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| Source: Cisco. The Intercloud ecosystem. |
"Today it's about connectivity. Tomorrow it'll be about commerce, and after that it'll be about information," pronounced Nick Earle, Senior VP, Global Cloud and Managed Services, Cisco.
Cisco's vision, he said, is to enable standardised cloud applications and highly secure hybrid clouds through a coalition of clouds that talk seamlessly to each other, in the same way that the Internet is a coalition of networks that talk seamlessly to each other. Such a coalition would advance Cisco’s plan to address customer requirements for a globally distributed, highly secure cloud platform capable of meeting the demands of the Internet of Everything.
The Cisco Intercloud Fabric enables this coalition. Available as of late September, the set of solutions allow businesses on the one hand to build secure hybrid clouds and extend their data centres to public clouds as needed, and cloud providers, on the other hand, to offer a complete hybrid cloud solution.
Earle said the Intercloud is a true coalition of clouds, enabling virtual machine (VM) portability, so cloud workloads can be transferred from any cloud (or stack) to any other cloud, independent of the hypervisor, the software that controls a particular cloud. Policy extensibility is a must, so that the same policies for parameters such as networking and security are identical no matter which cloud the workload has been sent to.
Earle said the Intercloud is a true coalition of clouds, enabling virtual machine (VM) portability, so cloud workloads can be transferred from any cloud (or stack) to any other cloud, independent of the hypervisor, the software that controls a particular cloud. Policy extensibility is a must, so that the same policies for parameters such as networking and security are identical no matter which cloud the workload has been sent to.
These practices would be analogous to creating an ecosystem so that someone can visit the same fastfood chain in different countries to eat a hamburger which is made the same way, with the same size and the same taste around the world, if the hamburger were a workload, its size and flavour were policies, and the countries were clouds with different languages spoken and different levels of sales tax.
According to Cisco, the Intercloud Fabric unifies the management of public cloud services, including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and other offerings, while also enabling hybrid cloud workloads to be ported seamlessly between public cloud providers, private clouds and Cisco Cloud services as needed.
Cisco Hybrid Cloud bundles back up the initiative with technology offerings combined with services. Also launched in late September, these bundles further help businesses to create hybrid clouds. One bundle, for example, allows customers already using a private cloud to extend that infrastructure to Cisco’s infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering.
The new partners, which include Asia-headquartered companies like LG CNS, NTT DATA, and Wipro, mean that the Intercloud is extended by 250 additional data centres in 50 countries.
Cisco Hybrid Cloud bundles back up the initiative with technology offerings combined with services. Also launched in late September, these bundles further help businesses to create hybrid clouds. One bundle, for example, allows customers already using a private cloud to extend that infrastructure to Cisco’s infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering.
The completed acquisition of Metacloud, which deploys and operates private clouds with an OpenStack-as-a-service model, was also announced in late September, as was the addition of over 30 partners to the Intercloud ecosystem.
The new partners, which include Asia-headquartered companies like LG CNS, NTT DATA, and Wipro, mean that the Intercloud is extended by 250 additional data centres in 50 countries.
"If everybody works together... it'll give rise to the world's biggest marketplace," Earle said. "It's not about technology. It's to change the business outcomes which are the future of technology."
BT will leverage Cisco Intercloud Fabric to develop hybrid cloud services that connect with the Cisco Cloud and with the cloud and managed service offerings of Cisco Powered Intercloud Providers. The BT Cloud Compute infrastructure, available in major economies across the Middle East and Asia Pacific, will become fully Intercloud-enabled to support highly secure, global hybrid clouds with workload portability for BT’s customers. Ruth Rowan, Chief Marketing Officer, Asia, Middle East and Africa for BT, said that the company has Intercloud fabric across 17 countries in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa as well as Europe. "We've done that because of interest from our customers," she said.
Equinix and Cisco have also teamed up to provide enterprise customers with more secure, resilient and efficient interconnections to public clouds. Equinix also plans to deploy key Cisco technologies and services across its Cloud Exchange, including the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switch, Cisco APIC, and the Cisco Evolved Services Platform.
Equinix and Cisco have also teamed up to provide enterprise customers with more secure, resilient and efficient interconnections to public clouds. Equinix also plans to deploy key Cisco technologies and services across its Cloud Exchange, including the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switch, Cisco APIC, and the Cisco Evolved Services Platform.
The two companies announced in September that they plan to develop a hosted private cloud solution that utilises the Equinix Cloud Exchange to deliver secure private access to cloud service providers in Equinix data centres globally. Cisco plans to deploy Intercloud capabilities in 16 Equinix markets including in Asia.
Existing partners are also rolling out more functionality for the Intercloud. Telstra, which became Cisco’s first Intercloud partner in March 2014, announced the expansion of its Cisco Cloud Services capability beyond Australia to Hong Kong and Singapore in September.
Cisco continues to recruit and enable partners across the Intercloud ecosystem, including in Asia. Earle says it can take 12 weeks to engage with a potential partner before the company agrees to join the Intercloud. "You'll see more Asian companies announced in calendar year 2015," he said. Some of the challenges, he noted, include companies that prefer to go it on their own, or which do not believe in the ecosystem model.
Existing partners are also rolling out more functionality for the Intercloud. Telstra, which became Cisco’s first Intercloud partner in March 2014, announced the expansion of its Cisco Cloud Services capability beyond Australia to Hong Kong and Singapore in September.
Cisco continues to recruit and enable partners across the Intercloud ecosystem, including in Asia. Earle says it can take 12 weeks to engage with a potential partner before the company agrees to join the Intercloud. "You'll see more Asian companies announced in calendar year 2015," he said. Some of the challenges, he noted, include companies that prefer to go it on their own, or which do not believe in the ecosystem model.
Further momentum for the Intercloud is expected through Cisco Capital, which has earmarked US$1 billion to provide financial solutions that help Cisco customers and partners accelerate the adoption of Cisco technologies needed to transition to Cisco-powered clouds. Cisco Capital offers will focus on financing Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI); facilitating technology migrations; and providing flexible payment structures.
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