24 Mar, 2021
Cisco bundles Terraform with Intersight to make it easier to use infrastructure as code in the private cloud
Cloud

Cisco will sell the two SaaS platforms in one package to address security and management concerns that come with multi-cloud environments.

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HashiCorp’s Terraform Cloud Business and Cisco’s Intersight will be sold together starting in April to make it easier for companies to use infrastructure as code in private cloud environments.

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HashiCorp’s Terraform Cloud Business and Cisco’s Intersight will be sold together starting in April to make it easier for companies to use infrastructure as code in private cloud environments.

Image: Cisco

Cisco and HashiCorp have combined two Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) services to bring public cloud tools to private cloud deployments and data centers, the two companies announced Wednesday. The Cisco Intersight Service for Terraform will make it easier for developers to use infrastructure as code strategies in hybrid cloud environments. HashiCorp Terraform Cloud Business and Cisco Intersight will be sold together starting in April.

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Vijay Venugopal, head of product management for Cisco Cloud and Compute Software, said that connecting the two SaaS platforms reflects the shift in how applications are deployed. Instead of opening a ticket with the infrastructure team and waiting, cloud developers now expect to build and destroy infrastructure at the same time that they deploy application code.

“This self-service model for developers extends the speed and agility of public cloud tools to private cloud and data centers,” he said.

Combining HashiCorp’s Terraform automation tools with Cisco’s Insight platform accomplishes that, Venugopal said.

Mark Bowker, a senior analyst for cloud, mobility and security at Enterprise Strategy Group, said that Intersight Service for Terraform joins similar services offered by the hyperscale cloud providers. 

He said the new offering helps businesses address legacy IT as part of the overall application modernization strategy. 

“HashiCorp helps IT operations, developers and engineers glue together the modern application lifecycle with the support and trusted data center brand of Cisco,” he said. 

SEE: Top cloud providers in 2020: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, hybrid, SaaS players (TechRepublic)

Bowker said the HashiCorp partnership also helps Cisco engage with customers that have been using open source tooling or building their own DevOps tools. 

“HashiCorp helps provide the consistency of operations for IT operations without slowing down the developer innovation,” he said.

This automation also has the potential to improve application security as developers can use pre-approved templates for most deployments.

Amith Nair, vice president, product management at HashiCorp, said that HashiCorp’s Sentinel framework delivers policy as code makes it easy for IT teams to provide security governance to application teams. He said that Terraform Enterprise also provides cost controls for cloud deployments so developers will know when they are spending too much on cloud deployments. 

“Terraform enterprise provides policy limitations beyond rule-based access control,” he said.

Nair said the new product addresses both the increasing complexity of cloud deployments and the need to modernize development workflows.

“This is solving an actual pain point in the industry today and moving DevOps principles into traditional ops space,” he said.

Venugopal said the new product bridges the gap between DevOps and IT ops in the short term and has the potential to reduce operational complexity and lower overall security risks in the long term.

Venugopal said that this new service addresses some of the security, orchestration and management challenges that have made it more difficult to use infrastructure as code in the private cloud and in on-premise data centers.

Providing Terraform Cloud services alongside the Intersight platform makes it easier to manage those challenges and to meet compliance requirements in a multi-cloud infrastructure, according to the companies.  

The Cisco Intersight platform provides intelligent visualization, optimization and orchestration for applications and infrastructure in hybrid and on-premises environments via a SaaS-delivered cloud operations platform. The Cisco Intersight Service for Terraform connects on-premises environments with Terraform Cloud Business. This will allow IT operations and DevOps teams to automate infrastructure provisioning using infrastructure as code across hybrid cloud, according to the companies.

Kaustubh Das, vice president and general manager of cloud and compute at Cisco, said in a press release that this partnership makes it easier for companies to connect on-premises environments securely via the Cisco Intersight platform to Terraform Cloud Business and to integrate with IaC strategies.

This new product will be generally available in April and included on Cisco’s global price list. Venugopal said Cisco will support the entire solution and provide one window of support to customers.

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