Cisco solutions and NextiraOne’s proven international service expertise create powerful data centre offering

Paris, 02 December, 2010 – NextiraOne today announced an expansion of its relationship with Cisco to accelerate the adoption of virtualised data centre solutions in Europe. Together, Cisco and NextiraOne will focus on delivering advanced communications applications, including Cisco Unified Communications and Cisco Contact Centre hosted in virtualised data centre environments, which bring real value to customers.

NextiraOne will invest in developing its already successful Cisco data centre capabilities through certification of people, labs and demonstration equipment across the European group. The initial focus will be in six major European markets – Austria, Belgium/Luxemburg, France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK – but will extend in the coming months to include all 16 countries where NextiraOne has a direct sales and service presence.

NextiraOne’s experts will also align with the Cisco Advanced Services team in a cooperative service approach to elevate the effectiveness and quality of solution deployments. The NextiraOne solution portfolio will initially focus on Cisco and key ecosystem partner technologies, including those from VMware and NetApp.

The expanded relationship combines Cisco’s innovative data centre virtualisation architecture and NextiraOne’s unique European presence, its expertise in real-time communications applications and its expansive professional services portfolio.

The expanded relationship is a response to clear market trends witnessed by both companies.  Enterprises across Europe are actively looking to centralise the implementation and management of their communications applications and want to gain full benefit from today’s virtualised data centre architectures. They see this as a way to significantly improve utilisation of computer assets and reduce ongoing operational costs including power, server investment and management.  The approach also increases enterprise agility, improving the ability of CIOs to react quickly to changing situations in the market or within their organisation and helping achieve a more rapid deployment of new applications or scaling up of existing applications such as Cisco Unified Communications.

Wendy Mars, senior director, Data Centre and Virtualisation, European Markets at Cisco, said: “Deploying and managing communications applications in a virtualised environment calls for a comprehensive, end-to-end service approach. Combining the Cisco data centre virtualisation architecture with NextiraOne’s communications expertise, extensive service offer and footprint offers European businesses a compelling solution to many of today’s most pressing business issues.”

David Winn, CEO of NextiraOne, said, “Moving communications applications into a virtualised data centre environment makes sense but it must be done properly to avoid becoming complex to manage and disruptive to the business. For international organisations the challenges are even greater.  Enterprises come to us because of our proven ability to help them meet these challenges.  Working together with Cisco we are a safe pair of hands.”

NextiraOne holds Advanced Specialisations in many Cisco technologies, including Data Centre Networking Infrastructure and Data Centre Storage Networking, Unified Communications, and UC Managed Services, amongst others. The company is also an Authorized Technology Provider (ATP) Partner in many key Cisco technologies. NextiraOne has already achieved Cisco Data Centre Unified Computing Partner Certification in Austria, Switzerland, France and Germany, with several other countries about to complete.

NextiraOne and Cisco have a strong, long-standing relationship, and NextiraOne has been a Cisco Certified Partner since 1992. NextiraOne is already a Cisco Multinational Certified Partner and a Cisco Gold Certified Partner in 12 countries. The company has more than 770 certified individuals, including 62 holders of the Cisco CCIE certification.

ENDS