Cisco’s Tail-f Tech Automates Equinix’s Cloud Network

Among the many announcements Cisco made at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was an announcement that Equinix, the world’s largest data center service provider, has deployed technology by Tail-f, a Swedish software defined network company Cisco acquired last year, to automate cloud network provisioning for the Equinix Cloud Exchange platform.

The platform is a way Equinix customers can connect to a multitude of cloud and network service providers out of the company’s data centers. It is fully automated, designed to reduce the amount of manual provisioning customers have to do to set up their architecture.

Using the platform, a customer can deploy an application that uses enterprise servers installed in an Equinix data center together with cloud VMs by Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or IBM SoftLayer, to name just a few. Such multi-cloud deployments are in demand, and Equinix has been putting a lot of effort to capitalize on the growing opportunity.

The platform uses Apigee to enable API-based hybrid cloud topologies. The Tail-f technology is used to automate and program cloud network provisioning as part of the platform’s SDN called the Equinix Programmable Network.

New Telco Deals Around the World

Also at the conference in Barcelona, Cisco announced partnerships and deployments of various services together with telcos around the world.

German telco Deutsche Telekom launched a cloud VPN service in for small and mid-size businesses in Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia, enabled by Cisco’s technology. The service also uses the Tail-F NCS platform.

Cisco partnered with Australian telecommunications giant Telstra to bring to market a portfolio of cloud and managed network services using Cisco’s SDN and network function virtualization solutions. It also partnered with Telecom Italia on managed services in Italy.

U.S. telco AT&T will be using Cisco’s virtual mobile network tech to enable its connected-car services.