Big Blue to distribute the Sun Microsystems operating system on an increased range of System x and BladeCenter servers.

The ties between IBM and Sun Microsystems became a little closer Thursday with both companies announcing that IBM will offer Sun’s Solaris operating system on a select range of System x and BladeCenter servers.

IBM already offers Solaris on a small range of its BladeCenter servers but both companies are promoting the extension of support as a win for server consumers. IBM’s aim is to provide its customers with the widest array of operating system options available and the deal, announced Thursday, also gives Sun Microsystems greater market presence in the important and lucrative server market as well as its first major top-tier distributor in IBM.

As part of the expansion, both companies are set to invest in testing and system qualification combining Solaris with System x and BladeCenter servers. That process is expected to take 90 days according to a report in ComputerWorld after which time IBM will announce its availability to customers of the supported servers.

The range of IBM servers expected to support Solaris will be the IBM BladeCenter HS21 and LS41 servers; and IBM System x3650, System x3755, and System x3850 servers.
"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 & group executive, IBM Systems & 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. Today we expand that agreement to help clients migrate to Solaris on IBM x86-based System x servers."

As part of the deal, IBM has signed up as a distributor of Sun’s Solaris operating system and Sun Microsystems is happy to take that to the bank.

"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. Solaris is clearly a choice customers are demanding."

The move is still somewhat surprising given that both companies have been busily promoting their own flavour of UNIX for years – Sun its Solaris and IBM its AIX version - often at the expense of the other.

Despite that, the deal also includes Sun providing software support for IBM servers and that will also add patches and updates to the operating system.

Sun was quick to point out that this new relationship with IBM exceeds the deal it currently has with Hewlett-Packard.

"Our relationship with HP is at arms length. They are neither an OEM for Solaris nor can they sell service subscriptions to customers. The relationship with IBM is really the strongest we have with any partner in the marketplace." Schwartz told The Register during a conference call.

Neither company released details on expected pricing of the Solaris OS option but that is likely to be announced after the 90-day qualification period and IBM is ready to go public with customers about its latest operating system deal.