Skytap Announces General Availability of IBM i in the Public Cloud, Leads Ecosystem to New Opportunities

SEATTLE, June 25, 2019 (Newswire.com) -  Skytap, a global, purpose-built cloud service, announces that its support for the IBM i operating system is now available in US-West, US-Central and EMEA-UK. Available for purchase in hourly, monthly and annual consumption models, this release broadens Skytap’s support for IBM Power Systems-based applications that can be developed, tested and run in production.

In the 2017/2018 Logicalis Global CIO Survey, most CIOs indicated they are focused on digital transformation, with 44 percent citing complex legacy infrastructure as a main barrier in this transformation.

“We are excited to bring IBM i on Skytap Cloud to the market. We recognized the opportunity for Power and heard from customers that this critical component will help them better tap the benefits of multiple clouds. Our team was an early pioneer on the path to the public cloud for Power and our support for IBM i, AIX and also Linux offers the Power ecosystem innovation opportunities on a platform that has been rock solid for years, with many more to come,” said Thor Culverhouse, CEO, Skytap.

"As clients enter the next chapter of their cloud journeys, they want the flexibility and choice to run their workloads across any environment - on-premises, public and private cloud,” said Harish Grama, general manager, IBM Cloud. "Our collaboration with Skytap enables us to combine the power of IBM Cloud with Skytap's portfolio, and today's news helps to provide additional choice and flexibility. The availability of Skytap Cloud's support for IBM i compliments the new IBM Power Systems Virtual Servers on IBM Cloud, designed to help enterprises accelerate hybrid cloud adoption."

Skytap Cloud Offers Comprehensive Support for Migrating and Managing IBM i

Skytap has partnered with HelpSystems to bring Robot HA to the public cloud, accelerating the movement of IBM i data to the cloud, keeping it synchronized, and ensuring high availability and disaster recovery capabilities for IBM i applications running in Skytap. 

“Using Robot HA to move and replicate IBM i application data in Skytap application environments, customers can be confident that their applications running in Skytap’s service will receive the same level of high availability and resiliency we deliver with Robot HA on premises,” said Kate Bolseth, COO, HelpSystems.

To assist with moving very large datasets, Skytap now supports IBM’s Mass Data Migration Service. This globally available service helps enable customers to receive NAS devices more quickly, load their data and ship the drive for data to be uploaded into Skytap.

Skytap includes support for the commonly used administrator tools, IBM i Access - Client Solutions and IBM Navigator for IBM i. Customers can utilize IBM Backup, Recovery & Media Services (BRMS) for IBM i combined with IBM Cloud Storage Solutions for IBM i to plan, manage backups and store libraries and objects in the cloud, reducing the need for tape drives, cartridges or courier services.

Go Beyond Lift-and-Shift, Begin Modernizing Legacy Toolchains & Experiences

Skytap and ARCAD Software have partnered to bring DevOps and Application Modernization capabilities to the cloud. ARCAD DevOps products automate builds, continuously regression test and manage the automation to deploy heterogeneous applications faster and more securely across multiple platforms. ARCAD’s Application Modernization products enable customers to transform their source code and database, modernize their green screens and create web services for IBM i applications in Skytap. 

“With our seamless DevOps support for heterogeneous x86 and Power applications, including Windows, Linux, Unix, IBM i and z/OS, we are a perfect complement to Skytap. Customers can modernize how they ship software to derive ongoing value from IBM i. ARCAD's unique features enable the highly efficient CI/CT/CD cycles that are vital in cloud environments,” said Michel Mouchon, CTO, ARCAD Software.

Lift-and-Extend, Modernize Business Applications with New Cloud Services

The IBM i market is highly stable and is critically important as 72 percent of respondents indicated that more than 50 percent of their business applications run on IBM i. With cloud migrations, datacenter consolidation and digital transformation at their heels, organizations can now run IBM i in Skytap and augment these applications with new cloud services. Skytap runs in IBM Cloud, can be programmatically integrated with IBM’s cloud-native services and is complemented by IBM’s Power Systems Virtual Servers on IBM Cloud.

Skytap Expands Global Footprint 

Skytap recently expanded its cloud footprint to include a second location for Asia-Pacific located in Singapore and a new Equinix hub in US-Central with plans to expand its Equinix availability into Asia-Pacific in the second half of 2019.

Source: Skytap Inc.