IBM has announced that IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications, an enterprise service unique to IBM, is available globally. IBM’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud, IBM SmartCloud Enterprise+ (SCE+), is a service combines the best features of sourcing – high service level agreements, security and reliability – with the best features of cloud – elasticity and subscription-based pricing.
The new service, IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications, aims to automate and standardize provisioning of IT environments, and can accelerate service delivery with expert certified staff. According to the companies, SmartCloud services for SAP applications delivers 99.7% availability based on a global delivery model to support cloud-based systems around the clock. This service is available for SAP Business Suite software and the SAP BusinessObjects solution portfolio as an enterprise-class, fully managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering for running SAP solutions in a production environment.
"IBM's new cloud service for SAP applications exemplifies our two companies' work together in the last 40 years in delivering enterprise value to thousands of clients," said Dr. Vishal Sikka, member of the SAP Executive Board, Technology and Innovation. "Cloud computing is helping our clients transform their IT infrastructures and businesses. We are confident that our partnership with IBM – using their SmartCloud platform and our business applications – will help drive differentiated value to clients around the globe."
In addition, IBM is combining its Global Business Services expertise, tools and processes with SmartCloud for SAP applications to deliver LifeCycle as a Service in order to improve implementations of SAP applications end to end – from sandbox to production. With this service, IBM takes responsibility and control of the SAP applications and provides management, including software patching of SAP solutions as well as support for the underlying operating system, database and middleware. Clients can set up their SAP solutions development and test operations on IBM’s public cloud service – SmartCloud Enterprise, and then those SAP applications can be transitioned to the SCE+ platform for production to further assure higher availability of the operations.
For more information, about IBM SmartCloud for SAP Applications, go here.