Cisco is stepping up its hybrid multi-cloud sales offensive by teaming with public cloud behemoth Amazon Web Services on a Cisco Hybrid Solution for Kubernetes on AWS.
Cisco said the new product opens the door for its customers to run production-grade Kubernetes in on- premises environments by combining Cisco networking, security, management and monitoring software with the AWS cloud.
Kip Compton, senior vice president, Cloud Platform and Solutions at San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco, said Cisco Hybrid Solution for Kubernetes on AWS enables developers to leverage existing investments to build new cloud-scale applications.
"This makes it easier to deploy and manage hybrid applications, no matter where they run," said Compton in a prepared statement. "This allows customers to get the best out of both cloud and their on-premises environments with a single solution."
Cisco Hybrid Solution for Kubernetes on AWS—which will be sold by Cisco directly and through partners—is priced starting at $65,000 per year for a typical entry-level configuration. The software licenses will be available in one-, three- and five-year subscriptions.
Douglas Grosfield, CEO of Five Nines IT, a fast-growing Kitchener, Ontario, strategic service provider, said the Cisco Hybrid Solution for Kubernetes on AWS represents yet another example of the blurring of the lines between private cloud and public cloud in an increasingly hybrid cloud world.
"There used to be pretty clear market delineation between private cloud and public cloud, on-premises and off-premises," he said. "Large companies like Cisco are really blurring those lines and taking hybrid cloud to an entirely new level."
Grosfield said the new Cisco Hybrid Solution for Kubernetes on AWS is a great opportunity for strategic service providers to act as trusted advisers ensuring security and data privacy in a complex hybrid IT world.
"Cisco is looking to find a broad audience for a cool new take on containerization, but strategic service providers need to make sure that customers don't get in over their heads," he said. "The strategic service provider is being placed—rightly so—in a position of being the voice of reason and trusted adviser for the customer. There are a lot of different vendors and manufacturers involved in a solution like this and the strategic service provider has to stand in the middle and be that one throat to choke to make sure everyone is adhering to the SLAs [service-level agreements] and complying with data privacy regulations like GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation, which was implemented in May]."
One sign of just how critical Kubernetes is becoming in the hybrid IT world is IBM’s recent $34 billion proposed acquisition of Kubernetes kingpin Red Hat. IBM claims Red Hat’s Kubernetes leadership makes the combined company the leader in the hybrid cloud market.
Solution providers credit Red Hat’s decision four years ago to embrace Kubernetes, the open-source container orchestration technology first developed at Google, as the key to the $34 billion Red Hat price tag.
The Cisco-AWS partnership comes just a few days before Cisco gathers thousands of partners for its Cisco Partners Summit Nov. 13- 15 in Las Vegas.
It also comes one year after Cisco partnered with Google Cloud on a similar hybrid solution. Under that pact, Cisco extended its multi-cloud portfolio with Google Cloud's hybrid cloud technologies including Kubernetes, Istio and Apigee.
related stories
Video
trending stories
sponsored resources

Cysurance
Cyber Insurance 360

Tenable
Cyber Risk 360

Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Cloud Learning Center

EPOS
EPOS

Fujifilm
Fujifilm

Application Integration 360

Mimecast
Mimecast

Hitachi Vantara
Hitachi Vantara

Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Storage Learning Center

Carbonite
Cloud Storage 360

Webroot
Webroot Learning Center

BlackBerry
BlackBerry Learning Center

NPD
Industry Trends 360

Symantec
Symantec Business Security Learning Center

Channel Chief Showcase

Acer
Remote Workforce 360

Sherweb
Sherweb

APC by Schneider Electric
Digital Services for Edge Learning Center

StorageCraft
Disaster Recovery Learning Center

Vertiv
Edge Computing Learning Center

Wasabi
Wasabi

Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies Hybrid Cloud Learning Center

Cradlepoint
5g for Business 360

Comm100
Collaboration & Communications 360

Veeam
Veeam

Smart 3rd Party
3rd Party Maintenance 360

Sophos
Sophos Cybersecurity Learning Center

Trend Micro
Trend Micro Learning Center

VMware

HubStor
Cloud Backup 360

eSentire
Managed Detection and Response 360

Comcast Business
Comcast Business Learning Center
