
With the exception of WebEx, Cisco does not offer cloud services in the traditional sense. Cisco may have a private cloud but it seems like the company does not have the ambition of launching a public cloud hosting infrastructure much like other tech giants such as Oracle and IBM. Instead, Cisco has made its mint off of selling equipment that is used to build a cloud. According to a market research report by the analysts at Synergy, Cisco sells more cloud computing equipment than many of the major vendors such as HP and Dell.
Cisco’s new product which is code named “Cloud Fusion” is designed to keep prying eyes off of private data. This new product will utilize what is known as a hybrid cloud. As you may know, a hybrid cloud is a cloud that collaborates between a private and public cloud infrastructure. Using this model and the proprietary Cisco methodology, data would be separated from the actual application. Therefore, data could be stored in the client’s data center while the applications could themselves be stored in the cloud. If the US government were to ask Cisco for access to a company’s network, Cisco would be unable to provide a backdoor because the data the government seeks wouldn’t be in the cloud, it would be stored locally in the company’s data center. The government agency would then have to serve a subpoena directly to the company or somehow compromise the company’s local data center in order to gain access to the data they desire.
Cisco has made a name for itself by producing quality networking equipment that exceeds industry standards in relation to security. As evidenced in the study cited by the Synergy Research Group, Cisco leads all cloud hardware and infrastructure providers and it is expected that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future.