Don’t settle for an uncertain future
Now that it has been acquired by Oracle, the future of Sun’s hardware business is highly uncertain. The company canceled Rock, its next-generation chip project, leaving customers to wonder if Oracle will focus solely on software and leave the hardware like so much space junk. That’s why understanding the cost implications of maintaining your current Oracle hardware environment versus investing in newer, more powerful technologies with stable roadmaps is critical.
The undefined future of Sun’s hardware plus Oracle’s lack of experience in running a hardware business puts your infrastructure at great risk for forced migration and increased cost. But don’t worry, IBM has migrated 5,000 customers worldwide in the last 4 years from competitive platforms, and we offer a clear, cost-effective roadmap for Oracle customers like you. It’s time to orbit a smarter planet.
Reasons to migrate now
- The IBM Systems Migration Assurance. IBM makes it easier for Oracle server customers to make a confident decision to move with a suite of proven tools to analyze the business risks, understand the financial benefits and develop a proven migration roadmap.
IBM Systems Migration Assurance - Migrate from Oracle servers to IBM Power Systems and earn up to 4,000 Power Rewards points per core. Those points can be redeemed for selected services and software products from IBM and our partners.
- An eXcellent reason to migrate. IBM X-Architecture supports the types of demanding, enterprise-class workloads that are increasingly being migrated from RISC-based UNIX systems. With IBM x3850 X5 and x3950 X5, IBM continues its tradition of balanced systems design that maximizes memory, boosts utilization, and simplifies deployment.
- Make the Switch Today Receive a no-charge BladeCenter chassis when you migrate to IBM.
- IBM's new software. In 2010, IBM unveiled new software that helps customers automate, accelerate and optimize their migration projects. Using a workload-centric methodology, IBM is able to automatically discover and identify the Oracle assets, rapidly provision the new target IBM environment and streamline transitions.
Read the press release
With IBM your investment is in safe hands
Join the over 700 clients worldwide who have already made the decision to move from Oracle to IBM Systems. IBM offers smarter systems for a smarter planet with industry leading virtualization, top business workload performance, broad hardware options, and stable product roadmaps. Two classic examples are: Energen, who saved an estimated $500,000 in annual costs (largely through reductions in Oracle licensing fees); and Adecco Group, who standardized on the IBM Power Platform, consolidating 50 Oracle and HP servers saving energy and reducing floor space.
Migration case studies
Our Systems and services offerings are designed to provide:
Reduced Costs
- With the introduction of next generation System x and BladeCenter systems, IBM lets you transform theoretical performance into actual performance and as a result, you can realize ROI in as little as 3 months. (3)
- IBM's higher performance per core and integrated virtualization technology means fewer servers are needed for the same workload, and this equates to lower software.
- Reduce server acquisition costs by over $400K and save up to 91% of the energy use by consolidating on the Power 550 Express instead of the Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 while using up to 1 / 7th the rack space and up to 90% fewer cores. (4)
- IBM BladeCenter provides more than 25 percent better density than blade competitors, and two times the density of rack servers—which translates into simpler, less expensive interconnects, power and cooling and systems management and can significantly reduce IT costs.
- Consolidate up to 180 non-virtualized Sun Fire V490 servers into one rack of virtualized IBM BladeCenter JS22 servers.
- Migrate from Oracle servers and reduce maximum energy use by up to 92% and save up to 95% of the floor space.
- With consolidation and 24 X 7 X 365 operations, the 3-year operational savings should pay for new BladeCenter hardware. (5)
- IBM SAN Volume Controller’s storage pooling can help share capacity among servers, centralize management, and help improve storage utilization. A recent study of SAN Volume Controller customers by Forrester Consulting found that San Volume Controller can help improve storage utilization by as much as 30 percent and helps reduce storage growth by as much as 20 percent. (6)
- Even if the migration process is seamless, the question of fiscal support remains—a daunting question at a time when many IT divisions are already budget-challenged. Fortunately, complete end-to-end financing and asset disposal services from IBM Global Financing ensure a quick and cost-effective solution when you migrate from Oracle servers. Migration financing delivers access to capital and financing structures that can help minimize project and financial risks. What’s more, project costs can be structured into monthly payment plans that help clients manage cash flow during project implementation and balance operational and capital expenditures. This enables clients to receive the ROI benefits of migrating to an IBM environment more quickly, while also minimizing the financial strain on their business in a difficult economic climate.
- More Flexibility and Choice
IBM believes there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ system that can adequately meet the varied needs of today's businesses. Oracle clients may have been steered toward Oracle Solaris, with Oracle offering little or no support for other platforms. When you migrate your Oracle servers to IBM, you get the flexibility to choose your preferred platform, which in turn gives you the ability to do more on an IT and business level. IBM supports your choice of platform with a broad range of offerings, service and support for Linux, AIX, Windows, i5/OS, and z/OS.
- IBM System x and BladeCenter systems can support applications migrating from Oracle—with or without Oracle Solaris. In addition, customers have the freedom they need to choose from Oracle Solaris 10 or Linux.
- One of the primary advantages of working with IBM is an integrated approach that combines the deployment of servers, storage, the IBM Migration Factory for server migration, application and data migration solutions, plus the availability of financing, in one complete solution.
- Power Systems provide you with the choice you need to migrate from Oracle servers as they have the capability of supporting UNIX, i and Linux, thereby exponentially increasing the portfolio of business solutions available on a single platform.
- Capacity on Demand (COD) options on IBM Power Systems enable processing power and memory to scale up and down as business needs fluctuate, with no or minimal disruption to business.
- Built on industry leading eX4 technology, System x enterprise servers provide the headroom to scale up seamlessly from 4 to 16 sockets (64 cores), giving you the flexibility you need to respond to fluctuating business demands. IBM is the only tier-1 vendor to support such modular scaling, leading to fewer servers for a given workload, which can help reduce complexity and save on costs when you migrate from Oracle servers. (7)
- PowerVM can fire up a new virtual server in hours, versus days or weeks to install new physical servers. Live Partition Mobility helps clients eliminate hardware related planned downtime. You can just move the partition, while it is running, to another server, so you upgrade or maintain your systems without interrupting productive work.
- AIX provides live application mobility for superior workload balancing, using automatic, policy-based relocation of workload between systems using WPARs. Oracle Solaris based virtualization capabilities are significantly less robust than those available with Power Systems, with no support for partition or application mobility and less granular resource allocation flexibility. (8)
- Maximized Stability
IBM has survived through past troubled economic times, and many clients today seek an IT vendor that will be there for the long haul. Whether your plans to migrate from Oracle servers are for single or multiple workloads, IBM consistently offers leading price performance, flexibility, and choice. Our technology is based on innovation and interoperability, and all our server lines have strategic roadmaps that will help take your business where it needs to go, now and in the future.
IBM Systems have the hardened technology with high availability and resiliency solutions to keep your applications and your business up and running.- The new eX5 systems – powered by the latest Intel® Xeon® Processor 7500 series – and combined with IBM MAX5 technology that allows eX5 systems to deliver up to 2x more memory than the standard Xeon 7500 Series implementation. eX5 systems offer the power, performance, and utilization of balanced system design to deliver value that Oracle servers simply cannot match.
- IBM controls its processor roadmap and is highly committed towards the development of its Power processors.
- Power Systems virtualization technologies may help to reduce your cost of downtime by up to 59% versus a conventional UNIX environment. (9)
- System x enterprise servers are designed with mission-critical features (memory proteXion, memory scrubbing, memory mirroring, Chipkill memory, and hot-swap/hot-add memory) to help deliver customers extreme high availability at an entry price point when they migrate from Oracle servers.
- IBM XIV Storage System rebuild process provides rapid self-healing to quickly restore internal system redundancy after the failure of components like disk drives.
- According to a recent Yankee Group study of 400 Windows, Linux and UNIX users, AIX was the most available server operating system. (10)
- The IBM Migration Factory is designed to help ensure that each step of the process to migration from Oracle servers is optimized to address all unique organizational needs via a proven, five-step methodology that minimizes the costs and complexities of the challenge.
It’s easy to see why Oracle™ customers should migrate to IBM. Some of Oracle’s technology roadmaps have been, well, all over the map (11). In addition, storage products and services have not been one of Oracle's strong points. Oracle clients need solutions from a trusted partner, and investment protection in the form of roadmaps they can believe in.
- Linux vs. Oracle Solaris
Then there’s the Linux® challenge to Oracle Solaris. An analysis from The Sageza Group suggests that Linux has deeply penetrated the high–volume ecosystem and Oracle Solaris™ 10 has little chance of challenging Microsoft® Windows® or Linux (12).In addition, this research indicates that over 75 percent of IT professionals surveyed have already migrated or have plans to migrate infrastructure applications to Linux (13). An estimated 3,000 of IBM’s estimated 15,000 Linux–related customer engagements worldwide involved customers who chose to migrate from Oracle servers running Oracle Solaris to IBM Systems running Linux.
In fact, the Robert Frances Group recently analyzed Oracle Solaris and Linux and offered guidance to enterprises as they plan their operating system strategy. Their recommendations:
- Unless you are running an application that for technical reasons cannot be on anything other than Oracle Solaris, choose Linux. Their position is that with more skilled administrators, a lower total cost of ownership, and a strong, vibrant development process, Linux is the clear choice (14).
Oracle Solaris users have been turning to Linux because it offers a broader choice, more flexibility, and the most comprehensive platform support of any operating system in the industry. Linux continues to be the world's fastest growing operating system, and IBM has the resources to help you migrate from Oracle servers with Oracle Solaris to Linux on IBM Systems with confidence.
Minimizing risk during migration
When you are ready to migrate from Oracle servers with Oracle Solaris to Linux, IBM can help you move with minimal risk to your ongoing business operations. Prior to taking advantage of IBM's renowned Migration Factory process, Oracle Solaris users can easily evaluate the migration readiness of their custom applications and shell scripts with the Oracle Solaris to Linux Migration Toolkit, while Oracle Solaris administrators can better understand the difference between their current environment and Linux with the Oracle Solaris to Linux Migration Redbook.
What’s causing this trend of migrating to IBM? IBM’s multiplatform flexibility is likely one of the key reasons. IBM offers a range of processors and operating systems: Xeon®, Opteron™, Power and zArchitecture collectively offering your choice of Linux, AIX, z/OS, or Windows® operating systems. That same flexibility is also what makes the migration experience so smooth.
Migrate from Oracle Server and Storage pathways
Migrating from Oracle servers can be an easy, well-traveled road. With IBM’s broad range of offerings, you can choose the system that’s right for the future of your business.
| Who should migrate | Benefits | Oracle Server & Storage Migration Choices |
|---|---|---|
| Oracle customers with UltraSPARCIIIi or IV entry servers | Streamline IT infrastructure and simplify management | Consolidate on Power Systems on AIX or Linux to improve performance, availability and cost of ownership, exploiting your team’s UNIX skills. IBM Power Take advantage of Power Rewards to reduce the cost and risk of migration. |
| Get the flexibility to handle unpredictable workload demands while controlling costs. | Consolidate mixed workloads on multiple servers to Linux on IBM System z and drive down TCO. IBM System z Take advantage of zRewards to reduce the cost and risk of migration. |
|
| Gain the flexibility to seamlessly scale up or down to meet demanding service levels. | Consolidate on Windows or Linux on System x and gain 3X the performance while lowering your licensing cost in half. |
|
| Gain top performance and lower costs from a blade technology that has the flexibility for future growth. | Increase investment protection and reduce energy costs with Linux, AIX or Oracle Solaris 10 on IBM BladeCenter or IBM Power based blade servers, with an easy transition and no significant modification to your operational structure. |
|
| Oracle customers with M-Series or UltraSPARC III or IV enterprise servers. | Reduce TCO and gain top technology performance with greater energy efficiency. | Consolidate on Power Systems on AIX or Linux improving performance and reducing cost of ownership while exploiting your team’s Unix skills. IBM Power Take advantage of Power Rewards to reduce the cost and risk of migration. |
| Build agility to support new or increased workload demands from your business. | Consolidate application and database workloads on zLinux to improve availability, security and drive down TCO. IBM System z Take advantage of zRewards to reduce the cost and risk of migration. |
|
| Achieve higher levels of responsiveness, flexibility and increase application support. | Improve service levels and manage business growth with Windows or Linux on high performance and scalable System x enterprise servers. |
|
| Oracle customers who have multiple, even incompatible disk systems from one or more vendors | Access to a robust storage portfolio with scalable, secure and easy to manage solutions from one source. | Simplify storage management with a single vendor who can handle all aspects of storage requirements including disk, tape, software, services and solutions. IBM System Storage |
| Oracle customers using EMC® storage offerings | Need to improve disk systems management and simplify sprawling disk storage environments. | Migrate to scalable, open and virtualized disk system solutions that offer a single point of management for heterogeneous disk environments. IBM System Storage: IBM DS8000, IBM XIV Storage System, IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize V7000 |
| Oracle customers with 9985V or 9990V | Move to IBM System Storage: IBM DS8000, IBM XIV Storage System, | |
| Oracle customers considering the Sun Storage 7xxx Array with limited NAS only | Flexible network access protocols and application integration. | Move to IBM System Storage with a multitude of network access protocols, including file system protocols (CIFS, NFS, HTTP, FTP) and block I/O protocols (iSCSI and FCP) and a suite of over 30 features and ISV integration. IBM System Storage |
| Oracle customers with Sun 2xxx or Sun 3xxx | Demanding requirements for entry disk storage: SAS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel | Get rock solid entry storage solutions with IBM System Storage solutions: IBM DS3200, IBM DS3300, IBM DS3400 |
| Oracle customers with VSM or 9310 Powerderhorn tape libraries | Applications demanding a high performing tape infrastructure | Achieve 33% faster tape drives, 6X greater scalability in enterprise libraries, 4.5x faster mount times, 2X faster performing virtual tape systems, and cost savings up to 40% when replacing StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) System with IBM VTS. IBM System Storage:IBM System Storage: IBM TS7740 or IBM TS3500 |
| Oracle customers with Sun StorageTek 6xxx | Simplified disk management. | IBM System Storage provides a virtualized disk environment that offers a single point of management and common functions such as advanced copy and mirroring capabilities. IBM System Storage: IBM SAN Volume Controller and IBM DS5000 |
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