Cisco and its partners are rapidly building the Intercloud—the worldwide network of interconnected clouds designed to unlock exciting business opportunities by connecting fragmented and custom-built clouds with open APIs for business acceleration. Traditionally, security and performance concerns have deterred businesses from accessing cloud environments via the public Internet, and it has been challenging for organizations to bridge the gap between public and private clouds.
Cisco and Equinix plan to develop a hosted private cloud solution for the Intercloud. The solution will utilize the Equinix Cloud Exchange to provide secure private access to the rich ecosystem of cloud service providers in Equinix data centers globally. Designed to accelerate cloud adoption and optimize performance, the Equinix Cloud Exchange is an advanced interconnection solution that enables seamless, on-demand and direct access to multiple clouds, including AWS and Microsoft Azure, and multiple networks in 17 markets across the globe, with 19 expected by end of year.
Cisco plans to deploy Intercloud capabilities in 16 Equinix markets across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Equinix also plans to deploy key Cisco technologies and services across its Cloud Exchange, including the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch, Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) and the Cisco Evolved Services Platform.