Cisco has chosen Dimension Data, an integration provider, as its first global InterCloud hosting partner, as the networking giant aims to increase its cloud footprint.
Cisco said it would use Dimension Data’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings and cloud managed platform to deliver cloud services to its customers and resellers. Dimension Data, which is owned by Japanese telecom firm NTT, will also manage and operate an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering for Cisco.
The services, which are currently available through ten of Dimension’s data centres, will be aimed at mid-market businesses and at smaller service providers in emerging markets.
"We have been providing cloud services for many years and have developed a robust global cloud service available across all continents," Brett Dawson, CEO of Dimension Data, said. "We are extremely excited to support Cisco and its partners in accelerating the market’s move to cloud services."
The partnership, unveiled at the Cisco Live event this week in San Francisco, follows another announcement from Dimension that it is opening three new data centres based in Canada, New Zealand and Brazil, expanding its number of data centres to 13 by September.
In March, Cisco also pledged to spend more than $1bn on its intercloud strategy, which is a a network of clouds built by Cisco and service provider partners.
Rob Lloyd, a sales executive at Cisco, said: "Since we introduced Cisco Cloud in late March, we have seen tremendous interest from our valued partners and customers.
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"They are looking to Cisco for a network-centric approach to faster IT and cloud innovation. We are very pleased at the momentum we’ve generated thus far and have put a world-class team in place to enable our partners and customers to grow their businesses in a world of many clouds."
Included in the announced at Cisco Live this week, VCE and NetApp said they would collaborate with Cisco to build "intercloud-ready" infrastructure services, while Johnson Controls agreed to help Cisco’s partners to reduce the time it takes to build data centre facilities.
