Enterprise networking vendor Cisco announced its plans to invest $1 billion in Cloud over the next two years. Cisco is following the footsteps of IBM in terms of investment.
Earlier, IBM announced that it invested more than $1 billion for software Cloud development and is launching new capabilities running on SoftLayer. IBM, which is also acquiring Cloudant, is opening its enterprise software portfolio to the cloud and launching an open beta codenamed BlueMix, a new platform-as-service (PaaS).
Also read: IBM invests $1 billion for software Cloud development, acquires Cloudant
Cisco Cloud business
Targeting Internet of Everything business, Cisco plans to build the world’s largest global Intercloud — a network of clouds — together with a set of partners.
Also read: Cisco CEO to continue to bet on Internet of Everything to revive the biz
In February, Cisco CEO John Chambers said 2014 will be the inflection point for the Internet of Everything. Cisco CEO said the networking company will be able to revive its market conditions as it is continuing to bet on Internet of Everything. However, Cisco does not expect an immediate business revival this quarter. For the third quarter of fiscal 2014, it expects revenue to decline in the range of down 6 percent to down 8 percent.
Cisco Intercloud will ensure a distributed network and security architecture designed for high-value application workloads, real-time analytics, scalability and full compliance with local data sovereignty laws. The Intercloud will feature APIs for rapid application development and will deliver cloud IT services for businesses, service providers and resellers.
The company plans to deliver Cisco Cloud Services with and through Cisco partners.
In fact, the new strategy is to revive and expand Cisco’s Cloud business.
Robert Lloyd, president of development and sales, Cisco, in his blog post, said: “In 2011, Cisco CIO Rebecca Jacoby established CITEIS, a private cloud designed to more cost-effectively give our employees the IT resources they need to do their jobs.
CITEIS has reduced the time it takes to provision compute, storage and networking from 6-8 weeks to 15 minutes, and by virtualizing more than 92 percent of our data center environment, we’ve also reduced the TCO of our IT environment by more than 66 percent.
Robert Lloyd said: “The timing is right for Cisco and its partners to invest in a groundbreaking, application-centric global Intercloud to provide broader reach and faster time to market.”
Hosted across a global network of Cisco and partner data centers, the Cisco global Intercloud will offer an expanded suite of value-added application- and network-centric cloud services to accelerate the Internet of Everything.
The networked connection of people, data, processes and things, dubbed the Internet of Everything, is expected to be a $19 trillion economic opportunity in the coming decade.