Cisco announced that it has extended its cloud portfolio with new products and services - including a breakthrough hybrid cloud solution, dubbed Cisco InterCloud, which is intended to lower the total cost of cloud services ownership for IT organizations and pave the way for interoperable and highly secure public, private and hybrid clouds. The expansion of the portfolio also broadens Cisco's commitment to openness and shows the unique value in the company's partner-led model. The new products and services in Cisco's extended cloud portfolio will include: Cisco InterCloud; Cisco Validated Design (CVD) for Cisco/Red Hat integrated Cloud Management and Provisioning; Cisco Services for Cloud Strategy, Management, and Operations; and Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud (IAC) 4.0 Cisco InterCloud, part of the Cisco One platform, is infrastructure software that will support hybrid clouds by allowing organizations to combine and move workloads - including data and applications - across different public or private clouds as needed, easily and very securely, while maintaining associated network and security policies.

By deploying Cisco InterCloud, enterprises and cloud providers will be able to create an interoperable and highly secure hybrid cloud environment across multiple public and private clouds and between premises-based applications and public clouds while maintaining associated network and security policies. On-demand flexibility and workload portability will allow organizations to cost-effectively select their optimal cloud strategy. Cisco InterCloud is expected to be able to move workloads to and from participating cloud providers with Cisco Powered services, such as BT, CSC/ServiceMesh, CenturyLink Technology Solutions, and Virtustream.

The adoption of Cisco InterCloud by other cloud providers through the InterCloud Provider Enablement Platform will give users even more choice and flexibility. In addition, Cisco InterCloud has been designed to move workloads to and from multiple public clouds, including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Azure. Cisco InterCloud will provide workload mobility and is intended to integrate with cloud management solutions such as Cisco IAC, as well as CSC/ServiceMesh's Agility Platform, Red Hat CloudForms, and other products from Cisco's ecosystem partners.

Other leading technology partners supporting Cisco InterCloud include EMC, Citrix, Denali Advanced Integration, Microsoft, NetApp, Rackspace, VCE and Zerto. Cisco Services for Cloud Strategy, Management, and Operations provide organizations with business flexibility and agility designed around an open and highly secure infrastructure. This is based on three critical success factors for evolving an organization's cloud strategy: a choice in consumption models, reduced exposure to risks, and the ability to intelligently help secure and automate a cloud environment.

New portfolio capabilities include Cisco Cloud Consumption Services, to help unlock the benefits and manage the risks of hidden cloud usage; Cisco Domain Ten 2.0 framework for IT transformation, which helps companies to strategically evaluate their business priorities and readiness to develop their cloud strategy/roadmap and make better IT sourcing decisions; and Cisco Services for OpenStack, for open and very secure cloud deployments tailored to unique organizational needs. Available direct from Cisco or collaboratively with channel partners, Cloud Consumption Services help companies understand current corporate usage and spending on various cloud services. This service also helps companies manage potential business risks associated with multiple cloud providers.

Customers gain greater visibility and control of cloud usage across their enterprise, allowing them to better manage cloud costs and security while providing IT a way to open discussions and show increased value to their business stakeholders. Cisco Domain Ten Framework 2.0 helps customers drive better strategic decisions related to their cloud sourcing and strategy. By adding Cisco Consulting Services for Cloud to the Framework, it provides for greater focus on business outcomes, provides deeper analysis of hybrid cloud implications; and extends the framework beyond data center and cloud to include all IT transformation initiatives.

Cisco also offers Cisco Services for OpenStack to help customers understand, strategize, pilot, design, install and/or integrate an OpenStack cloud operating system in their networks. Cisco provides unique insights into what a customer's cloud requires from its OpenStack platform. These services include: strategy and assessment; validation; design and deployment; software and application platform integration; and optimization.

Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud 4.0 delivers a comprehensive cloud management solution for enterprises and cloud service providers to deploy private, public, or hybrid clouds. This new software release provides enhanced service catalog features for ordering, provisioning and managing the lifecycle of any type of IT service from a user-friendly, self-service portal. New integration between Cisco IAC and Cisco UCS Director provides the ability to rapidly provision both virtual and physical infrastructure for cloud deployments on Cisco UCS and Nexus, as well as third-party hardware.

IAC 4.0 also provides new functionality for the automation of virtual network services through the integration with Cisco Prime Network Services Controller. And new multi-cloud management capabilities in IAC 4.0 allow customers to orchestrate multiple cloud environments, including Amazon EC2, OpenStack and VMware. Together with InterCloud, Cisco IAC will enable new hybrid cloud management use cases such as advanced application placement, policy driven workload mobility, and consistent service lifecycle governance across many clouds.