Cisco Advances Cloud Strategy with Additional Cloud Partners and Customers, Updated Offerings and Leadership Appointments

Cisco Live! San Francisco – May 20, 2014 – Demonstrating accelerating momentum for its new cloud business, Cisco today announced new cloud partners and customers, an updated array of cloud service offerings, and key cloud organization leadership appointments.

Today’s news builds on plans announced in March by Cisco to build the world’s largest global Intercloud together with its partners to address customer requirements for a globally distributed, highly secure cloud platform capable of meeting the robust demands of the Internet of Everything. Designed for high-value application workloads, with real-time analytics and “near infinite” scalability, Cisco’s open Intercloud allows local hosting and local provider options that enable data sovereignty. The hybrid cloud capabilities that differentiate the Cisco® Cloud are built upon the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Cisco Intercloud Fabric technologies.

Today’s Announcement Highlights

• Dimension Data and Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) will join Telstra as Cisco Intercloud partners – cloud providers that will invest with Cisco to align their public cloud infrastructure to the Cisco Cloud architecture and deliver Cisco Cloud services to customers and resellers.
• VCE and NetApp announced they will collaborate closely with Cisco to build “Intercloud-ready” integrated infrastructure solutions.
• Johnson Controls announced that it will enable Cisco Cloud partners and customers to quickly add computing capacity via modular data center solutions.
• Accenture has licensed Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud software to expand the cloud management and orchestration capabilities of the Accenture Cloud Platform.

Partner and Customer Momentum in Detail

• Dimension Data and Cisco will expand their 23-year relationship to accelerate and streamline hybrid cloud adoption globally. Cisco will use Dimension Data’s Managed Cloud Platform and SaaS solutions to deliver a suite of midmarket cloud services to its customers and resellers. Dimension Data and Cisco will partner to deliver an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution that will be packaged with Cisco technology and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, including Microsoft SQL Server and SharePoint. The Cisco validated and co-branded solutions will be sold by Cisco through the Cisco channel partner community. Dimension Data’s global cloud service is available via 10 data centers around the world, with plans to expand to 13 locations by September 2014. As a Cisco Intercloud partner, Dimension Data will evolve its Managed Cloud Platform to embrace Cisco ACI and Intercloud Fabric — the building blocks of the Cisco Cloud architecture.
• Sungard Availability Services is a Cisco Intercloud partner, utilizing its cloud infrastructure to deliver new Cisco Cloud services to customers and resellers. As a Cisco Intercloud partner, Sungard AS is expanding its cloud infrastructure utilizing the foundational elements of the Cisco Cloud architecture, including Cisco ACI. Sungard AS is poised to become the first cloud provider to market with a Cisco ACI-based public cloud offer built on an application-centric cloud architecture. Cisco will feature two cloud services from Sungard AS in its service catalog: an IaaS offering that enables customers to rapidly deploy hybrid clouds; and a disaster recovery-as-a-service offering to deliver business continuity.
• VCE today announced it will integrate Cisco’s Intercloud Fabric with Vblock Systems. By providing an onramp to Cisco’s Intercloud workload migration capabilities, VCE Vblock Systems will enable customers to rapidly, seamlessly and securely manage their private, hybrid and public cloud environments. This integration will enable the management of cloud-enabled workloads across heterogeneous environments to be centralized with consistent network and security policies and optimized to fit the needs of the business.
• NetApp today announced plans to integrate its industry-leading data management technology with Cisco’s Intercloud technology to simplify secure, cross-cloud interoperability and to accelerate adoption of hybrid clouds by mutual customers. NetApp and Cisco will also incorporate the Cisco Intercloud Fabric into the FlexPod roadmap. By delivering uniform control across workload locations, FlexPod will be able to combine the transformative power of public cloud computing with private cloud deployments. More broadly across their portfolio, NetApp will 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.
• Accenture has licensed Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC) software as a component of its Accenture Cloud Platform (ACP). Cisco IAC will provide the cloud management and orchestration software for the next release of the Accenture Cloud Platform (ACP), Accenture’s cloud management platform that provides value-added cloud services to clients, and for public cloud services offered by other cloud providers.  Cisco IAC was chosen as ACP’s preferred cloud management software on the strength of its service catalog and orchestration capabilities.
• Johnson Controls is the preferred global provider of modular data center solutions for the Cisco Cloud. By using modular components for computing, communications, security, power and cooling, the timelines for new data center construction are cut in half, allowing Cisco Cloud customers and partners to quickly deploy “Intercloud-ready” computing capabilities. Johnson Controls also offers the ability to manage and remotely monitor data center facilities for Cisco Cloud customers and partners. As a multi-industrial company and industry leader in facility construction and management, Johnson Controls provides facility management services in more than 250 data centers across 29 countries.
• The University of British Columbia (UBC) announced that it will use Cisco EnergyWise™ cloud energy management services, which deliver automated management of electricity usage. UBC will use Cisco EnergyWise cloud energy management services to expand its current EnergyWise networked devices 10-fold and will work together with Cisco to develop custom interfaces so additional devices can be managed by EnergyWise.
• Cisco announced that it has surpassed 175 channel partners, including CDW and GTRI, who are now certified to manage and resell Cisco Cloud services.

Cisco Names Key Cloud Leaders

Cisco today announced the appointment of Cisco Cloud executives responsible for driving the company’s cloud strategy.

• Nick Earle will lead the Cloud and Managed Services organization, reporting to senior vice president of Services Edzard Overbeek.
• Dr. Gee Rittenhouse will lead the new Cloud and Virtualization Group under executive vice president and chief development officer Pankaj Patel.
• Faiyaz Shahpurwala continues to lead the Cloud Infrastructure and Managed Services Organization, also reporting to Edzard Overbeek.

More than 3,700 Cisco employees are now driving the execution of Cisco’s cloud strategy, including top new talent and existing Cisco leaders such as Edison Peres, who has directed Cisco’s worldwide channel efforts for over 10 years and will lead the Cloud and Managed Services partner organization, reporting to Nick Earle. Several new Cisco Cloud executives have deep experience in deploying global cloud services, including a former OpenStack team lead at AT&T, former OpenStack developers at AT&T, and the former chief cloud architect at Yahoo. Cisco has also recently made key additions to its cloud organization from top cloud providers, including Amazon, CenturyLink Technology Solutions, IBM, Microsoft and others.

Executive Quotes 

Rob Lloyd, President, Development and Sales, Cisco

“Since we introduced Cisco Cloud in late March, we have seen tremendous interest from our valued partners and customers, most of whom are interested in cloud environments that are open, highly secure, extensible, and enable data sovereignty. Furthermore, they are looking to Cisco for a network-centric approach to faster IT and cloud innovation. We are very pleased at the momentum we’ve generated thus far and have put a world-class team in place to enable our partners and customers to grow their businesses in a world of many clouds.”

Brett Dawson, CEO of Dimension Data

“Over our 23 year relationship with Cisco, we have had many successes in the marketplace together and cloud is no exception. Dimension Data is proud to be the first global Intercloud partner. We have been providing cloud services for many years and have developed a robust global cloud service – available across all continents. We are extremely excited to support Cisco and its partners in accelerating the market’s move to cloud services.”

Andrew Stern, CEO, Sungard Availability Services

“Companies of all sizes need secure, flexible hybrid cloud solutions to respond to evolving market demands. Our deployment of Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure coupled with our Sungard AS Enterprise Cloud Service will enable our customers to accelerate the deployment and management of applications in hybrid cloud environments.”

Todd Pavone, Executive Vice President, Product Strategy & Development, VCE

“The Cisco Cloud strategy is to build the platform for the Internet of Everything by connecting the world of many clouds into the Intercloud. 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.”

Phil Brotherton, Vice President, Cloud Solutions Group, NetApp

“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. 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.”

Jack Sepple, Accenture Senior Managing Director of Infrastructure Services & Cloud

“The Accenture Cloud Platform is key to our client’s success in integrating and managing cloud services in a hybrid IT environment. The integration of Cisco’s Intelligent Automation for Cloud software will make a significant contribution to the way our clients can access and consume value-added cloud services.”

Dave Myers, President, Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls

“Evolving needs and increased speed and mobility are pushing businesses to use, compute and store data in ways that touch each of us, every day. Employee information, retirement accounts and even your cell phone records are most likely hosted in a cloud. Our relationship with Cisco makes sure that those clouds are supported by reliable and secure data centers that are designed to meet today’s needs and easily adapt for the future.”

Christine Holloway, Vice President of Converged Infrastructure Solutions at CDW

“The Cisco Cloud will help jumpstart the market with compelling cloud solutions branded by Cisco. We believe the new hybrid cloud bundles, validated by Cisco, will meet the needs of our midmarket customer. Our customers can rest assured that their favorable experience with Cisco validated CPE solutions will be the same with a Cisco validated Cloud services, and these new solutions are a great entry point for customers to adopt and recognize the benefits of hybrid cloud.”

Greg Byles, CEO, Global Technology Resources, Inc. (GTRI)

“There is a healthy appetite for cloud services in the marketplace today, and as offerings continue to multiply, customers are becoming more selective in their choices as they look to optimize their IT spend. Customers are more comfortable embracing cloud services backed by leading, experienced and stable vendors. Cisco represents an experienced and proven cloud leader that stands behind what they sell. This is what gives peace of mind to us and our customers.”

Additional resources:

News Release: Cisco Advances Cloud Strategy with Additional Cloud Partners and Customers, Updated Offerings and Leadership Appointments

News Release: Cisco and Dimension Data to Accelerate Global Hybrid Cloud Adoption

Cisco Blog: Cisco is Moving Fast with our Partners to Deliver on the Promise of an Intercloud (Rob Lloyd, president, Development and Sales)

Cisco Blog: Cloud Evolution – A Journey Together (Edison Peres, senior vice president, Cloud and Managed Services partner organization)

NetApp Blog: Moving from Cloud Vision to Reality (Phil Brotherton, vice president, Cloud Solutions Group, NetApp)

VCE Blog: VCE to Integrate Intercloud

Tags:

Cisco Cloud Services, Intercloud, Application Centric Infrastructure, Robert Lloyd

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