IBM and Microsoft are working together to provide their respective enterprise software on Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud. This relationship is intended to give clients, partners and developers more choice in the cloud, helping them drive new business opportunities, spur innovation and reduce costs.
“Together we are creating new opportunities to drive innovation in hybrid cloud,” said Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president, software and cloud solutions group at IBM. “This agreement reinforces IBM’s strategy in providing open cloud technology for the enterprise. Clients will now gain unprecedented access to IBM’s leading middleware and will have an even greater level of choice over the tools that they use to build and deploy their cloud environments.”
As part of the deal, IBM and Microsoft will make key IBM middleware such as WebSphere Liberty, MQ, and DB2 available on Microsoft Azure. In turn, Windows Server and SQL Server will be offered on IBM Cloud.
The vendors also said they are working together to deliver a Microsoft .NET runtime for IBM’s Bluemix cloud development platform. To support hybrid cloud deployments, IBM will expand support of its software running on Windows Server Hyper-V, and the companies plan to make IBM Pure Application Service available on Azure.
The companies will enable customers to bring their own software licenses to the IBM and Microsoft clouds, helping customers avoid extra cost. Microsoft will also offer IBM middleware software licenses, such as WebSphere Liberty, MQ and DB2, to Azure customers with pay-per-use pricing.
The companies also plan to make IBM Pure Application Service available on both Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer for automated deployment, configuration and license management in a hybrid cloud environment. IBM SoftLayer currently provides and supports a wide range of Microsoft software, including Windows Server, Hyper-V, WebMatrix, Windows Firewall, SQL Server and others.
For more information, visit IBM’s cloud site:
http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/