IBM CEO Ginni Rometty

Enterprise giants IBM and SAP SE have announced a partnership to run SAP’s HANA in-memory data analytics platform atop Big Blue’s SoftLayer cloud infrastructure as well as the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

HANA (High Performance Analytical Appliance) is in-memory, column-oriented relational database system that SAP claims has more than 250,000 customers. The vast majority run HANA on premise, but with this move SAP is clearly hoping more will be tempted to run it in the cloud.

According to IBM, customers will be able to run managed SAP workloads on SoftLayer all the way from testing to production. SAP HANA and many of the company’s other tools are already certified to run on AWS, which is IBM’s biggest cloud competitor. IBM positions its cloud platform as more flexible than AWS’s for customers who want a mix between public and private clouds.

“This announcement is a significant milestone in the deployment of enterprise cloud,” said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in a statement. “Our secure, open, hybrid enterprise cloud platform will enable SAP clients to support new ways to work in an era shaped by big data, mobile and social.”

As an added bonus, the could also lead to more opportunities for IBM’s SAP consulting services.