IBM and SAP announced a major strategic agreement that integrates Big Blue’s datacenter capabilities with Big Hasso’s ongoing HANA cloud-based database initiative.
IBM is investing $1.2 billion to build 15 new datacesnters as part of its SoftLayer acquisition and expansion, and will also use its existing IBM Cloud servers to support the new agreement with SAP.
The announcement was made jointly in Armonk, NY and Walldorf, Germany. IBM is described by SAP as a “premier strategic provider” of cloud infrastructure services in the agreement, and the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud will now be available through IBM’s cloud.
“We look forward to extending one of the longest and most successful partnerships in the IT industry,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. “The demand for SAP HANA and the SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA in the cloud is tremendous and this global agreement with IBM heralds a new era of cloud collaboration.”
For her part, IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty said, “This announcement is a significant milestone in the deployment of enterprise cloud. It builds on our two companies’ long history of bringing innovation to business.”
Rometty also noted the modern age of enterprise IT, saying “our secure, open, hybrid enterprise cloud platform will enable SAP clients to support new ways to work in an era shaped by Big Data, mobile and social.”
Take that, Larry
Coming in the wake of recent criticisms of SAP by Oracle Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison, but presumably not related to Ellison’s remarks, the agreement will focus on “(delivering) SAP business solutions on the IBM Cloud,” according to an official statement. The agreement also closely follows IBM’s agreement to develop apps for Apple, if nothing else showing that the folks in Armonk are apparently seeking to be flexible in this 21st century, cloud-philic world.
“SAP brings the power of realtime through in-memory computing capabilities of SAP HANA combined with the ability to run mission-critical business applications, like SAP Business Suite, in a cloud environment. IBM brings enterprise depth and the open architecture of IBM Cloud Managed Services and SoftLayer–enabling customers to securely manage SAP workloads from trial to production on a consistent infrastructure, with transparency and control over where data resides.”
In a separate, exclusive interview with Cloud Computing Journal, IBM General Manager of Cloud Services Jim Comfort (pictured) told us that the two companies have already made several customers aware of the agreement and are working with them. He noted that many of IBM’s enterprise customers are also SAP customers.
The agreement thus takes effect immediately, and is offered worldwide. Comfort said this “strategic announcement expands what we’ve been doing (for customers), at scale.” he also mentioned that many IBM and SAP customers are multi-national enterprises, so will benefit from a global approach. “This key attribute of being worldwide also means that we’re providing consistent services around the globe,” he noted. “Our strategy is to build a global platform.”
IBM has also been focusing a lot of resources on its Bluemix PaaS in recent months. Although the new strategic agreement doesn’t specifically involve Bluemix for all customers, Comfort noted that “there may be linkage” in some cases, and the two companies are prepared to handle it.