Tech behemoths Cisco and SAP will be entering into an alliance to simplify cloud as well as container management for enterprises. As per the terms of the deal, Cisco will be working with SAP’s Data Hub to integrate large sets of data that are hosted in public cloud environments.
Cisco claim that cloud-native enterprises storing data in the public cloud such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc. face issues with respect to managing high information volumes. They say that this complexity leads to situations where data is in a silo and cannot be leveraged to acquire important business insights.
By partnering with SAP, Cisco say that they will be integrating different public cloud platforms with private cloud or enterprise apps like SAP S/4 HANA to unveil its data management prowess. They say that Cisco’s container platform will be merged with SAP’s Data Hub to remove complexities pertinent to data-in-a-silo.
According to Cisco, the container platform for SAP’s Data Hub will be available in two forms-
1) A stand-alone Cisco Container Platform (SAP certified) – for customers to install their choice of on-premise infrastructure.
2) Integrated Cisco Container Platform on Cisco Hyperflex– for customers to pre-configure their hyperconverged platforms.
Customers of SAP and Cisco claim that managing complex cloud environments will become easier with this alliance. Stephen Elliot, Program Vice President at IDC (International Data Corporation) commented:
Data migration, underlying performance, control, and governance over the data, and tighter alignment between the application layer to the network layer. Data migration to public clouds is difficult to execute correctly to reduce business risks.
For large enterprise accounts that use SAP HANA and Cisco HyperFlex, or have SAP Data Hub, this announcement offers certified capabilities between the two vendors.
Industry experts opine that SAP are making the right decision by partnering with public cloud giants like Cisco as well as Alibaba to consolidate their position in the cloud market. It will be interesting to see how the market reacts with this move.