IT services company Wipro Ltd said it would collaborate with commercial Linux maker Red Hat to set up what it called a “cloud application factory” to offer developers a platform to modernize cloud applications.
“Wipro’s cloud application factory will have a dedicated services team that can help drive the strategy, design, and delivery of next generation applications globally, using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform,” it said.
Wipro has decades of experience in modernizing and modifying enterprise software. However, of late, more and more enterprises are moving from traditional ‘packaged software’ to ‘cloud software’ that are built using radically different technologies — most of which are open source.
“Enterprises often not just need to support legacy applications in a cost efficient manner, but also increasingly need to quickly develop new cloud-based applications that enable innovation and can drive business process transformation. Red Hat and Wipro recognize this challenge and have built a joint offering designed to address both requirements,” the Indian company said.
The OpenShift platform helps developers create cloud-native applications by leveraging the concept of ‘containers’ such as Dockers and Kubernetes. Containers are self-contained units that run off of a variety of parent platforms that act as hosts or docks, and can be deployed and moved on various platforms easily. Unlike most enterprise software, containers do not need a full-fledged operating system to run, which saves compute resources.
“As a flexible development platform, OpenShift spans across legacy and cloud environments so that customers can develop cloud-native applications without having to rewrite their legacy applications. Traditional applications can coexist alongside new, cloud-native and container-based applications,” Wipro said.
Indian companies like Wipro are keen to help their customers develop new software, whether in the traditional arena or on the cloud.
Wipro provides dedicated IT consulting and services teams to help customers with application life cycle management. The joint platform will offer a reduced time to market for new applications and features, a unified methodology, interoperability and the ability to leverage open source software more easily.
“This is really about helping to streamline customers’ time-to-market by deploying modern applications, in a scalable and repeatable way,” said Julio Tapia, director, OpenShift Partner Ecosystem, Red Hat.
Open source software has emerged as a key growth area as companies know that they won’t be ‘locked in’ to any particular platform created and controlled by a private corporation. Facebook and Google, for example, are almost entirely built using open source software. On the other hand, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft offer competing platforms built using their proprietary code.
Wipro has been ahead of other IT services providers in recognizing this trend.
“As an open source platform, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform can help reduce the cost, and time associated with developing and modernizing enterprise applications,” Wipro said.
“We have strengthened our alliance with Red Hat to build and deploy an effective and scalable team execution methodology to meet joint customer interest, today and in the future,” said Andrew Aitken, General Manager and Global Open Source Practice Leader, Wipro Limited.