IBM steps up Sun conversion programme

Just a day before Oracle announces its intentions for its newly acquired Sun Microsystems technologies, IBM plans on Tuesday to expand efforts to help migrate Sun users to Big Blue.

Developers at IBM have built new software tools to automate many of the manual processes to help accelerate Sun migrations, IBM said. The software identifies Sun assets, provisions the target IBM environment, and streamlines workload transitions. Migrations can be made from Sun Solaris to Linux or IBM AIX. Applications and middleware also can be moved to IBM systems. The methodology employed by the software shortens provisioning times from weeks to days for some clients, according to IBM. Oracle on Wednesday will unveil its strategy for leveraging its Sun-developed technologies. The European Union, which had objected to the merger, gave its blessing last week. Since its launch four years ago, IBM's Migration Factory programme has resulted in nearly 2,200 companies switching to IBM systems and storage from Sun and HP, IBM said.