Extending Partnership Between Red Hat and Cisco

Linux vendor Red Hat services have been a key partner of Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS)

ever since its launch in 2009 under the name Project California. In the 1st week of September,

speaking on the event of Cisco’s launch of new generation UCS servers, Scott Musson, Vice President

of strategic alliances at Red Hat technologies underlined the mutually beneficial nature of their long-

standing partnership. Cisco has increased market share in the lucrative server market using the UCS

products which were developed in collaboration with, and bolstered by the platform certification

and support for the products given by Red Hat services.

He also added that with Cisco’s growing interest in FlexPod architecture, Red Hat technologies has

emerged as the leading Linux platform provider. The two companies are now jointly working on a

supported Open stack cloud effort with the help of Cisco’s experience in the field since it launched

its own OpenStack platform in 2012.  Cisco has already pledged $ 1 billion investment in

development of OpenStack cloud platforms.

The approach of Cisco towards OpenStack systems is different from the approach of Red Hat

Technologies. While Cisco does provide support for various platforms developed by Microsoft,

VMware and others, the use of integrated UCS infrastructure is a sign of commitment towards the

use of OpenStack platforms developed by Red Hat technologies. Cisco, in their efforts to provide

maximum choice to prospective clients supports multiple platforms and a number of other platforms

such as Openshift origin and cloud foundry. If the tech major invests further in OpenShift technology

that would lead to deeper involvement in the Cisco-Red Hat partnership, as said by Musson.