Cisco’s Meraki launches India cloud services to expand into regulated sectors

San Jose headquartered global networking and security solutions provider Cisco has expanded its Meraki offering in India by launching a new cloud region in the country.

The new cloud service will host the data of businesses locally and also provide opportunities to tap into more regulated sectors like finance, banking and public sector companies as it will support in complying with local data laws.

Cisco acquired cloud networking company Meraki in 2012 paying approximately $1.2 billion in cash for its entire business and operations. Meraki’s cloud networking solutions help in simplifying IT operations, control and management of both wired and wireless networks across multiple security touch points in a company and reducing the cost of operations.

The new cloud region is hosted on a cloud service provider empanelled with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, says the company, even as Cisco is investing in a data centre in Chennai, which is expected to be operational in the second half of the year. Globally, Meraki has over 8,10,000 customers, says the company.

Cisco expects Meraki's business growth to be better than Cisco's India growth.

Daisy Chittilapilly, President, Cisco India & SAARC, says though Meraki has been in India for nearly 8-9 years, small and medium industries are currently the largest chunk of its customer base.

A recent Data Privacy Benchmark Study by the company says 97% of organisations in India believe their data would be inherently safer when stored in their own country or region, while 94% trust global providers to protect their data more effectively than local providers, Cisco sees the new India cloud region help in expanding the addressable market in the country, especially public sector entities, government, education, financial institutions, healthcare, and professional services.

Cisco Meraki India Region's early access to the customers is currently being offered in a beta version. It plans to scale, improve and provide full-fledged solutions based on feedback and the overall functionality and performance. The India region is fully supported by Meraki Support and Engineering teams and has a small team presence working out of India.