SAN JOSE, Calif. and REDWOOD CITY, Calif.  – September 29, 2014 – Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) and Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), today announced that they will jointly develop enterprise customer solutions that utilize Cisco’s Intercloud technologies and the Equinix Cloud Exchange™ to deliver more secure, resilient and efficient interconnection to public clouds.

Cisco and its partners are rapidly building the Intercloud—the worldwide network of interconnected clouds designed to unlock exciting business opportunities by connecting fragmented and custom-built clouds with open APIs for business acceleration. Traditionally, security and performance concerns have deterred businesses from accessing cloud environments via the public Internet, and it has been challenging for organizations to bridge the gap between public and private clouds.

Cisco and Equinix plan to develop a hosted private cloud solution for the Intercloud. The solution will utilize the Equinix Cloud Exchange to provide secure private access to the rich ecosystem of cloud service providers in Equinix data centers globally. Designed to accelerate cloud adoption and optimize performance, the Equinix Cloud Exchange is an advanced interconnection solution that enables seamless, on-demand and direct access to multiple clouds, including AWS and Microsoft Azure, and multiple networks in 17 markets across the globe, with 19 expected by end of year.

Cisco plans to deploy Intercloud capabilities in 16 Equinix markets across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Equinix also plans to deploy key Cisco technologies and services across its Cloud Exchange, including the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch, Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) and the Cisco Evolved Services Platform.

Executive Quotes:

Ihab Tarazi, Chief Technology Officer, Equinix:
“What Cisco and Equinix are doing together is all about visibility and control. By connecting Cisco Intercloud and Cloud Exchange, we are adding policy, performance, security and visibility all the way to the application level, removing performance concerns sometimes associated with hybrid cloud services. Elasticity is essential for enterprises, and by providing a private, high bandwidth, highly secure infrastructure, we’re allowing enterprises to achieve their vision of a truly elastic cloud.”

Nick Earle, Senior Vice President, Cloud and Managed Services, Cisco
“Equinix will bring its global data center footprint and interconnection capabilities to the Cisco Intercloud partner ecosystem—a move that will help shorten the distance between public and private clouds for enterprise customers. By creating hosted private clouds and utilizing the interconnection capabilities of the Equinix Cloud Exchange we will create a robust destination where our enterprise customers can experience the full benefits of the Intercloud.”

Highlights/Key Facts

• Cisco and Equinix intend to develop a private cloud solution for enterprise customers designed to extend hybrid cloud performance, security and manageability all the way to the application layer.
• Cisco intends to deploy Intercloud-enabled capabilities in 16 Equinix data centers across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
• As Cisco expands its Intercloud capabilities, Equinix will be a preferred supplier, offering access to Cisco Cloud Services inside its global platform of International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers.
• Equinix intends to deploy Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) within the Equinix Cloud Exchange infrastructure to deliver application-driven policy control. It plans to deploy the key hardware and software elements of the Cisco ACI architecture in its data centers, including the Nexus 9000 Series Switch and the APIC Controller.
• Equinix has already deployed elements of the Cisco Evolved Services Platform (ESP) – an open, comprehensive orchestration and virtualization software platform on Equinix Cloud Exchange, providing real-time automation for service provisioning, over physical and virtual networks.
• Equinix, the global interconnection leader, has a global data center footprint of more than 100 data centers across 32 markets in 15 countries.

About The Intercloud
Intercloud is the worldwide network of interconnected clouds, which Cisco and its partners are rapidly developing to enable a new generation of standardized cloud applications and the proliferation of secure hybrid clouds. The Intercloud is built to address customer requirements for a globally distributed, highly secure cloud platform capable of meeting the robust demands of the Internet of Everything. Designed for high-value application workloads, with real-time analytics and “near infinite” scalability, Cisco’s open approach to the Intercloud allows local hosting and local provider options that enable data sovereignty.

About the Equinix Cloud Exchange
Launched earlier this year, the Equinix Cloud Exchange is an advanced interconnection solution that enables seamless, on-demand and direct access to multiple clouds, across multiple networks around the globe. By combining the automated interconnection of cloud, network and managed service providers with advanced service orchestration for the first time, the Equinix Cloud Exchange provides enterprises with simple, scalable, direct access to the multiple cloud services they need to build highly flexible hybrid cloud solutions. This removes the security, performance and vendor lock-in concerns holding many organizations back from fully adopting and reaping the benefits of cloud services. The Equinix Cloud Exchange is available in 17 markets globally—Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., New York, Toronto, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt—with expansion planned to a total of 19 markets by the end of 2014.

About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.

About Equinix
Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ: EQIX), connects more than 4,500 companies directly to their customers and partners inside the world’s most networked data centers. Today, businesses leverage the Equinix interconnection platform in 32 strategic markets across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. www.equinix.com.