Cisco-Google Hybrid Cloud Love Fest: Real Deal or Hype?

Cisco arrived late to the hybrid cloud party, teaming up with Google last year on a yet-to-be-released product. Since then, the Cisco-Google love fest has been on full display. Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene joined Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins on stage at Cisco Live in June. And Cisco posted a series of love letters, err, blogs, last week during Google Cloud Next about the deepening relationship. In three blog posts Cisco detailed the “new era of the partnership,” launched a cloud challenge for developers to build hybrid applications, and said the joint hybrid cloud product is “only the start.” The companies also announced new product integrations between Cisco’s Webex and other contact center software and Google artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. And for a very brief moment during Google’s annual cloud conference, David Goeckeler, EVP and GM of Cisco’s Networking and Security business took the stage to talk about the joint product, called Cisco Hybrid Cloud Platform for Google Cloud. He said it will be generally available in August. It’s based on Kubernetes and Istio, and will allow enterprises to deploy Kubernetes-based containers on premises and in Google Cloud Platform.