IBM and Red Hat Launch New Solaris-to-Linux Customer Migration Initiatives

IBM and Red Hat Launch New Solaris-to-Linux Customer Migration Initiatives

 

More Than Twenty Key ISVs for Wall Street Firms Porting Their Applications

                   From Solaris to Linux on IBM eServers

 

      SOMERS, NY, May 17, 2005 - IBM in conjunction with Red Hat today
announced the introduction of a Solaris-to-Linux server migration program
that includes a "Solaris to Linux Migration Factory," and additional
solutions and support offerings designed to help customers migrate from
Solaris to multi-platform Linux servers.

 

The service includes for the first time a pre-funded, pre-sales migration
assessment from IBM Systems & Technology Group for qualified customers that
will result in no charge to the customer for the assessment, and will help
them answer difficult questions and determine the right migration strategy
to Linux.  Once the assessment is completed and the customer decides they
want to continue with the migration, then IBM's Migration Factory is
engaged.

 

IBM has completed more than 500 HP/UX and Solaris-to-AIX customer migration
engagements since early 2004 and is now bringing that knowledge and
expertise to an extended customer set focused on migrations to Linux with
this announcement.  The service will enable customers in all industries to
more quickly migrate to a Linux environment, including those in the Wall
Street and financial services sectors.

 

IBM also announced today that another wave of 22 financial services ISVs
have committed to porting 48 Solaris applications to Linux on IBM's eServer
platform since last year, of which 33 are already available as of today.

Last year, IBM identified a total of 24 ISVs and 58 applications in
interviews with 23 of the top Wall Street companies as the most critical
applications to target for Solaris-to-Linux porting.

 

The adoption of Linux by formerly Solaris-exclusive ISVs is expected to
expand even faster with the recent introduction of IBM eServer Application
Advantage for Linux, also known as the Chiphopper offering, the IT
industry's first combination of support and testing tools that is helping to
deliver on the promise of a cross-platform Linux solution for ISVs.

 

Since its introduction in February of this year, the Chiphopper offering has
resulted in more than 100 new applications being available on IBM eServers
running Linux.

 

While the Chiphopper offering focuses on helping ISVs to move their
applications to Linux, today's Solaris-to-Linux customer migration
initiative is designed to help enable customers to move workloads from
Solaris to multi-platform Linux faster and easier than in the past.

 

"A Solaris-to-Linux migration is nothing new at IBM.  In fact, since IBM
began its Linux journey several years ago, we estimate that more than 3,000
of our approximately 12,000 Linux customer engagements have been with
customers moving from a Solaris environment to Linux," said Scott Handy,
vice president of worldwide Linux for IBM.  "With volumes like these, we
really needed a factory approach. And based on our experience, the
number-one issue is that customers don't know just how easy a UNIX-to-Linux
migration is, which is why we are offering to cover the cost of the initial
assessment for qualified customers. The credibility of our migration
specialists working with real customers wanting to get to Linux, combined
with our cost effective Linux solutions and capabilities, usually results in
a customer either embarking on a successful migration with us or with one of
our business partners."

 

"Enterprise migration from Solaris to Linux is inevitable.  Working with IBM
we will make the transition from Solaris to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as
efficient and easy as possible," said Paul Cormier, Executive Vice President
of Engineering at Red Hat.  "The Chiphopper and Migration Factory programs
offer clear concise plans to both customers and ISVs to make the move."

 

Solaris to Linux Multi-Platform Program Offerings

 

*     Pre-Funded Solaris-to-Linux Migration Assessments - For the first

time ever, IBM through its Systems & Technology Group is offering to
qualified customers a no charge, pre-funded assessment for migrations to
Linux on IBM eServer xSeries, BladeCenter, iSeries, pSeries, OpenPower and
zSeries platforms.  The assessment fees will be covered by IBM up front and
the assessments will assist customers looking at both business and technical
considerations associated with migrating from Solaris to Linux without
making a large up front investment. The team is also capable of assessing
the movement of Solaris-attached storage to IBM TotalStorage to further
reduce costs and simplify the customer's environment.

 

*     IBM Migration Factory Services for Linux- These for-fee services will

include access to IBM Migration Factory personnel to help customers migrate
from Solaris C/C++ environments to Linux as well as to migrate Oracle
databases from non-IBM Windows and Unix platforms to Red Hat and Novell SUSE
Linux on IBM platforms.  The IBM Migration Factory leverages industry
leading IBM technology and methodologies to provide the capability to
rapidly analyze, identify porting issues, and remediate code issues so that
it can be compiled and linked.

 

*     Solaris-to-Linux-on-OpenPower Roadshow - These two-day events will be

held in 35 cities around the world over the next few months.  IBM is
expecting more than 3,500 customers, Business Partners, ISVs, and VARs
worldwide to showcase Linux solutions and services to customers and solution
providers.  Seminar attendees will learn about the value of Linux on Power
architectures, the OpenPower advantages in Linux, as well as the business
value proposition with OpenPower Linux solutions and technologies and
strategies for Solaris-to-Linux on IBM migrations.

 

As part of today's announcement, IBM is also offering a host of seminars and
educational materials to help customers migrate.  They include:

 

*     Charting a Course to Linux - During these half-day summits hosted by

Ziff Davis Media, and presented by IBM, Intel and Red Hat, "Charting a
Course to Linux" is designed for IT managers within the financial services
and government sectors.  Participants will hear how Linux's
subscription-based licensing model ensures predictable IT budgets.

 

*     Solaris-to-Linux Education Events - For developers seeking in-depth

education on key topics around migration from Unix to Linux, IBM will offer
a series of one-day seminars to provide detailed technical information
beginning in mid-May. Topics covered include performance tuning, data
migration from Unix to Linux, and open source tools.

 

*     Solaris-to-Linux Seminars for SMBs through IBM Business Partners -

These seminars are targeted to small- and medium-sized business customers
who currently have workloads running on Unix/Solaris, and are considering
Linux as a potential option as their next platform.  Seminars will be
provided by IBM Business Partners who must be xSeries resellers and part of
the IBM Partnerworld Leaders for Linux program. IBM is providing these
business partners with a Solaris-to-Linux seminar-in-a-box, Solaris-to-Linux
migration training, and Solaris-to-Linux sales kits.

 

In addition, IBM is providing extensive support to its Business Partners on
Solaris-to-Linux migrations to complement today's new services and offerings
to customers, providing more skilled assistance than before in this
high-demand area.  For the latest information on all of the new components
of the Solaris-to-Linux migration program please visit
www.ibm.com/linux/advantage/solaris.

 

"As a twenty-year IBM partner on the AIX platform, we are excited about
IBM's continuing push into the Linux environment," says Mitch Farbstein,
vice president, Feith Systems. "IBM's implementation of Linux on POWER and
on the eServer zSeries provides a truly scalable platform family that can
support Feith's large-scale installations.  IBM's Linux environment has made
the migration of Feith Document Database, running on Informix and DB2, a
very straightforward exercise.  We are working closely with IBM on this as
they are clearly the leader in the Linux space."

 

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of
leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across
IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services,
solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take
full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information, visit
www.ibm.com/linux.

 

                                   # # #

 

Mike Darcy

IBM

914-766-4777

mdarcy@us.ibm.com

 

 

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