Cisco and Red Hat Deliver Integrated Infrastructure for OpenStack 

Cisco and Red Hat today announced a new integrated infrastructure solution for OpenStack-based cloud deployments. In addition, the companies announced an expansion of their relationship, accelerating collaboration around OpenStack, Application Centric Infrastructure and Intercloud.

Cisco is the market leader in integrated infrastructure -- the fast growing market segment that combines server, networking, storage and management software. The new family of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure solutions will target enterprise and mid-market customers by streamlining deployment and operation of OpenStack-based private clouds today, while providing an on-ramp to the Intercloud. Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform (UCSO) will combine Cisco Unified Computing (UCS), Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform.

"Cisco is working with its partners to build the Intercloud -- an interconnected, global, 'cloud of clouds' connecting private, public, and hybrid clouds," said Padmasree Warrior, chief technology & strategy officer at Cisco. "As the cloud industry pivots towards open source technology, Cisco and Red Hat are expanding our relationship and accelerating collaboration around OpenStack, Application Centric Infrastructure and Intercloud."

"Open source technology has emerged as the catalyst for cloud innovation," said Paul Cormier, president, Products and Technologies at Red Hat. "Cisco is a market leader in cloud infrastructure and integrated infrastructure, while Red Hat brings market leadership and deep domain expertise of open source and OpenStack. By combining our complementary strengths, Cisco and Red Hat have a unique opportunity to capitalize on this market disruption."

Integrated Infrastructure for OpenStack

The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure portfolio represents key building blocks ideally suited to supporting private, public, and hybrid clouds. The architecture combines the UCS servers with Nexus switching, UCS Director management, and storage access for streamlined deployment of applications and cloud services.

The UCSO solution is expected to feature three offerings: a Starter Edition that enables quick and easy installation for enterprise private clouds; an Advanced Edition that enables rapid deployment and operation of large scale private clouds; and an Advanced ACI Edition delivering policy-driven infrastructure deployment and operation for large scale clouds by utilizing Cisco ACI.

In addition to 24x7 product support on Cisco and Red Hat components, customers will also have an option to purchase Solution Support, which will provide global, 24x7 access to a team of cross-trained experts.

Partnership Expansion

Having worked together successfully on unified computing and networking for years, Cisco and Red Hat will accelerate collaboration around three new areas: OpenStack, Application Centric Infrastructure and Intercloud. Together, Cisco and Red Hat aim to deliver a set of Intercloud-ready solutions designed to bring OpenStack to enterprise and service provider customers.

OpenStack: Cisco and Red Hat are working together to provide fully supported, certified platforms that deliver open source innovation and optimized functionality. The companies intend to collaborate to deliver validated architectures, a growing third-party ISV and IHV ecosystem, governance across clouds, and advanced services for lifecycle management of cloud solutions.

Application Centric Infrastructure: Cisco and Red Hat are extending the Cisco ACI policy framework to OpenStack environments, enabling customers to leverage greater policy-based automation in their cloud environments.

Intercloud: As the industry leader in open source technologies, Red Hat is an integral component of Cisco's Intercloud ecosystem. In addition to developing an integrated infrastructure solution for enterprise and mid-market customers, Cisco and Red Hat intend to develop carrier-grade, service provider solutions for the Cisco Evolved Services Platform -- Cisco's software and virtualization platform for hybrid cloud deployments. Red Hat and Cisco also collaborate around OpenShift, Red Hat's award-winning Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering, and storage technologies, including Ceph.