Cisco and Google, Sitting in a Cloud.  First Came Kubernetes then Came Love.

Towards the end of 2017, Cisco entered into a partnership with the ever-expanding Google Cloud. The two companies agreed to combine their resources to help joint customers achieve more scalable, versatile, and immersive cloud environments. Importantly, the Cisco and Google partnership will be focused on "hybrid" cloud spaces, allowing customers to build on their existing on-premise data centers with the power of Google and Cisco.

A primary component of the Google Cisco marriage is the Linux-based container platform created by Google, called "Kubernetes." The Kubernetes system went open-source in 2014.

GCP leadership currently says that it's making progress in the enterprise IT space, but it believes that this new connection with Cisco will help to expand Google's market ambitions. At the same time, Cisco has a lot of benefits to gain from this new collaboration. Like many other enterprise technology giants, it's evolving from a hardware-focused business model, into one that supports the flexibility of software. Cisco hopes that leveraging Kubernetes will help it to reach its growth goals.

The Benefits of Combining Cisco and Google

The partnership between Google and Cisco should allow anyone using cloud-native, on-premise, or hybrid systems to tap into next-level technology. The idea is that together, both Cisco and the GCP will provide companies of all shapes and sizes with a flexible migration path to the cloud.

The latest development in the Cisco and Google connection is the creation of container and microservice-focused technology developed on top of Kubernetes. The "Istio.io" system will allow enterprises to use proven controls to connect, discover, and secure the connections between their cloud and on-premise services. Ultimately, the result is a way to optimize and scale cloud technology with unprecedented agility.

Together, Google and Cisco offer:

• Multi-cloud management and orchestration: Create policy-based lifecycle and orchestration systems for applications, services, and resources.

• Enterprise networking: Extend various network configurations to multiple cloud and on-premise environments.

• High-level security: Maintain security policies and monitor application behavior

• Control and visibility: Use real-time application and network monitoring to ensure optimum performance.

• Cloud-ready infrastructure: Create a hyper-converged platform supporting cloud-native Kubernetes environments and existing applications.

• Istio multi-cloud service management: Use an open-source solution to uniformly secure, connect, manage and monitor your microservices.

• API Management: Google's enterprise-class Apigee management ensures legacy workloads working on-premise can connect to the cloud with APIs.

A Great Opportunity for Google and Cisco

Ultimately, what Cisco and Google have brought together is a powerful hybrid and multi-cloud solution for modern enterprise customers. The Google and Cisco systems are already being used in various use cases. For instance, companies who previously wanted to run things on the GCP but need to access their on-prem technology can now tap into a simple Kubernetes architecture.

There are also opportunities for people on the other side of the coin. Although much of the enterprise conversation seems to be about moving to the cloud these days, there are still people who want to develop their systems on-premises but take advantage of the solutions in the cloud. The partnership with Google is a key part of Cisco's multi-cloud strategy, and they've already seen some incredible feedback from their customers.

For enterprises looking into new ways to take advantage of cloud-native and open-source technologies

Google Takes the Stage at Cisco Live!

To help explain the most recent updates to the Cisco and Google partnership, the GCP leadership team took the stage at the latest Cisco Live! Event. When CEO Chuck Robbins emerged on-stage during the conference, he began by discussing the fantastic success that Cisco has seen so far with its Catalyst 9000 switches. However, the discussion quickly moved to the Google and Cisco partnership when Robbins welcomed Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene to the stage.

During the Live! Keynote, both Greene, and Robbins took the opportunity to reaffirm the nature of the partnership and provide customers and attendees with insights into both companies' progress. According to Greene and Robbins, we should be ready to see a new hybrid architecture release sometime before the end of this year. The Cisco Kubernetes-based container platform, "HyperFlex," already launched in January this year, and there's more development to come.

In a Google blog post, the search giant also confirmed that Cisco would be responsible for supporting the joint cloud solution.

Cisco Makes a Splash at Google Cloud Next

Of course, the mutual partnership between Cisco and Google means that the GCP won't be the only one dropping in on its partner's presentations. Cisco should be one of the organizations with pride of place at the Google Cloud Next event coming at the end of July. Their keynote session "Enabling Application Innovation: Cisco and Google Cloud Open Hybrid Cloud architecture" is sure to tell us everything we need to know about the collaboration.

The description of the session explains that both Google and Cisco are now working together to improve the security, simplicity, and innovation in developer experiences. With the hybrid architecture that the two market leaders are creating together, both companies want to provide access to better open-source solutions, data centers, management strategies, tools, and security in an efficient hybrid space.

The Google Next session will address how innovation in the application environment is pushing the adoption of the public cloud. The speech will also cover an insight into the challenges that modern developers, security teams, and IT Ops face as they embrace digital transformation.

What's Next for Google and Cisco?

Google and Cisco clearly have a big impact to make in the hybrid cloud space. In fact, Cisco has gone as far as to suggest that the hybrid angle of their work with Google is of utmost importance to them - as they still get a lot of their sales from the hardware side of their business.

Of course, Google and Cisco aren't the only companies looking to deliver more opportunities from a Hybrid perspective. As more vendors continue to realize that they need to give enterprises the best of both worlds if they want to get ahead in the modern marketplace, countless big names like Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle are also beginning to explore the hybrid market. We can only wait and see who wins the race to the top.

If you want help building your hybrid or multi-cloud environment with Cisco and Google, you know who to call! Coolhead Tech is here to help you get the most out of your cloud migration.