Cisco Enables Private Cloud Creation with Acquisition of newScaleCisco Enables Private Cloud Creation with Acquisition of newScale

With newScale's self-service portal and Cisco's Intelligent Automation approach, enterprises will be well on their way to becoming their own carrier.

This morning I tweeted, "#Cisco makes #cloud play--will Acquire newScale, developer of an end user self-service portal http://yhoo.it/newscale via @SteffWatson." In my initial ignorance of newScale, a quick read of the press release had me thinking that the self-service portal related to Cisco's collaboration solutions, e.g., voice and contact center. Further research, as well as answers to some questions via Cisco's crack analyst relations team, educated me to the fact that this is not the case. But the lessons learned are worth passing along, and in the end reinforce Cisco's potential importance with Hosted Collaboration Services (HCS).

The lead from a press release March 2010 helped me understand that newScale and Cisco solutions are already integrated, and that the solution newScale works with is Unified Computing System (UCS): newScale Announces Support for the Cisco Unified Computing System; Cisco UCS Customers Can Now Use newScale Self-Service and Lifecycle Management Software to Build Private Clouds and IaaS.

Learning 1: newScale is not as much about Software as a Service (SaaS) as it is about Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
With about 100 customers and 2 million users today, to date newScale solutions have been targeted at service providers or very, very large companies. Asked if Cisco plans to expand the target market to include a broader array of customers, the response was that Cisco is positioning this solution, along with the Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud solution, for enterprise and commercial (Cisco's word for SMB) customers. It makes sense that as the use of private clouds continues to expand, more and more customers will have need for newScale tools.

Learning 2: Primarily used in private clouds today, Cisco sees broader applications for newScale applications.
Debates rage over private versus public versus hybrid clouds. We asked Cisco if it is fair to say that newScale will help Cisco blur the lines that can impede cloud deployments. Not surprisingly, the answer was a resounding yes. While newScale focuses today on private clouds with the current offerings, the capability exists to have catalogs and self-service across private and public clouds.

Learning 3: newScale solutions can be used to help deliver Cisco Collaboration Solutions
Asked if there are specific voice, SIP or video applications of newScale that users of Cisco Collaboration solutions would be able to leverage, the answer was that newScale can be used as a "storefront" for ordering of services. One can easily imagine existing newScale customers--like Macy's, American Express or McKesson--using a private cloud to deliver Cisco’s collaboration services over UCS. newScale's self-service portal would allow the IT departments of these companies to offer departments a way to order their own collaboration services.

The Cisco acquisition of newScale reinforced comments that Chris May, VP at another hosted software supplier to Cisco, VOSS, made to me during a meeting at Enteprise Connect. He said that carriers are resonating with Cisco's Hosted Collaboration Services message because Cisco is delivering it all--the hardware, the operating system, and the applications--making it easy for carriers to do one stop shopping. It seems that with newScale's self-service portal and Cisco's Intelligent Automation approach, enterprises will be well on their way to becoming their own carrier.