Cisco partners with Microsoft to accelerate service delivery for cloud providers via integrated cloud platform
Cisco has extended of its cloud and data center relationship with Microsoft to include a new technology platform designed to accelerate service delivery and streamline the journey to the Intercloud for cloud providers.
The Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform—an integrated solution that combines Windows Azure Pack and Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI) – to help cloud providers rapidly deliver hybrid cloud services while drastically simplifying operations and reducing costs.
Additionally, 14 cloud providers today announced they plan to join Cisco’s Intercloud partner ecosystem, bringing the number of Intercloud providers to more than 60 with a footprint of more than 350 data centers across 50 countries.
The Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform will provide the building blocks for cloud providers to evolve beyond traditional infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings to create combined IaaS, platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) solutions that deliver more value to their customers.
The new solution is primarily designed to meet the needs of traditional enterprise applications. It will complement Cisco’s OpenStack-based architectures for cloud native workloads and provide seamless hybrid cloud capability for connecting to Intercloud and Azure. Cisco plans to publish the first reference architecture in April 2015.
Nick Earle, senior vice president, Cloud and Managed Services, Cisco, said, “We want our service provider partners to move up-market with us and offer higher-end cloud services. By partnering with Microsoft we’re able to deliver a tightly integrated, application centric cloud architecture.”
“The work we’ve done to integrate Cisco ACI with Windows Azure Pack will allow cloud providers to dramatically accelerate time-to-market, while decreasing costs. Together, Cisco and Microsoft are helping our partners evolve with current market demand and rapidly shifting customer needs,” said Aziz Benmalek, general manager, Hosting Service Providers, Microsoft.
