IBM and SAP plan to announce on Tuesday that they will partner to offer cloud computing services to companies. Specifically, IBM IBM 0.15% will provide cloud infrastructure services to SAP, which will run its business applications—collectively dubbed the HANA Enterprise Cloud—on top of them. For IBM, it’s the second megawatt deal of the year with a technology industry peer as it continues to stake ground through large cloud computing partnerships. In July, it announced it would partner with AppleAAPL -1.06% to sell phones and tablets (and related applications and services) to business customers. For SAP, it’s an acceleration of an existing strategy to offer its applications worldwide—and a small concession that the data center buildout it recently completed wasn’t sufficient to meet its larger goal. “SAP has really morphed as a company to a cloud application and platform company,” says Kevin Ichhpurani, SAP’s head of business development. “Our goal is to be the cloud company powered by HANA.” Walldorf, Germany-based SAP, the largest software company in Europe, sees a partnership with its American counterpart as a way to outrun rivals like Oracle ORCL 0.60% , which has chosen to build its own network of data centers, in the race to get businesses to adopt cloud applications. For SAP, that includes SuccessFactors (for human capital management), Ariba (for procurement), and soon, Concur (for travel and expenses). There are currently about 4,000 HANA customers, Ichhpurani says, and eleven times as many companies running SAP’s business software suite. “We needed to really build global scale instantaneously,” Ichhpurani says. “IBM has announced that they’ll get to 40 data centers in the year. That’s really attractive to us.” The deal comes at a significant turning point for the information technology departments of major companies. For years, data resided on servers that the company owned and operated within its own facilities, referred to as “on premise.” With the rise of cloud computing, that data began to migrate to servers owned and operated by third-party providers (such as IBM or Amazon) but rented by the company in question. The appeal? Lower cost at scale and flexibility as software has transformed into a service you access anytime on the Internet rather than a program you launch from a local computer. The answer for many companies is increasingly the “hybrid cloud,” where some data resides locally and other data lives in the cloud. Firms that have been reluctant to move their data to the cloud have begun to do so. Companies that once saw the cloud as fit only for evaluating software in development—for “testing environments”—now see it suitable for hosting the real deal, referred to as “production environments.” Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, through its SoftLayer business, wants to be there to meet that need, says Erich Clementi, the leader of IBM’s Global Technology Services group. “We’ve seen a massive uptick in terms of demand,” he says. “The desire now for customers to move their production landscapes to the cloud, that appetite, is growing exponentially.” IBM deeply desires to be the preferred cloud platform for the enterprise, Clementi says. Doing a deal with SAP is both logical—IBM says it is the largest SAP practice in the world—and appealing in terms of generating additional business. “SAP attracts a whole host of other connected applications, services, integrations,” Clementi says. “For us, gaining critical mass and credibility for enterprise production is paramount. Over time, more and more services are going to be delivered in a cloud manner. I think the enterprises will watch and see—and I think this deal makes it credible.” “We can be the handshake,” Clementi adds. Ichhpurani puts it another way: “A single throat to choke.” IBM和SAP近日宣佈，雙方將合作，攜手向企業提供雲端計算服務。 其中，IBM將向SAP提供雲基礎架構服務，而SAP則將使用IBM的基礎架構執行HANA企業雲應用。 對於IBM來說，這也是它今年第二次與科技行業的重量級企業在雲端計算領域進行合作。今年７月，IBM宣佈將與蘋果公司（Apple）合作，向企業客戶銷售手機和平板電腦（以及相關應用與服務）。 對於SAP來說，與IBM的結盟有利於助推其現有應用的全球銷售。同時也等於承認了它最近才建設完成的資料中心還不足以滿足公司的巨集偉藍圖。 SAP的商務拓展負責人凱文??伊克普拉尼指出：“SAP已經確實轉變成一家雲應用和雲平臺公司。我們的目標是成為一家以HANA驅動的雲公司。” SAP公司總部位於德國的瓦爾多夫，它是歐洲最大的軟體公司，與IBM的合作也是它領先甲骨文（Oracle）等競爭對手的一種方式。相比之下，甲骨文公司為了吸引企業選擇自家的雲應用而自行建設了一個數據中心網路。目前SAP已經收購了SuccessFactors（人力資本管理應用）、Ariba（採購應用），對Concur（差旅及報銷管理應用）的收購很快也將完成。伊克普拉尼指出，HANA企業雲現在已經擁有大約4000名客戶，而執行SAP企業軟體套裝的公司大約有11倍之多。 伊克普拉尼表示：“我們需要快速建立起全球級的規模，IBM宣佈他們的資料中心今年將達到40個，這對我們非常有吸引力。” 目前，各大公司的IT部門正好也到達了一個拐點。多年以來，資料一直儲存在企業擁有的伺服器上，在企業內部運作，所以又叫“內部伺服器”。隨著雲端計算的興起，資料開始轉移到第三方供應商，如IBM或亞馬遜（Amazon）提供並運營的伺服器上，在規模效應下，大大降低了資料成本。同時由於軟體不再是電腦上的一個程式，而是變成了一種可以隨時在網際網路上讀取的服務，因此也提高了應用的靈活性。 目前，許多公司越來越青睞所謂的“混合雲”，也就是部分資料儲存在本地電腦上，部分資料儲存在雲端。有些不願意將資料完全儲存到雲端的企業已經選擇了這種做法。有些公司以前覺得雲端計算只適合用來評估研發中的軟體，即是一種“測試環境”；現在他們認為雲端計算已經成熟，適合用於生產，也就是所謂的“生產環境”。IBM公司的全球技術服務部負責人埃裡克??克萊蒙蒂表示，IBM希望憑藉它的SoftLayer主機服務幫助企業滿足這種需求。 他表示：“我們發現需求已經有了很大的提升，現在使用者想把生產環境移動到雲端的意願和胃口都在呈指數級增長。” 克萊蒙蒂表示，IBM力求成為最受企業青睞的雲平臺。與SAP進行合作既是合理的選擇（IBM表示它自己正是SAP全球最大的客戶），同時也能夠產生額外的業務。“SAP會吸引一系列其它的相關應用、服務和整合。對我們來說，在企業生產方面積累足夠的人氣和商譽是極為重要的。隨著時間的推移，越來越多的服務都會通過雲端來提供。我認為廣大企業都會見證這一點——而這次合作將使它變得更可靠。” 克萊蒙蒂補充道：“我們可以說是強強聯手”。伊克普拉尼用另一種說法表達了類似的意思——“我們朝著同一個目標而努力。”
