IBM and Microsoft team up to offer greater hybrid cloud choice

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One of the problems that enterprises often see in implementing cloud computing is that they risk getting tied into a single supplier for software and platform.

This is leading to more interest in 'hybrid cloud' solutions which allow the mixing and matching of features from different suppliers. Today industry giants IBM and Microsoft announce that they're working together to provide their respective enterprise software on Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud.

"Together we are creating new opportunities to drive innovation in hybrid cloud," says Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President of IBM's Software and Cloud Solutions Group. "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".

The idea is to give clients, partners and developers a wider range of options. IBM middleware such as WebSphere Liberty, MQ, and DB2 will be available on Microsoft Azure, whilst Windows Server and SQL Server will be offered on IBM Cloud.

At the same time the two companies are working together to deliver a Microsoft .NET runtime for IBM’s Bluemix cloud development platform. Plus IBM will expand support of its software running on Windows Server Hyper-V. The companies 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.

Customers will be able to bring their own software licenses to the IBM and Microsoft clouds, helping them to avoid extra cost. IBM middleware licenses for things like WebSphere will be made available to Azure users with per user pricing.

"Microsoft is committed to helping enterprise customers realize the tremendous benefits of cloud computing across their own systems, partner clouds and Microsoft Azure," says Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft. "With this agreement more customers will be able to take advantage of the hyper-scale, enterprise performance and hybrid capabilities of Azure".

For more information visit the IBM Cloud or MS Azure websites.

Photo Credit:  Minerva Studio/Shutterstock

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