Physical and virtual portability

Faced with the transition to the application-rich Internet of Everything (IoE), organizations are focusing on the flexibility of delivering IT services and determining the right mix of private, hybrid and public cloud for their organization and operations. Cisco is introducing the following solutions to help organizations build connections between their private clouds and Microsoft Azure:

· Extend the enterprise-class security and services in your private cloud to Microsoft Azure with Cisco Cloud Services Router (CSR) 1000V: The first Cisco product in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, the Cisco® CSR 1000V, is a virtual platform built on Cisco's proven IOS-XE operating system that delivers highly-scalable, rich networking services such as VPN, routing, firewall, application visibility and control. These capabilities give organizations the confidence to extend their private network into Microsoft Azure and use the same network services and security policies.
· Increase IT operational efficiency with Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) integrated with Windows Azure Pack (WAP): Cisco ACI is a transformative SDN innovation that simplifies and accelerates data center application lifecycles. Applications are treated as the fundamental building blocks of IT. Through a common application centric policy framework, ACI enables collaboration and automation across network, security, virtualization and application teams for managing physical, virtual and cloud-based environments. ACI integrates physical and virtual devices into a dynamic pool of IT resources that can be automatically provisioned and re-provisioned, bringing unprecedented levels of agility to the business. ACI open interfaces and open APIs provide the ability to enhance, extend and customize infrastructure for flexible workflow automation across orchestration, management, virtualization, and layer 4 through 7 services.

Now, with tighter integration with Microsoft Windows Azure Pack (WAP), organizations can easily offer self-service IaaS and PaaS in their private cloud, and enable workload mobility and migration to public clouds such as Microsoft Azure. Cisco ACI integration with WAP, System Center, and Hyper-V also provides comprehensive control and deep visibility for application and secure multi-tenant operations across virtual and physical infrastructures to meet the most stringent business and compliance requirements.

· Extend Cisco Intercloud Fabric to Microsoft Azure for flexible and secure hybrid IT. Cisco Intercloud Fabric now enables portability of Hyper-V and ESX virtual machines from enterprise data centers to Microsoft Azure, while maintaining the network security and compliance requirements of a private cloud environment. By using Integrated Gateway features within Intercloud Fabric, customers can now seamlessly extend enterprise network compliance and security policies to Microsoft Azure cloud environments. With the availability of these services, Cisco Intercloud Fabric is solving some of the biggest challenges that customers face in hybrid cloud adoption.

"The rapid delivery of new innovations is a testament to the longstanding and thriving Cisco and Microsoft strategic relationship and commitment to continually extend the value to our customers and drive business outcomes. Today's enhancements increase IT efficiency and agility with integrated management, infrastructure purpose-built for applications and policy models that speed deployment and reduce downtime," said Padmasree Warrior, chief technology and strategy officer, Cisco.
"We're pleased to work with Cisco to deliver solutions that provide customers new options to leverage the speed, scale and agility of hybrid cloud," said Mike Neil, General Manager, Enterprise Cloud, Microsoft. "The breadth of the Cisco and Microsoft portfolio continues to grow and we look forward to bringing even more choice in hybrid solutions to our joint customers."

Cisco's new enhancements optimize the investments customers have already made in the Microsoft software portfolio of Exchange, PowerShell, SharePoint, SQL Server, and System Center. With the same network security, quality of service (QoS) and access control policies consistently applied across the data centers of their Cisco and Intercloud partner private clouds and Microsoft Azure, customers can now realize the cost savings from seamless management and automation.