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Cisco, Red Hat broaden partnership, eye integrated OpenStack systems

Cisco and Red Hat are expanding their partnership to focus on OpenStack integrated infrastructure.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

NEW YORK---Cisco and Red Hat on Thursday announced integrated systems designed for OpenStack cloud deployments.

The companies also said they would collaborate more on OpenStack as well as Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure and Intercloud efforts.

The news comes amid Cisco's Unified Computing System revamp that broadens the networking giant's product line into scale-out deployments as well as the midmarket. Padmasree Warrior, chief technology & strategy officer at Cisco, said "every company will be a technology company" and will have to increasingly manage big data as well as the Internet of things.

Cisco's big theme for its UCS launch and Red Hat partnership revolves around so-called "fast IT" and building blocks that are easy to put together and manage.

Related: HP unveils new server strategy, platform designed for 'Compute Era' | VMware: Embrace and extend hybrid cloud style

Under the partnership, Cisco's UCS gear will meld the company's platforms with Red Hat's OpenStack and open source distributions. OpenStack will be integrated with Cisco's UCS servers, Nexus switches and management software, dubbed UCS Director. UCS Director also was overhauled to include container support, Hadoop integration and a open developer kit.

According to the companies, the Cisco-Red Hat integrated systems will include a starter edition for private clouds, an advanced edition for large private clouds and an advanced ACI edition for deploying scale-out clouds. Integrated infrastructure with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform.

Meanwhile, the two companies will offer support from cross-trained experts. Cisco said the OpenStack starter edition will be available at the end of 2014.

Red Hat and Cisco said they will look to meld OpenStack architecture with the networking giant's platforms. Timelines for the entire lineup weren't available.

As previously noted, the OpenStack bandwagon has filled up. Even VMware has embraced OpenStack to some degree. 

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