Cisco is to shut down its two-year old OpenStack-based platform Intercloud Services.
The action, which is due to happen on the 31st of March next year, will see the multi-tenant hosting platform shut down and tenants migrated to other platforms.
That’s according to a message from the VP for Cloud Platform and Services Kip Compton, reports The Register.
The message is reported to say: “Today we are taking an important step to better align our resources so that we are well positioned to execute on Cisco’s Cloud Strategy. Effective March 31, 2017, the CIS multi-tenant hosting platform will be shut down and all tenants fully migrated to other platforms.”
Cisco is now said to be pursuing enterprise hybrid cloud and SP network function virtualisation, the message says: “All of our efforts need to align to advance that strategy so that we can deliver competitive offers to our customers in these critical spaces.
“As we evaluated our resources and alignment, it became clear that continued investment in the CIS platform does not help us execute on Cisco’s Cloud strategy.”
The decision to shut down the Intercloud services is said to be a strategic one and users of the platform are expected to be notified in the next day.
The OpenStack public cloud is far from the only offering from the company in the cloud market but Cisco’s apparent decision to shut down the service may raise questions as to the company’s continued involvement in the community.
This move will be the latest big strategic change around the open source cloud technology. Recently SUSE acquired HPE’s OpenStack and Cloud Foundry assets and technology. While SUSE has long been a player in the OpenStack ecosystem, HPE has frequently been one of the leading code contributors.
If Cisco is to take a step back from OpenStack then it would be the second large company to do so in a matter of weeks, something that will certainly be of concern to the OpenStack Board.
