Cisco Cisco Network Services Manager for Intelligent Automation for Cloud White Paper
IMPACT BRIEF | 1
©2014 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Introduction
In January of 2014 Cisco Systems launched Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud 4.0 (IAC 4.0).
In combination with the latest release of Cisco UCS Director, responsible for management of physical
and virtual servers, storage and network infrastructure, IAC 4.0 enables the rapid and policy driven
provisioning of cloud-based IT services. These services can now be deployed on physical or virtual
resources in massive and heterogeneous private cloud environments, and managed alongside resources
from one or more public cloud platforms.
Key Customer Value
IAC 4.0 is part of Cisco’s Unified Management
strategy, aimed at breaking down the walls
between traditional data center silos – storage,
network, servers, security, applications,
middleware, database – enabling cloud
administrators, developers and end users to easily
assemble and manage IT services. Recent EMA
research has shown the incredible importance of
eliminating data center silos, in order to deliver
application environments more rapidly and at a
better quality.
Most Notable New Capabilities of Cisco IAC 4.0
Hybrid Cloud:
Cisco IAC 4.0 provides out-of-the-box management of multiple cloud environments
– including VMware vCloud, OpenStack and Amazon Web Services. A new initiative called Cisco
InterCloud enables moving workloads between private and public clouds, via layer 2 network
connectivity, without the need for application redesign. IAC 4.0 will integrate with InterCloud in order
to consistently and securely manage IT services across local data centers and public cloud infrastructure.
Cisco is currently working on additional InterCloud connectivity with cloud service providers such as
Microsoft Azure, CSC, CenturyLink, British Telecom, and others.
Governance:
Governance:
EMA research has found that after the cloud honeymoon is over, organizations require
an advanced and granular governance framework to consistently enforce cost control, quotas, security,
reliability and performance across physical, virtual and cloud environments. IAC 4.0 offers these
capabilities within a multi-tenancy architecture, targeting enterprise and service provider scenarios.
Integration with UCS Director:
Integration with UCS Director:
Cisco UCS Director provides infrastructure management capabilities
for physical and virtual server, storage and network resources. UCS Director can be seen as the “factory,”
making things happen in the background for infrastructure provisioning, while IAC provides the IT
“storefront,” extending self-service ordering of applications, infrastructure and entire services to a
wide range of users. In the 4.0 release, this integration between IAC for cloud management and UCS
Director for physical and virtual infrastructure management is a strong combination.
Out of the box workflows:
Out of the box workflows:
With the embedded capabilities of Cisco Process Orchestrator, IAC 4.0
offers over 800 standard workflows and 500 so-called extension points. These extension points are
Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud 4.0:
Cloud Management for IaaS and Beyond
2% 1%
15%
48%
34%
The importance of breaking down IT silos
Very Unimportant
Unimportant
Neither Important nor
Unimportant
Important
Very Important