This year has not been kind to operators of lesser-used public clouds as they struggle to compete with the sector's big four: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix and Google Cloud Platform. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Verizon both shut down their public cloud services this year, and now Cisco is set to do the same, as the Register reports:
Cisco will turn off its Intercloud Services (CIS) public cloud next year, The Register understands.
We have sighted a message from veep for Cloud Platform and Services Kip Compton, which CCs a number of Cisco marketing and communications people, announcing the service's termination.
Compton says: “Today we are taking an important step to better align our resources so that we are well positioned to execute on Cisco’s Cloud Strategy. Effective March 31, 2017, the CIS multi-tenant hosting platform will be shut down and all tenants fully migrated to other platforms.”
Intercloud dates to September 2014 and is based on OpenStack. Cisco had a grand vision for Intercloud, signing up dozens of hosting partners around the world with the aim of providing a globally federated cloud tied together by its computing fabric. But apparently, not enough customers took the bait.
Cisco has not yet officially announced Intercloud's closure, but had already pivoted away from pushing public cloud to focus on private and hybrid cloud scenarios. It's also rolled out a new set of modular hardware systems positioned as an alternative to public clouds. Presumably, it will attempt to keep soon-to-be-displaced Intercloud customers in the fold by pushing those offerings.
"Another traditional IT provider public cloud bites the dust, which at this point doesn't come as a surprise," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. "The common thread for these clouds was that they built on OpenStack, and by now it looks like OpenStack has very little success among large commercial enterprises." (Notable large commercial enterprise OpenStack users include Walmart and PayPal, but these have been well and often-publicized examples.)
"We noted that first when attending OpenStack Summit in Austin this spring, where there were no commercial enterprises in any of the keynotes, only ISVs and telcos," Mueller adds. (See Mueller's full report here.) "But overall, it's another example that when you catch a technology trend late, you better make good choices," he says. "If not, you are out."
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