By now, you’ve probably seen the headline “Cisco’s contract to build a cloud-based cloud-computing service is up for renewal” and seen the company’s new Chief Information Officer, Jeff Rader.
The company announced the renewal of its contract with Google for the $8.5 billion project, a deal that comes with a big asterisk.
It’s a contract that was awarded to Google, not Cisco, in 2008 and was the first time the two companies have partnered for a project.
The renewal means Google can continue to develop the cloud-oriented services, such as its Cloud Foundry cloud computing platform and its Apache Spark cloud computing engine, and Google is still paying for all of the infrastructure.
Google’s Cloud Foundries will be responsible for the cloud services.
But the reason the project was renewed is because Cisco’s contract with the firm ended earlier this year, and so Google and Cisco will now be working together again.
In a blog post announcing the new deal, Cisco said that the renewal will help ensure that its CloudFoundries “will continue to deliver cutting-edge technology and solutions to meet customers’ cloud needs.”
Google said in a statement that it was pleased to renew its contract.
“The renewal of our cloud computing services agreement with Cisco is a significant milestone for the Cisco CloudFoundry, which is the leading provider of cloud computing technology for enterprise customers,” Google said.
“CISCO’s CloudFounders are highly regarded for their technology, and their leadership and vision has been instrumental in Cisco’s continued success.
We look forward to working with Cisco on cloud computing infrastructure and solutions for the next several years.”
The two companies were in talks for the CloudFoundery contract, which ran from 2008 through 2014.
Cisco said in March that it would renew the contract for another 10 years, and it said that it has “successfully transitioned to new cloud technologies.”
Google said it would continue to work with Cisco to provide cloud services to the company.
Google and Cisco previously worked on similar projects that were not connected to Google Cloud but were still considered the “Google Cloud” for the purpose of the contract.
That included the Google Cloud Search Engine project, Google’s data center at San Jose, Calif., and the Cloud Foundation cloud computing project.
Cisco had been looking for a way to bring Google Cloud to the cloud.
“We had always planned to use the cloud to deliver high-performance, cloud-focused computing and analytics services to end users and enterprises,” Cisco said at the time.
“This was in contrast to Google’s focus on proprietary infrastructure and its traditional web-centric business model, and we felt that the Cloud Foundriks would be a perfect partner for us to deliver on that mission.”
In 2014, Google said it was “continuing to explore opportunities to integrate Cloud Foundrks with existing Google cloud services,” and Google added that it had already worked with Cisco “to deliver CloudFoundrks across its network, including across a number of Cloud Foundrys.
The CloudFoundrs will deliver Google Cloud services to customers of Cisco in the cloud, as well as other Cisco customers.”
Google did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.
