News

IBM Taps Cisco Tech for New Managed Private Cloud Service

• By David Ramel
• 01/27/2020

IBM announced a new fully managed private cloud service based on Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), which combines datacenter server hardware, virtualization support, switching fabric, storage access and management software.

Cisco UCS will power the new Managed Private Cloud-as-a-Service that runs on industry-standard, x86-architecture servers in two distinct flavors based on the choice of virtualization tech:

• VMware, the traditional flagship offering from the virtualization kingpin
• RedHat OpenShift, an open source container application platform based on the Kubernetes container orchestrator for enterprise software development and deployment

Cisco said the new solution will address the new world of cloud computing that resulted from organizations moving operations to public cloud platforms only to encounter new constraints in an increasingly complex infrastructure. That, the company said, led many to follow a more balanced approach of deploying hybrid or multicloud environments in which applications and workloads are run on private and public clouds.

This solution addresses the private cloud part of that equation, providing benefits of a public cloud, but in an on-premises service option.

"As a fully managed service, IBM not only installs and manages the compute environment, they also provide tools for support and enhancement requests," a Jan. 24 Cisco blog post said. "In addition, the offering places a high priority on security, proactive monitoring, and reporting. To provide this solution, IBM leverages Cisco Intersight and its own decades of experience in managing customer infrastructure."

Friday's announcement points to more information on IBM's "Managed Private Cloud IaaS for x86 Compute and Storage" here, which says:

IBM Managed Private Cloud IaaS combines x86 compute and storage offerings to accelerate your hybrid cloud adoption. These service offerings deliver managed capacity with a dedicated hosted on-premises private cloud. To your users, this is a technology "black box," with service levels of performance and availability. You have virtually unlimited compute resources and storage capacity, accelerated application performance, and scaling to support your business needs. Managed Private Cloud IaaS allows you to run mission critical application workloads, including workloads with stringent security and performance requirements in your premises or firewall.

IBM Services is demonstrating the new solution at today's Cisco Live Barcelona show.