IBM has tapped Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud to deliver software to clients and developers under a new pay-as-you-go model. The agreement will let Big Blue's clients access IBM DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, WebSphere Portal, Lotus Web Content Management, WebSphere sMash, and Novell's SUSE Linux operating system in the cloud.
Effective immediately, IBM will provide software developers with Amazon Machine Images without charge for development and test purposes. In the coming months, IBM intends to launch full production software images in beta, and eventually extend its cloud-computing portfolio to include service-management capabilities from IBM Tivoli software.
"This relationship with Amazon Web Services provides our customers with a new way to use IBM software and broadens our distribution channels," says Dave Mitchell, director of strategy and emerging business at the IBM Software Group.
"There are a lot of other vendors out there," but IBM picked Amazon because "it is the best-known provider at that level," says Gartner vice president David Smith. "It's a big deal because a lot of organizations look to IBM for expertise, and this tends to validate the technology."
Still, Smith cautioned businesses that cloud computing are still maturing. "We think this is the year of experimentation and not the year for deploying business-critical applications." He cautions that businesses need to look at all of the opportunities out there, not just IBM.
Source: CIO Today