Where the data is, Cisco Data Center must reach

Beijing, March 27, 2019 – Application innovation is at the heart of the digital economy. The new era of applications is reshaping the capabilities of the data center and the services it provides. Today, the data center is no longer a fixed place. As long as there is a place to create, process, and use data, there will be a data center. In response to this trend, Cisco announced a new architecture that enables organizations to build data centers anywhere in the data residency and application deployment.

To realize the vision of “data center is everywhere,” Cisco has introduced a wide range of innovations in the areas of networking, hyper-convergence, security, and automation, including:

• Extend Cisco’s Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to the cloud by using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Microsoft Azure environment, while extending Cisco’s ACI solution to AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud platforms.

• Extend HyperFlex to branch offices and remote offices to better support edge applications.

• Extend application performance, security, and cloud/hybrid cloud management capabilities in the data center with a range of software.

Roland Acra, Cisco’s senior vice president and general manager of the data center business unit, said: “Enterprises should be able to deploy applications based on the needs of their business, regardless of technology. Customers want to deploy applications and manage data across a wide range of platforms. This includes local and cloud platforms, etc. It is for this reason that we have been working hard to get the data center out of the central position. Now, Cisco helps our customers extend their business to every cloud and every data. Center and every branch.”

Adrian Comley, General Manager of Dynamic Network Services at BT Global Services, said: “British Telecom uses Cisco ACI to build our new SD-Fabric hosting service and extend SDN capabilities to the data center. With Cisco ACI, we offer a comprehensive range of customers. Automated services, central policy control, and built-in security. We’re working with Cisco to take advantage of its ability to extend ACI’s strategy to AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud services. With Cisco’s help, we can support customers. Simplify operations and improve security by quickly deploying fabric extensions and setup applications from anywhere with repeatable, proven designs.”

New data center innovation

To achieve its data center vision, Cisco has launched three major innovations:

• Extend Cisco ACI to AWS and Azure: Cisco ACI is Cisco’s data-based, intent-based network solution. It’s a uniquely open approach that integrates into all the virtualization and container frameworks required for application deployment, dramatically simplifying data center operations while increasing application agility and security. Extend ACI to any workload, anywhere, and any cloud with ACI Anywhere; virtual ACI already supports bare metal clouds and remote edge locations. Now, with the new cloud ACI capabilities, Cisco extends ACI’s automation, management and security benefits to AWS and Microsoft Azure, fully integrated with its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment, and will continue to expand to more public clouds. Platform support.

• HyperFlex for branch offices: Deploying hyper-converged infrastructure to multiple sites to deliver distributed computing power on a global scale is an extremely complex task. HyperFlex with Cisco Intersight now enables customers to seamlessly scale computing and storage resources from their core data centers to their entire operations. This is achieved through flexible scalability and the ease of use of cloud system management. HyperFlex now delivers data center-level application performance at the enterprise edge to accelerate digital innovation in branch offices and remote organizations, providing analytics and intelligent services at the enterprise edge.

• Multi-faceted enhancements and extensions: Based on ACI and Hyperflex, customers can more easily scale and enhance their data center capabilities than ever before. Cisco is now able to leverage a single standardized three- or five-year license to support multiple suites and offers a rich selection of deployment options including: physical, virtual or cloud deployment:

o Security Management Suite: Tetration Analytics (Stealthwatch Analysis and Security), NGFWv (Virtual Firewall);

o Application Management Suite: AppDynamics (Application Performance Management), CWOM (Load Optimization Management)

o Cloudy/hybrid cloud management suite: CloudCenter (cloudy management platform), Container Platform (container management platform), Intersight (computing and hyper-converged resource cloud management)

Cross-domain integration

Cisco is integrating application-centric infrastructure (ACI) into the application layer and campus. Now, ACI integrates AppDynamics to support application performance adjustments based on network conditions. In addition, it integrates the Cisco DNA Center and the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) to provide identity-based end-to-end policy and access control between users or devices in the campus and applications or data anywhere. These integrations are the latest step in Cisco’s creation of the industry’s first multi-domain architecture initiative. The goal is to reshape the enterprise infrastructure into a unified system that unlocks the company’s ability to innovate by simplifying the enormous complexity inherent in IT systems.

Time to market, service, and support

• Virtual ACI and Cloud ACI will be launched in the second quarter of 2019

• HyperFlex 4.0 supporting Cisco Intersight will be available in the second quarter of 2019

• Cisco and its partners provide a complete service lifecycle to help customers streamline their journey to modern data center architecture

• Cisco DevNet Developer Resources for ACI is now available