Today at Cisco Live, Cisco and Dimension Data announced an expansion of their 23-year relationship with plans to accelerate and streamline hybrid cloud adoption globally. 

Cisco will use Dimension Data's Managed Cloud Platform and SaaS solutions to deliver a suite of mid-market centric cloud services to its customers and resellers. Dimension Data and Cisco will partner to deliver an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solution that will be packaged with Cisco technology and software-as-a-services (SaaS) applications, including Microsoft SQL Server and SharePoint. The Cisco validated and branded solutions will be sold by Cisco and through its channel partner community. 

Dimension Data's global cloud service is available via 10 Managed Cloud Platforms around the world, with plans to expand to 13 locations by September 2014. As a Cisco Intercloud partner, Dimension Data will evolve its Managed Cloud Platform to embrace Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Intercloud Fabric - the building blocks of the Cisco Cloud architecture. 

In March of this year, Cisco announced plans to build the world's largest global Intercloud together with its partners 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 Intercloud allows local hosting options that enable data sovereignty. 

Cisco will initially package Cisco Intercloud Fabric, Cisco UCS Director and Dimension Data's public IaaS into two different hybrid cloud solutions, giving customers different starting points on the journey to hybrid cloud depending on the current state of their IT environment. The two hybrid cloud solutions are expected to be available globally from Cisco within 90 days, with additional solutions available in the coming months. 

Cisco and Dimension Data will also collaborate to accelerate the availability of Cisco Cloud services for smaller service providers across emerging markets. This initiative will build on Dimension Data's proven OneCloud Partner Programme to deliver the technology platform, channel enablement and operational services required to accelerate time to market and revenue opportunities for service providers. 

Cisco and Dimension Data are building on a 23-year track record of technology innovation and global growth. Dimension Data has more than 23,000 employees in offices across 58 countries, accounting for more CCIEs than any other organization outside of Cisco.