Cisco Advances Cloud Strategy with VCE, NetApp Integration

Cisco Systems (CSCO) kicked off its Cisco Live! conference in San Francisco yesterday, and the company has already released a torrent of news expanding on its global Intercloud project. Among the announcements made so far, Cisco revealed it is working with VCE and NetApp (NTAP) to collaborate on “Intercloud-ready” integrated infrastructure solutions aimed at managing private, public and hybrid cloud environments while ensuring interoperability with hybrid clouds for all of its mutual customers.

VCE will integrate its vBlock technology with the Cisco Intercloud Fabric as a way of bridging the disparity between public, private and hybrid cloud systems for their customers. The incorporation of the vBlock systems with Cisco’s Intercloud workload migration capabilities is aimed at helping customers to manage their varied cloud environments securely and quickly while enabling the management of cloud-enabled workloads across heterogeneous environments to be centralized with consistent network and security policies.

“The Cisco Cloud strategy is to build the platform for the Internet of Everything by connecting the world of many clouds into the Intercloud,” said Todd Pavone, EVP of Product Strategy and Development at VCE, in a prepared statement. “VCE will help Cisco accomplish this ambitious goal by enabling enterprises and cloud providers to build hybrid-ready private clouds based on proven true converged infrastructure from VCE. Together, VCE and Cisco can deliver ‘Intercloud-ready’ Vblock Systems that further accelerate IT transformation by enabling secure workload migration between public and private clouds while simplifying infrastructure management, increasing business agility and lowering costs.”

NetApp is also integrating its own data management technology with the Cisco Intercloud to simplify secure, cross-cloud interoperability and to accelerate adoption of hybrid clouds by mutual customers, the company said in the press release. NetApp and Cisco will incorporate the Cisco Intercloud Fabric into the FlexPod roadmap, as the companies seek to deliver uniform control over workload locations. With the new integration, FlexPod will be able to combine public cloud computing with private cloud deployments, ultimately giving users more choice in where they want to house their enterprise data. NetApp plans to continue to integrate its clustered Data ONTAP technology with the Cisco Intercloud Fabric and Cisco ACI policy control to centralize and simplify data management and data movement for cloud-enabled application workloads, the company said.

“Cisco’s Intercloud vision aligns with NetApp’s approach to enable customers to manage and maintain governance of their data spanning private and public cloud environments, irrespective of data type or location. Our companies continue to invest to deliver on the vision of FlexPod, building a secure, dynamic infrastructure to accelerate IT transformation,” said Phil Brotherton, vice president, Cloud Solutions Group at NetApp. “Now we’re integrating Intercloud Fabric into the FlexPod platform to deliver dramatic improvements in operational efficiency and simplicity. Cisco Intercloud will help customers build the enterprise network and data management organizations need for the future.”

Earlier this month, Cisco announced that it would be working with VCE and EMC to drive customers to the cloud with the new Cloud Infrastructure Solutions Accelerator program, which was designed to help resellers gain access to the skills and services needed to differentiate themselves in the integrated infrastructure market. Cisco originally announced its plans for the world’s largest global intercloud during its Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas in March.