Twilio expands the number of services on IBM Cloud

Twilio is very happy to announce our expanded partnership with IBM, bringing five new custom integrations to IBM Cloud.  With Twilio and IBM, you’ll be able to build communications into your Web app without worrying about provisioning and maintaining servers.

Twilio provides powerful, easy-to-use communication APIs and services that make it simple to add interactivity, feedback, and support into your Web application. We provide APIs for text messaging, voice, and video as well as services such as mass notifications and call center management to supercharge your communications and workflow in minimal time. Twilio also simplifies complex security integrations with solutions for Two-Factor Authentication and Phone Verification.

Five new Twilio integrations on IBM Cloud

Twilio and IBM now provide five integrations which make common communications use-cases simple to spin up on IBM.  IBM Cloud now includes three communications integrations and two security integrations, covering the following Twilio products and solutions:

1. Programmable SMS

2. Programmable Voice

3. Programmable Video

4. Verify

5. Authy

Each new Twilio integration comes with complete documentation and a custom Node.js Starter Application.

Not a Node.js fan?  We’ve got you covered with our extensive documentation – drop in to learn more about our other communications offerings with Node.js or our other supported languages: PHP, Python, Java, C#, and Ruby.

Using the Twilio integrations on IBM Cloud

To begin using Twilio with IBM Cloud, you’ll first need to create an account with Twilio or log in to an existing account.  If this is your first time using our services, you can sign-up for a free Twilio trial.

Once logged into Twilio, leave a tab open for easy back and forth access when copying and pasting environment variables.

Now, log into IBM Cloud.  From the Cloud Dashboard, click on Catalog near the top of the screen and enter “Twilio” in the search box to expose the tiles:

From there you can select the integration you’d like to try. Or, read the rest of this post for a quick look at how best to exercise each one quickly.

Note that each integration requires slightly different environment variables and keys to work. Generally, you will need your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token, which are found in the Twilio Console.  Some integrations will also require API Keys and Secrets; API Key/Secret pairs can be generated in the Twilio Runtime API Key Console.

Programmable SMS

In this sample app, we build an application that demonstrates sending SMS messages, as well as exposing URLs to receive SMS and MMS messages.  You’ll build the ingoing and outgoing messaging infrastructure and be introduced to webhooks, or callbacks from Twilio triggered by communications events.

Sound good? Get started with the Twilio Programmable SMS and IBM Cloud Guide.

Programmable Voice

We build a browser dialing application that allows you to dial out to any number without leaving your Web page. With some small tweaks, you could easily add voice support to your website or qualify leads for your sales team – all live in reaction to changing business conditions.

Remain a step ahead of the competition and try the Twilio Programmable Voice and IBM Cloud Guide.

Programmable Video

For some conversations, voice just doesn’t do it justice – we prove that assertion with a Video Chat application you can immediately share with friends to start video chatting. Using the power of Twilio’s Video product and the flexibility of IBM Cloud’s offerings and server performance, you’ll be seeing your friends and customers in no time.

See who you’re talking to by following the Twilio Programmable Video and IBM Cloud Guide.

Verify

Verify that your users are who they say they are with Twilio Verify API integration and sample app. Proper verification checks that your newest signup has the phone number they claim in their possession before letting them set up an account, reducing fraudulent account signups and spam.

Know your customer after stepping through the Twilio Verify and IBM Cloud Guide.

Authy

Passwords are a great first step for security but unfortunately, data breaches and easy-to-guess passwords limit the usefulness of user passwords as a secure solution.  This integration and sample app concentrates on adding something you have, a phone with SMS capabilities or the Authy mobile App, to the security mix.

Protect high-value transactions and verify log-ins in the Twilio Authy and IBM Cloud Guide.

Documentation and Support

While these sample apps concentrate on Node.js and our most popular use cases, you can use the new IBM Cloud integrations with any language.

Twilio’s extensive documentation also hosts guides and tutorials which are easily adaptable for Bluemix.  Our API Reference documents every feature our APIs expose on all our products and the Twilio Helper Librariesabstract our APIs for popular Web programming languages.  For even more help, Twilio Support is always available to get you past that one sticky issue.

Greatly speed up your time to quality communications in production with Twilio and IBM Cloud, and leave extensive machine provisioning and time-consuming server maintenance in the past.

We can’t wait to see what you build!