Cisco, BMC forge cloud infrastructure partnership

Cisco and BMC Software on Monday said they are expanding their partnership to enable telecommunications companies to offer multi-tenant cloud computing services.

Under the terms of the alliance, BMC and Cisco will synch product development roadmaps and architecture to deliver a suite to automate cloud computing delivery. The platform, dubbed the Cloud Delivery Platform, is designed for service providers at first, but will expand to enterprises that have large private cloud operations.

The joint effort will allow for the automation and linking of various cloud computing components so telecom giants can provision services quickly.

BMC and Cisco already have a strong partnership via the Unified Computing System (UCS) initiative. In a nutshell, Cisco sells servers and BMC’s software can ride shotgun.

With the cloud partnership, BMC and Cisco will have joint marketing, services, testing and certifications. Cisco will also resell BMC’s Service Assurance and Compliance Software.

Len LuPriore, head of Cisco’s strategic communications for the company’s service provider business, said the idea is to team up with BMC to better orchestrate cloud services. Broadband providers can then offer additional services to garner more revenue. For BMC, the partnership could land a few accounts. Cisco gets its foot into some massive data centers.

Paul Avenant, senior vice president of products and strategy for Enterprise Service Management at BMC, said the partnership with Cisco will allow providers to “stand up” cloud delivery ranging from self-serve portals to the configuration of virtual machines, storage, security, routers, networks and firewalls.