible Playbooks that adhere to best
practices in task creation and maintenance. This way, a greater
number of team members can create Ansible Playbooks more
efficiently and implement automation engineered to be more
resilient and easier to support without in-depth training.
Technical Preview Key Data:
- Approximately 4,000 developers participated in the technical
preview.
- 85% overall average acceptance rate of the AI-generated content
recommendations. (from July 27 –
Oct 23, 2023, based on over 41,000
recommendations)
- Productivity improvements in the range of 20-45%.
"Red Hat has already shown what domain-specific AI can do for IT
automation at the community level," said Ashesh Badani, Senior Vice President and Chief
Product Officer, Red Hat. "The
release of watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed
has the potential to close skills gaps, create greater
organizational efficiencies and free enterprise IT to deliver even
more business value."
The Hybrid Cloud Platforms team within the IBM CIO Office uses
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform to support a wide range of
tasks within their IT environment whether it's patching, resolving
vulnerabilities, or running regular health checks of their systems.
Bob Epstein, Leader of IBM CIO
Hybrid Cloud Platforms, expects that the number of developers able
to produce Ansible Playbooks with the full release version could
increase as much as 10x as watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat
Ansible Lightspeed empowers other team members such as Site
Reliability Engineers who can use natural language to generate
Ansible-specific automation tasks.
"I like to look at our modernization journey in these stages: In
the past we were crawling, doing a lot of things manually. Then,
when we started automating, we were walking. Once we implemented
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, we were running. And as we
look ahead, with watsonx Code Assistant for Red Hat Ansible
Lightspeed, I think we will be able to fly," said Robert Barron, Architect, Hybrid Cloud
Platforms, IBM CIO Office.
Mainframe Application Modernization – IBM watsonx Code
Assistant for Z
IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z helps enable faster translation
of COBOL to Java on IBM Z and enhances developer
productivity on the platform. It is being designed to assist
businesses in leveraging generative AI and automated tooling to
accelerate their mainframe application modernization – while
allowing clients to take advantage of the performance, security and
resiliency capabilities of IBM Z.
Today, the product follows the application modernization
lifecycle, starting with an application discovery capability,
which maps out a technical understanding of the application and its
dependencies. Then, an automated refactoring capability leverages
the information captured in application discovery to identify
selected elements to decompose the monolithic application into
modular COBOL business services. Finally, watsonx Code Assistant
for Z leverages generative AI to transform individual COBOL
business services into object-oriented Java code. The next step in
the lifecycle is validation testing. Anticipated in a future
release, the product will support automated test case generation to
validate the new COBOL or Java services.
TCS and IBM hold a long-term partnership that fosters a
collaborative ecosystem to develop joint successes for their
customers and stakeholders. Leveraging this partnership and the
deep contextual knowledge, TCS has grown a purpose-led, dedicated,
full-service practice for in-place application modernization.
"There is a significant need for the developer productivity
gains that generative AI can bring to transform applications on the
mainframe," said Keshav Varma, ISU
Head, Technology, Software and Services Business Unit, TCS. "While
watsonx Code Assistant for Z has only just become available,
we have several clients that have already requested that we create
proofs of concept for them. With decades of enterprise experience
from both our companies, we look forward to building on our deep
partnership with IBM using watsonx."
IBM Consulting Brings Expertise to Help Clients with IT
Automation and Modernization
Early IBM Consulting engagements for both watsonx Code Assistant
for Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed and watsonx Code Assistant for Z aim
to provide clients with the ability to deliver continuous
automation, Ansible Playbook productivity, quality improvements,
and transformation of IT operations – in addition to helping them
identify the right application areas to modernize with Z.
For those looking for more personalized use cases with watsonx
Code Assistant, IBM Consulting and IBM Client
Engineering can work side-by-side with clients to identify
specific pain points and solve critical business and technical
challenges from the users' perspective. IBM Consulting brings deep
industry expertise in application modernization, IT automation and
generative AI via dedicated Red Hat and watsonx practices that work
closely with IBM Research, IBM Technology and Red Hat.
Statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are
subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals
and objectives only.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and
consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries
capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business
processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their
industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in
critical infrastructure areas such as financial services,
telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud
platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital
transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's
breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing,
industry-specific cloud products and consulting deliver open and
flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's
long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility,
inclusivity and service.
Media contact:
Rebecca Neufeld
rebecca.neufeld@ibm.com
1 IBM watsonx Code Assistant for Z includes an
on-prem and as a service component. When the components are
purchased together, watsonx Code
Assistant for Z includes the referenced generative AI
capabilities.
2 IDC Market Note, IBM's watsonx Offers Generative AI
for EnterpriseDevelopment and DevOps, IDC #US51203823, September 8, 2023
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