Cisco Systems Inc. is responding to the growing spread of data with a new networking architecture that aims to extend enterprise’s data centers to wherever their data lives and wherever their applications are being deployed.

The company announced early today at its Cisco Live event in Barcelona that it’s expanding its Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure by making it available on the Amazon Web Services Inc. and Microsoft Azure public clouds for the first time.

Cisco ACI is the company’s main software-defined networking offering, designed to enable scalable multicloud networks and allow organizations to run their applications in any cloud or location without suffering from reliability problems. The architecture works by integrating things such as hypervisors and container frameworks on which software applications are deployed, regardless of where in the world they’re hosted.

“There’s nothing ‘centered’ about data anymore,” said Dan McGinniss, senior director of data center product marketing at Cisco. “Data is being distributed much more widely and enterprise data centers aren’t going away.”

To deal with that reality, Cisco said, it’s fully integrating SDN features such as automation, network management and security with Amazon and Microsoft Corp.’s public clouds. Cloud ACI and Virtual ACI enable enterprises running their apps on these platforms to enjoy the full benefits of Cisco’s networking capabilities, which were previously only available on on-premises data centers, bare metal clouds and remote edge locations. They also enable AppDynamics for app performance monitoring and DNA Center and ISE Controller for uniform identity access on Amazon and Microsoft’s clouds.

Cloud ACI and Virtual ACI will become generally available in the second quarter, Cisco said.

The company is also expanding its HyperFlex infrastructure for branch offices and introducing a new “CloudCenter Suite” that enables application lifecycle management across private and public cloud infrastructures.

The new architecture Cisco is unveiling is designed to support enterprises’ digital transformation efforts, which center around the evolving nature of software applications, McGinniss said. This includes the trend toward cloud-native apps that can be built, updated and deployed anywhere more easily, and the way new technologies such as artificial intelligence and data analytics are changing both the apps and the interactions with customers.

In addition, workloads are becoming more distributed, and developers are demanding multicloud capabilities, McGinniss explained.

“We’re also seeing lots of edges, with more services getting pushed out to colocation centers,” McGinniss said. “We need to do more processing closer to where the data resides. There’s no one answer for every customer, and so our approach is to take the Cisco data center anywhere customers want it.”

Cisco’s ACI architecture is said to be distinct from other SDN offerings in that it doesn’t use any third-party resources to do an overlay of AWS or Azure. Instead, customers will be able to manage their networks through Cisco ACI’s existing interfaces, which acts as a kind of “universal remote control,” McGinniss said.

Bob Laliberte, practice director and senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, told SiliconANGLE that support for multicloud is a key ingredient for any modern technology platform.

The new HyperFlex with Cisco Intersight offering, also available in the second quarter, is an appliance and software bundle helps to bring compute and storage capabilities from the data center to the the edges of networks. With it, customers can expect the same performance from apps hosted at the edge as they can with apps hosted in their data centers, with the added advantage of being able to perform analytics where those apps are deployed.

Meanwhile, CloudCenter Suite is another essential component of Cisco’s new architecture, enabling developers to build and deploy apps in any location and monitor their performance. One of its key features is a new cost optimization tool that helps developers to see what resources are being underused. It can also make recommendations and changes to maximize efficiency.

“CloudCenter [enables] customers to orchestrate applications in public clouds,” said Todd Brannon, senior director of data center marketing at Cisco.

James Kobielus, an analyst at SiliconANGLE sister market research firm Wikibon, said he’s impressed with Cisco’s investment in tools to automate the management of multiple clouds.

“One of the clear differentiators for Cisco in the multicloud management arena is its introduction of a cost optimization and governance capability into its automation suite,” said Kobielus, who also provided a deeper analysis of the announcements in a separate post. “In the world of IT budget constraints, this sort of capability is essential for enterprises that want to prevent their hybrid, mesh and other multiclouds from being unmanageable money pits.”

Finally, to help encourage customers to adopt its new architecture, Cisco is pitching a new licensing model for its technology called the Cisco Enterprise Agreement. It gives customers a choice of three- or five-year licensing agreements across seven of its product suites, including ACI and HyperFlex. With it, customers have the flexibility to deploy Cisco’s networking architecture across the full gamut of cloud platforms, including private and public infrastructures.

The new licensing agreement will be available in the first quarter, Cisco said.

Photo: Cisco