As hyperconvergence turns a corner in terms of adoption, tech giant Cisco Systems Inc. is making moves that are game-changers in the cloud scene. In 2017, it acquired AppDynamics Inc., which provided real-time performance monitoring, and Springpath Inc., which specialized in hyperconvergence. It also just released HyperFlex 3.0, its platform it says is “for the multicloud era,” which combines hardware from Cisco with software obtained from Springpath.

Known for developing, manufacturing and selling networking hardware, telecommunications equipment, and other high-technology services and product, Cisco is already ranked No. 3 in the hyperconverged infrastructure market in 2018, according to International Data Corp., revealing where its new strategy is taking the company.

“We weren’t the first ones to arrive to at the hyperconvergence party, but we brought the keg. When we showed up, we got the party started, and we think we brought the complete answer,” said Todd Brannon (pictured), director of product marketing at Cisco.

Brannon spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona, Spain. (* Disclosure below.)

Decentralizing workloads with multicloud integration

The latest release of HyperFlex 3.0 adds support for Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor, in addition to VMware Inc.’s ESXi hypervisor, which was supported in earlier editions. HyperFlex 3.0 also gains support for software containers, which are used by developers to abstract their applications away from the underlying hardware so they can be built just once and run on any platform.

“3.0 is really just filling in a lot of the features to make this an ideal platform for multicloud,” Brannon said. “We have a lot of software components to get multicloud going.”

Cisco has also added a new driver that provides persistent storage for containers managed using the Kubernetes orchestration platform, enabling deployment of cloud-native apps inside data centers.

Some customers are using a blend of public cloud and on-premises, independently run systems, Brannon pointed out. So, an additional feature, CloudCenter, helps with cost evaluation and matches the best fit for which clouds and workloads to use.

“The data is clear — customers want to use multiple public clouds and they want to evaluate them,” Brannon said. “We want to help customers power any application, on any cloud, on any scale.”

Another recent move resulted in Cisco and Google joining forces on hybrid cloud computing, a deal that’s intended to allow companies to run software consistently in a so-called hybrid computing environment in which some work can be done in the cloud while also continuing to do some computing jobs in on-premises data centers.

With all these tools at hand, Cisco is focusing back on its core engineering capabilities, according to Brannon. So what will the Cisco “party” look like moving forward? According to Cisco Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins, who spoke with CNNMoney during the 2018 World Economic Forum in January, the company is looking into research and development, shareholders, and mergers and acquisitions.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Cisco Live Barcelona 2018. (* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco Systems nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE