Infrastructure Team — IBM SDR Hub

Portfolio

Product Portfolio ↻ Updated Jun 2026

Products organized by category. Each card links to the official product page.

Hybrid Cloud Platform

Container Platform

Red Hat OpenShift

Enterprise Kubernetes platform for deploying, managing, and scaling containerized apps consistently across on-prem, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments.

Platform EngineeringCloud Architects

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Related: OpenShift Dedicated, OpenShift Service on AWS

OpenShift Dedicated ↗ — Fully managed OpenShift on AWS or GCP. Target: teams that want OpenShift without managing the control plane.
ROSA (Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS) ↗ — Native AWS managed OpenShift. Target: AWS-heavy customers who want Kubernetes without operational overhead.

IT Automation

Ansible Automation Platform

Agentless IT automation for provisioning, configuration management, app deployment, and orchestration. Turns manual runbooks into repeatable automation jobs.

IT OpsDevOpsSecurity Ops

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Enterprise OS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

The most deployed enterprise Linux OS. Provides a stable, secure, and certified foundation for workloads from bare metal to cloud to containers.

SysadminsIT Ops

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Infrastructure Hardware

High-Performance Compute

IBM Power

RISC-based servers optimized for mission-critical workloads, AI inferencing, and SAP HANA. Delivers extreme reliability, security, and performance in enterprise data centers.

Financial ServicesSAP UsersAI Inferencing

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Mainframe

IBM z (zSystems)

Industry-leading mainframe for 99.9999% uptime on transaction processing, security, and regulatory workloads. Processes 87% of the world's credit card transactions.

Banks & FSSHealthcareGovernment

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Enterprise Storage

IBM Storage

Flash, tape, and software-defined storage for hybrid cloud environments. IBM FlashSystem delivers sub-100-microsecond latency for databases and high-throughput AI workloads.

DBAsData Center Ops

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Cloud Management & Observability

Resource Optimization

IBM Turbonomic

AI-driven application resource management that continuously analyzes and acts on cloud and on-prem workloads to ensure performance while minimizing cost.

FinOpsCloud Ops

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Distributed Cloud

IBM Cloud Satellite

Run IBM Cloud services anywhere — on-prem, edge, or any public cloud — with a consistent deployment and management model. Enables true hybrid cloud without compromise.

Edge ComputingHybrid Cloud

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Why IBM over VMware / AWS Infrastructure / Azure Stack?

Open source heritage: Red Hat leads upstream contributions to Kubernetes, Linux, and Ansible — no proprietary lock-in
VMware migration opportunity: Broadcom's acquisition of VMware created massive pricing uncertainty — Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization is the natural migration path
Hybrid by design: IBM/Red Hat is the only vendor with a complete stack from mainframe to edge — everything runs consistently
Security hardened: OpenShift includes security hardening, policy management, and compliance tooling out of the box
Competitors to know: VMware (Broadcom), Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google GKE, Rancher/SUSE

OpenShift vs VMware Hybrid Cloud Architecture Ansible Overview

Personas

Target Buyer Personas ↻ Updated Jun 2026

Infrastructure deals involve both technical champions and economic buyers. Qualify both early.

CIO / VP of IT

Pain Points: Aging infrastructure, cloud cost overruns, vendor lock-in, shadow IT sprawl
Cares About: Reliability, security, total cost of ownership, modernization path
Opening: "What's your biggest challenge with your current infrastructure strategy?"
Discovery Q1: "What percentage of your workloads are on-prem vs cloud today?"
Discovery Q2: "How are you planning for the end of VMware support under Broadcom pricing?"
Common Objection: "We're an AWS / Azure shop"
Response: "OpenShift runs natively on AWS and Azure — your teams can keep the cloud they know while IBM provides consistent management and security."

Hybrid Cloud Overview OpenShift Overview

Cloud Architects / Platform Engineering

Pain Points: Multi-cloud complexity, workload portability, managing Kubernetes at scale, developer experience
Cares About: Open standards, automation, platform consistency, self-service for dev teams
Opening: "How are you managing workload consistency across on-prem and cloud today?"
Discovery Q1: "How many Kubernetes clusters are you managing today, and how are you handling Day 2 operations?"
Discovery Q2: "What's your strategy for giving developers self-service infrastructure without losing control?"

Ansible Automation Platform OpenShift Platform

IT Operations Directors

Pain Points: Downtime risk, manual runbooks, toil-heavy operations, poor observability
Cares About: Uptime SLAs, automation of ops tasks, monitoring and alerting, mean time to resolution
Opening: "What's your current MTTR when a production incident hits?"
Discovery Q: "How much of your ops work is still manual runbooks vs. automated remediation?"

CFO / Finance (Economic Buyer)

Pain Points: Unpredictable cloud bills, CapEx vs. OpEx decisions, hardware refresh costs
Cares About: Cost predictability, ROI, infrastructure TCO, risk reduction
Opening: "How are you tracking and optimizing cloud spend across your infrastructure?"
Discovery Q: "What was your cloud bill last year vs. budget — and what drove the variance?"

Outbound

Prospecting Triggers & Strategies

The best time to call is when something has changed. Watch for these signals.

Trigger Signals to Watch

VMware contract renewal or Broadcom price increase → Actively evaluating alternatives → Target: CIO / VP IT → Priority: Very High
Hiring Platform Engineers, SREs, or DevOps leads → Scaling container infrastructure → Target: VP Engineering / CIO
Cloud cost optimization initiatives (FinOps job postings) → Bill shock, looking to do more with less → Target: CIO / CFO
On-prem hardware reaching end-of-life or end-of-support → Forced refresh decision → Target: CIO / VP IT
SAP S/4HANA migration → Need infrastructure certified for SAP workloads → Target: CIO / IT Architecture
Data sovereignty or regulatory requirements → Can't move everything to public cloud → Target: CIO / CISO

LinkedIn Jobs Search Crunchbase Alerts SalesLoft Cadences

Opening Lines That Work

"With Broadcom's VMware pricing changes, a lot of CIOs are re-evaluating their virtualization strategy. How is your team thinking about it?"
"I noticed you're hiring several platform engineers — are you expanding your container strategy or standardizing Kubernetes?"
"Many companies are dealing with unexpected cloud bills after moving to public cloud. How are you managing cloud spend today?"
"With your on-prem hardware aging, what's your plan for the next infrastructure refresh cycle?"
"Red Hat OpenShift is helping teams in [industry] cut deployment time by 60%. Is developer velocity a priority for your platform team?"

Discovery Questions

"What percentage of your workloads are on-prem vs cloud today — and where do you want to be in 2 years?"
"What's your current Kubernetes strategy — are you running vanilla K8s or a managed distribution?"
"How are you managing workload portability and consistency between your different environments?"
"When does your current VMware or hardware support contract expire?"
"How do you handle cloud cost optimization today — FinOps team, tooling, or manual governance?"
"What's your biggest infrastructure headache right now?"

!

Know your technical buyer AND economic buyer

Infrastructure deals require both a technical champion (Cloud Architect / VP Engineering) and an economic buyer (CIO / CFO). Qualify both early — a technical champion alone rarely closes a deal.

Enablement

Training & Certifications

Complete required courses in your first 30 days before your first real call.

1 Required — First 30 Days

Red Hat OpenShift for SDRs — 2 hrs
Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals — 2 hrs
IBM Power & zSystems Overview — 1.5 hrs
Discovery Call Framework for Infrastructure — 2 hrs
Competitive Positioning: IBM vs VMware / AWS — 1 hr

Red Hat Training & Certification IBM Training Portal Seismic Enablement Content

2 Advanced — First 60 Days

Kubernetes and Container Architecture Deep Dive for SDRs
Infrastructure Modernization Business Case Framework
Financial Services & Regulated Industries Positioning
IBM Turbonomic — Cloud Cost Optimization Pitch
VMware Migration Playbook — Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization

Performance

Success Metrics

Two tiers — ramping targets for new hires, full quota for tenured reps. All metrics are weekly.

New Hire Weeks 1 – Ramp Period Focus: activity & learning

150

Dials + Emails / Week

—

Meetings Req.

—

Opps Req.

✓

No meeting or opportunity requirements during ramp

Focus on learning products, getting comfortable with infrastructure talk tracks, and building activity habits. Meetings come next.

6 Months+ Full Quota Measured in Salesforce

400

Dials / Week

3

Meetings Booked / Week

3

Opportunities / Week

6–9mo

Avg Deal Cycle

What Makes a Quality Opportunity?

Clear infrastructure pain or modernization trigger identified (VMware renewal, end-of-life, cloud cost)
Budget in planning or approved for current fiscal year
Both technical champion (architect) and economic buyer (CIO/CFO) engaged
Hardware refresh, contract expiry, or platform migration timeline established
Competitive landscape documented — know what they're currently running

Stack