Skytap Sets Strategy to Bring IBM POWER9 Systems to Microsoft Azure

SEATTLE, Sept. 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Skytap today announces a new collaboration with Microsoft to bring its purpose-built cloud service for legacy applications, including IBM POWER-based solutions, to Microsoft Azure. The service will provide support for heterogeneous application stacks, including native support for POWER workloads running on AIX, IBM i, and Linux. Skytap will preview its service on a new class of Microsoft Azure bare metal this year.

Through this collaboration, Skytap's service on Microsoft Azure will provide enterprises with a robust platform to enhance the value of traditional applications without the major expense of replatforming. In the 2018 Skytap Customer Survey, respondents indicated they are enhancing applications running in Skytap with web services, mobile capabilities, AI, and IoT. The cloud most cited was Microsoft Azure. Furthering that customer goal, Skytap is providing a preview of what's possible when lifting-and-extending a legacy IBM i application using DB2 on Skytap and augmenting it with Azure IoT Hub. The application seamlessly spans old and new architectures, demonstrating there is no need to completely rewrite rock solid IBM i applications to benefit from modern cloud capabilities. 

"Migrating to the cloud by first replacing older technologies is time consuming and risky. Skytap's goal has always been to provide businesses with a path to get these systems into the cloud with little change and less risk. Working with Microsoft, we will bring Skytap's native support for a wide range of legacy applications to Microsoft Azure, including those dependent on IBM i, AIX, and Linux on Power. This will give businesses the ability to extend the life of traditional systems and increase their value by modernizing with Azure services," said Brad Schick, CEO, Skytap.

As Power-based applications are modernized, the adoption of CI/CD toolchains will accelerate software delivery, a critical component for staying competitive. Thirty-one percent of respondents in Skytap's annual usage survey indicated an agile development initiative lead them to Skytap. Skytap customers have indicated that their most commonly used developer tooling includes Visual Studio. After moving to Skytap on Azure customers will be able to integrate Azure DevOps, in addition to CI/CD toolchains for Power such as Eradani and UrbanCode. This short video demonstrates Azure DevOps building and releasing code into a heterogeneous application stack running on Skytap.

Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Azure Dedicated Eric Lockard said, "We recognize that enterprises have many critical systems that were not designed with the cloud in mind. Skytap's ability to migrate and run these applications natively in Microsoft Azure with minimal changes accelerates cloud adoption. Once running in Microsoft Azure businesses can enhance traditional systems with cloud native services, opening new options for innovation and delivery of customer value."

The journey to the cloud for enterprises varies by organization and application. This solution combines Skytap's industry leading support for legacy systems with Microsoft Azure's cloud native services and strong position in the enterprise, better equipping customers to bring the applications powering their businesses into the future.

For more information regarding the Limited Preview program once available, please email contactus@skytap.com.  

About Skytap
Skytap is a global public service purpose-built for migrating and running traditional applications in the cloud. Skytap makes it easy to evolve traditional workloads by rapidly migrating them to the cloud, enabling modern development practices, and integrating new cloud architectures. We power multi- and hybrid-cloud strategies through secure connections to other clouds and on-premises data centers. Our environments technology accelerates application development, simplifies management, and reduces IT costs, enabling customers worldwide to modernize at the pace of their business. 

SOURCE Skytap