I'm at our annual Cisco Live Europe conference in Milan this week -it's a great event and a great opportunity to introduce new innovations to customers. In fact, today we announced the latest release of our cloud management software solution: Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (Cisco IAC) version 4.0.
I recently wrote about the new Forrester Private Cloud Wave, and how Cisco was ranked in the top three overall and#1 in strategy. Our high marks in strategy in that report were based in large part on the roadmap and strategic vision that is being delivered through this new cloud management release -together with the latest release of Cisco UCS Director for infrastructure management.
Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud is a cloud management platform designed for enterprise and public sector IT organizations building private and hybrid clouds, as well as service providers deploying public or virtual private cloud services. This is the fourth major release for Cisco IAC -and it's a big one.
With the new 4.0 release, Cisco is breaking ground by providing both the out-of-the-box functionality that our customers are asking forandthe flexibility that we know they need as they extend their cloud deployments beyond basic IaaS.
https://youtu.be/-mb6s5ARf7o
Here's some of the newout-of-the-boxfunctionality that's now shipping with this release:
There are now hundreds of pre-built services and extension points for the service catalog -as well as several hundred orchestration processes and extension points -shipping with Cisco IAC 4.0. This functionality makes it easier for our customers to get up and running with their cloud deployments, ensuring faster-time-to-value and lower TCO.
Here's what one of our customers (Aurecon, a leading global engineering organization) says about Cisco's IAC's out-of-the-box capabilities:
"One of the things we particularly liked about Cisco IAC is that there is a lot of out-of-the-box functionality with pre-built automation packs and tools for configuring services and workflows. It was important that we grow within the capabilities of the platform, achieve some quick wins, and gain confidence as we went along." [Read more in the case study here]
But wait ... there's more. Cisco IAC is unique in the cloud management market in that it provides this rich, out-of-the-box functionality while at the same time preserving ultimateflexibility.
This flexibility allows our customers to configure the service catalog and orchestration engine for their specific requirements -and to meet new use cases for their cloud services. For example, the out-of-the-box extension points that ship with Cisco IAC 4.0 can be used to configure cloud services and orchestration workflows that meet our customers' unique needs, while preserving their ability to upgrade to the next release.
Here's what another one of our customers (FASTWEB, a cloud service provider in Italy), says about Cisco IAC's flexibility:
"Cisco IAC offers ready-to-use IaaS services, such as 'provision a new virtual data center' that can be customized to fit different business requirements. It's also easy to create brand new services when you need them, unlike some other cloud orchestration platforms that are pretty rigid."[FASTWEB presented their case study earlier today at Cisco Live in Milan]
With Cisco IAC, this flexibility offers capabilities for our customers to extend their cloud deployment in new areas. That includes opportunities like hybrid cloud, where we'll be integrating Cisco IAC with the new Cisco InterCloud solution announced today to move workloads between private and public clouds while maintaining associated security and network policies. Here are couple more examples:
If you're at Cisco Live Milan this week like me, you can learn more about the Cisco IT eStore deployment in this session. In addition, we have several breakout sessions that provide an opportunity to drill down further into what's new in Cisco IAC 4.0 -you can find them here. Or you can stop by the Cisco Data Center & Cloud booth in the World of Solutions expo to see a live demo of Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud 4.0.
If you're not in Milan, just check out www.cisco.com/go/iacloud. And stay tuned for more blog updates from my colleagues about Cisco IAC 4.0 -as well as our other new innovations in data center and cloud management software.