SAP-IBM Partnership Yields SAP Cloud Platform, Private Edition

IBM and SAP's long-standing partnership has yielded the first option for deploying the SAP Cloud Platform application development and integration environment on private infrastructure, the companies said Wednesday.

SAP Cloud Platform, private edition, delivers the Platform-as-a-Service capabilities bringing together in-memory SAP HANA database and collaboration, integration, analytics, storage and mobile services that lean heavily on open source technologies, including Cloud Foundry, on single-tenant servers in IBM data centers.

Building off one of the oldest alliances in the IT industry, the two enterprise stalwarts developed the joint offering for customers in regulated industries, or those with sensitive data, that require dedicated infrastructure, Bradley Knapp, IBM offering manager, bare metal, told CRN from SAP's SapphireNow 2018 conference in Orlando.

[Related: SAP Shifting Cloud Platform Pricing To New Consumption-Based Model]

"They can know that entire stack and trust in the regulatory compliance of the operations pieces," Knapp told CRN. "They don’t have to worry about running afoul of regulators."

SAP introduced support for SAP Cloud Platform last year for Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. IBM has yet to offer that SAP environment on its public cloud.

The companies have worked together almost 50 years, jointly tackling both sales and delivery across a range of products in those decades.

"We like to look at it as a partnership of co-innovation," Knapp said. "What IBM loves is the ability to add in all that extra special sauce."

Private edition, when made generally available later in the year, will see joint go-to-market efforts, with both IBM and SAP salesforces and channels selling the product, and SAP carrying the contract.

Customers can select IBM Cloud as their delivery mode to select from the full stack of IBM delivery options, Knapp said.