IBM offers Solaris on blades

Stephen Withers
Friday, 17 August 2007 12:42

Business IT - Technology

IBM will give its x86 blade server customers the option of Sun's Solaris operating system.

"IBM provides the broadest choice of server platforms and operating systems to customers with AIX, Linux for x86 and Power, Microsoft Windows Server and now Solaris," said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive, IBM systems and technology group. "IBM is the first major x86 vendor to have such an agreement with Sun, and the first big vendor apart from Sun to offer Solaris on blade servers."

The company already offers support for Solaris on BladeCentre servers, and several of its applications including Websphere, Lotus and DB2 run on the operating system. As part of the new agreement Sun and IBM will jointly work on testing and system qualification.

"We're thrilled to be working with IBM to bring the Solaris OS to the broadest market possible - they are a natural partner for Sun," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems. "Solaris adoption continues to accelerate, among both the open source and commercial communities - driven by bundled virtualization for servers and storage, support for thousands of ISVs, including nearly the entirety of IBM's software portfolio, and outstanding operational economics."

IBM will support Solaris on Solaris OS on hardware including the BladeCenter HS21 and LS41, System x3650, System x3755, and System x3850.