Google has announced a partnership with IBM to bring IBM Power Systems to Google Cloud, providing businesses with “a truly hybrid environment.”
For many businesses, moving to a cloud-based solution can be difficult, especially if the business relies on legacy infrastructure or workflows. As Google’s announcement says, “at one end of the spectrum, some organizations are replatforming entire legacy systems to adopt the cloud. Many others, however, want to continue leveraging their existing infrastructure while still benefiting from the cloud’s flexible consumption model, scalability, and new advancements in areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics.”
By partnering with IBM, Google can offers customers the ability to run “IBM Power Systems as a service on Google Cloud—whether you’re using AIX, IBM i, or Linux on IBM Power.
“For organizations using a hybrid cloud strategy, especially, IBM Power Systems are an important tool. Because of their performance and ability to support mission critical workloads—such as SAP applications and Oracle databases—enterprise customers have been consistently looking for options to run IBM Power Systems in the cloud. IBM Power Systems for Google Cloud offers a path to do just that, providing the best of both the cloud and on-premise worlds. You can run enterprise workloads like SAP and Oracle on the IBM Power servers that you’ve come to trust, while starting to take advantage of all the technical capabilities and favorable economics that Google Cloud offers.”
Some 80% of Fortune 100 companies rely on IBM Power Systems, with the platform especially popular in finance, retail, insurance and healthcare. These are also industries where even minimal disruption can be disastrous. Google’s announcement provides Power Systems users with another option to move towards a cloud-based architecture, while at the same time giving Google one more way to continue growing its cloud business.