AIX On Cloud

Before cloud computing, businesses had to rely on in-house teams of information technology staff and row upon row of heavy computer servers to perform their mission-critical operations. IBM AIX was a very popular choice for enterprise businesses when it was first introduced in 1986, and many organizations are now hoping to run AIX on cloud operations rather than on-premise.

What is AIX? AIX stands for Advanced Interactive eXecutive and is one of the only remaining Unix server systems left in commercial use. Even though the use of Unix server systems such as AIX has declined sharply in recent years, IBM Power still regularly invests in and updates its AIX systems. However, the usage of Unix server systems has fallen out of popularity with enterprise clients in recent years for good reason. With the introduction of cloud computing, organizations can no longer justify the sometimes extraordinary expenses of building and maintaining their own server hardware or employing the incredibly talented staff to manage it. 

While AIX may allow many organizations to perform critical operations from their offices, there are a few disadvantages to using AIX in-house instead of migrating to AIX on cloud. Traditional IBM power systems such as AIX can suffer from limited scalability, higher maintenance and support costs, limited accessibility, and higher security risks. As many enterprise businesses move to a hybrid or remote-only model, the importance of cloud computing becomes apparent. Luckily, organizations that enjoy the stability and services that AIX provides them can have the best of both worlds by finding a partner to migrate AIX services to the cloud. 

Some of the benefits of legacy application migration on premise to cloud include:

Increased scalability

While AIX is a modular system and is considered to be scalable in itself, cloud scalability goes beyond anything a physical server system could achieve – and with significantly less lift from in-house teams. With cloud computing, organizations can easily scale up or scale down their computing operations and infrastructure without handling the physical infrastructure or staff.

Recovered costs

With cloud computing, businesses can easily scale up or scale down their computing operations – and only pay for what they need. This saves the organization from buying more power than they need, only to have the money and server space go to waste. Additionally, cloud computing does not require large in-house IT staff to manage and maintain, reducing employment costs without sacrificing technical functionality.

Availability

In today’s hybrid and remote working model, accessibility to information is paramount to success. Employees should be able to access all of the information necessary to perform their jobs at their best – no matter where they are. Without cloud computing, this is nearly impossible. An IBM Cloud AIX migration can make necessary information available from anywhere in the world, allowing your workforce to keep the hybrid or remote workplace they’ve come to love.

AIX On Azure

Skytap is one of the few cloud providers that can partner with enterprise organizations to migrate their AIX systems to the cloud. Skytap offers Microsoft Azure AIX infrastructure-as-a-service. Microsoft Azure is a good place to host AIX workloads if an organization is heavily invested with existing Microsoft products as this can provide an even more seamless integration between existing systems. While it may seem intimidating to migrate to cloud computing after living with legacy systems for so long, the benefits of cloud computing are many.

Using AIX on Azure allows organizations to have increased scalability and flexibility. Thanks to modern cloud infrastructure, enterprise organizations that need to pivot or scale on a moment’s notice are able to do so through Azure. Instead of building a brand new server infrastructure system from scratch, AIX cloud services allow organizations to continue using the applications they’ve always used – from anywhere in the world.

A few other benefits of using AIX on Azure include Microsoft’s global data center network – Azure has a global network of data centers, allowing organizations to deploy their AIX systems in geographically distributed locations. This can improve performance, add planned redundancy, and provide better disaster recovery. Microsoft Azure also supports hybrid clouds for the same reason – this assists with data backup in the case of technical failures or malfunctions.

Using cloud infrastructure-as-a-service is also more cost-effective than managing AIX systems in house. With Skytap’s pay-as-you-go model, organizations only need to pay for the Azure real estate that they currently occupy. They even have ways to quickly suspend, resume, or schedule virtual environments to reduce idle infrastructure, thereby lowering the costs even further. 

Azure also offers top-of-the-line security and compliance measures, which is integral to a successful cloud migration. Skytap ensures data safety through encryption and other security measures to protect the data in transit and at rest.

Running AIX on the Azure platform gives enterprise businesses the availability and scalability they need to compete in a modern environment without sacrificing the systems they’ve built all the years they’ve been in business. Azure also offers increased data protection through backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and hybrid cloud integrations. AIX also offers organizations increased savings since there is no longer the necessity to maintain rooms of hardware. When more space is required in the cloud, you can simply request more at the click of a button – no more waiting for parts to come in.

Migrating any legacy system to the cloud can be an intimidating process, but Skytap partners with enterprise organizations every day to seamlessly transition their software of yesteryear into the powerful, scalable systems of tomorrow. Skytap offers a comprehensive suite of services and tools to facilitate the migration of legacy systems to the cloud, providing support and guidance throughout the entire process. By leveraging Skytap’s expertise and resources, enterprise organizations can mitigate the risks associated with data migration and modernize their IT infrastructure with confidence, ensuring they stay competitive in today’s digital landscape.

Skytap On Azure

With Skytap on Azure, enterprises can migrate and run AIX workloads as-is natively in Azure without the need to refactor or replatform applications. This reduces costs, timelines and business risk. While any AIX cloud migration can be a daunting task, partnering with Skytap gives businesses the opportunity for minimal effort and maximum cloud output. Skytap partners with their client organizations to provide cloud infrastructure-as-a-service so that their clients can focus on more pressing business needs.

There are currently seven Skytap on Azure regions that can host their own regional elements, assets, drives, and more. The seven Skytap on Azure regions are located in Hong Kong, Dublin, Amsterdam, Singapore, London, San Antonio, and Ashburn (Virginia). Regions are useful for disaster recovery as well as improving flexibility and scalability. Many organizations from all over the world use Skytap to migrate AIX to the cloud. Hosting in a region that is physically closer to your location can increase download speed. 

AIX on cloud with Skytap provides a powerful and flexible solution for organizations looking to bring their workloads into the modern era. Having cloud-enabled systems makes hybrid and remote work more possible. It also saves time, money, and resources. With Skytap, businesses can easily migrate their existing AIX workloads to the cloud, eliminating the need for costly hardware upgrades and maintenance. The platform supports a range of AIX versions, including AIX 5.3, AIX 6.1, AIX 7.1, and AIX 7.2. 

Skytap offers self-service environments, quick-start templates, environments that are able to be simply suspended and scheduled, multi-level monitoring and reporting, and multiple levels of collaborative tools. The Skytap platform allows businesses to create custom AIX environments in the cloud, providing the same level of control and flexibility as an in-house AIX environment. With Skytap, organizations still have control over all their data and can continue using their systems in the same way they always have – just with the major upgrades of cloud computing. 

Skytap on Azure can provide enterprise-grade security alongside the scalability, advanced automation, and customization that organizations expect from the best cloud infrastructure-as-a-service providers. Partnering with Skytap to migrate AIX server systems to the cloud allows organizations to keep the AIX solutions they’re used to with all of the additional benefits of cloud computing. Learn more about your AIX on cloud migration options today.