According to an IDC global survey sponsored by Cisco of 3,643 enterprise executives responsible for IT decisions, 69% of respondents indicated that their organizations have a cloud adoption strategy in place. Of these organizations, 65% say OpenStack is an important part of their cloud strategy and had higher expectations for business improvements associated with cloud adoption.1

Organizations are looking to OpenStack to enable DevOps, add flexibility to their infrastructure, improve cost controls, avoid vendor lock-in and optimize hybrid private/public cloud deployments. One of the ways Red Hat is helping customers adopt OpenStack and achieve these goals is through our collaboration with other IT industry leaders, including Cisco. Red Hat and Cisco are helping customers implement a Fast IT. Many of our customers are interested in what OpenStack has to offer and they are looking to what Cisco and Red Hat can offer to simplify complexity, get up and running faster and build a foundation to enable scaling and High Availability (HA).

Cisco and Red Hat provide robust and innovative OpenStack solutions that can accelerate cloud value. Backed by open community leadership and long-standing joint development, these end-to-end solutions help simplify OpenStack deployment and streamline cloud operations so customers can gain IT flexibility and business agility while maintaining interoperability across an infrastructure. Industry-standard components easily integrate into existing environments, protecting existing investments and future-proofing cloud deployments. And, with access to two of the industry’s most expansive certified cloud partner ecosystems, customers can confidently customize their cloud to meet unique business needs.

Red Hat and Cisco are collaborating on a family of OpenStack solutions to offer customers choice. Earlier this year we released the Cisco Validated Design (CVD) for Flexpod and today, the first set of deliverables on a new solution including a CVD and bill of materials can be found on the Cisco Design Zone. In this newest release, Cisco and Red Hat worked together to tightly integrate the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7 director with Cisco infrastructure plug-ins to produce validated design, bill of materials and deployment guidelines to accelerate time-to-value for our joint customers. Cisco UCSO, based on Red Hat, Cisco and Intel technologies, lets customers quickly and easily deploy a reliable, more secure and supported OpenStack cloud environment for business critical operations.

This week, we also announced the success of one of our joint customers, FICO, who built a cloud infrastructure with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform on Cisco UCS, Red Hat CloudForms and Red Hat Ceph Storage. As we shared in the press release, “[m]oving to an OpenStack and Ceph-based cloud has not only helped FICO reduce time to market by 50 percent and costs by 30 percent compared to previous infrastructure implementations, but it has helped transform FICO into a Software-as-Service (SaaS) company, driving more than $10 million in added sales to new customers in expanded markets.” Their success is impressive and echoes what I hear from other customers when they talk about OpenStack - the ability to create an elastic scalable infrastructure that can increase innovation and agility combined with additional security and control to help meet enterprise requirements.

As leaders across open technologies, networking, and cloud infrastructure, Red Hat and Cisco offer end-to-end OpenStack solutions that can provide on-demand business agility and accelerated application delivery. By combining open innovation, enterprise-grade stability, reliability, and additional security, and customer-focused design, these integrated solutions enable you to simplify application deployment, streamline cloud operations, and modernize DevOps and other business processes, without the risks involved with piecemeal solutions. Built on proven, industry-standard components and backed by Cisco Validated Designs and joint support, these high- quality, high-value solutions can increase developer and IT productivity and efficiency while protecting current investments and preparing your infrastructure for the future. Long-standing and ongoing joint development and engineering provides interoperability and stability over time. Access to two of the most comprehensive certified cloud partner ecosystems lets you easily and confidently customize your cloud services based both on your unique business needs and your industry vertical, providing opportunities to increase customer satisfaction. And, with advanced hybrid cloud capabilities, Red Hat and Cisco give you the ability to extend your cloud as your business grows. With our customer-focused engineering approach, Red Hat and Cisco are committed to further developing a wide range of OpenStack solutions that will offer customers a choice in size of deployment, use case, and business and IT needs.

Here are some specific examples of the value the Cisco – Red Hat strategic alliance and joint OpenStack solutions offer to end customers:

  • Open source commitment. Red Hat and Cisco are both deeply committed to OpenStack, and both companies have dedicated engineers that make ongoing contributions to the OpenStack open source community.
  • Trusted partners. Red Hat and Cisco have proven track records of innovation and the ability to provide critical, long-term support. With a long-term commitment to customer success, both companies take a customer-focused approach to development, with a focus on offering solutions designed to solve your unique business problems. Plus, Red Hat and Cisco go beyond product development and work with you throughout the entire technology lifecycle—including planning, implementation, and ongoing maintenance and support—to help you deploy the right solution to meet your business goals.
  • Technology partners. Joint development and engineering increase interoperability and help optimize Red Hat and Cisco components to work best together.
  • End-to-end cloud solution. We provide the tools that you need to get started, and the manageability and streamlined operations you need to keep going post-deployment. Cisco's and Red Hat's integrated solutions leverage automation so you can deploy your cloud faster and accelerate application delivery.
  • Advanced innovation with reduced risk. Cisco and Red Hat help drive innovation in OpenStack through contributions in key areas—including compute (KVM and containers), storage (Ceph), and networking (ACI)—so you can take advantage of the latest advances with less risk.
  • World-class expert services. Cisco and Red Hat offer a wide range of expert services to supplement your IT resources. With services for any skill level, size, and industry, Red Hat and Cisco can help you deploy and operate your cloud quickly and efficiently.

Please learn more about Cisco, Red Hat and OpenStack at OpenStack Summit Tokyo

Be sure visit Cisco's booth in Tokyo (P3) and check out what Cisco’s saying about our collaboration on their blog.

Learn more at www.redhat.com/cisco

 

[1] IDC, “Don’t Get Left Behind: The Business Benefits of Achieving Greater Cloud Adoption,” August 2015