Cisco today made good on CEO Chuck Robbins' promise to move the company’s portfolio to a subscription model with the launch of the Cisco Plus network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform.

While software-as-a-service (SaaS) is nothing new for the networking giant, the launch of Cisco Plus means customers can now pay a flat monthly or quarterly rate for their hardware and software, explained Kip Compton, SVP of strategy and operations for Cisco’s enterprise networking and cloud division.

“You don't actually own any assets; you're paying a subscription fee,” he said. “Cisco retains title to that equipment, it's all opex on your books, and you pay just based on what you use.”

One of the first products to launch under the Cisco Plus moniker is a hybrid cloud service similar to Dell Technologies On Demand or Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) Greenlake offerings. Cisco Plus Hybrid Cloud will include a full suite of data center compute, networking, storage, and software designed to bridge on premises, edge, and public cloud deployments.

“There are a lot of customers who prefer our data center architecture or our computing capabilities, and now with Cisco Plus they'll have the option of consuming that in a more flexible consumption model,” Compton explained. “I think the reason compute moved first, frankly, is that the cloud guys set an example. It’s easy for people to think: ‘what I’m getting in the cloud, I want it on-prem in terms of the consumption model.’”

Additionally, the service will be billed based on consumption with customers able to define usage commitments upfront. The service will be available as a limited release in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.

While much of the company’s secure access service edge (SASE) platform was already offered as a service, SD-WAN appliances and associated hardware were not. With Cisco Plus, the network vendor is looking to offer a subscription model that includes all necessary appliances.

And with additional upgrades to the service planned for later this year, Cisco Plus promises to more tightly integrate the various components of Cisco’s SASE stack, which includes its Viptela and Meraki SD-WAN, Umbrella security platform, Duo identity management service, and ThousandEyes network visibility platforms.

“Today we've got great integration between both Viptela and Meraki with things like Umbrella and Duo and ThousandEyes, which we view as the core pieces of our SASE architecture. However, we're gonna go beyond that integration to more of a singular experience in the future,” Compton said.

Part of this includes launching a new self-service portal that will unify management and billing across the company's as-a-service portfolio.

Built on the vendor’s CX Cloud, the Cisco Plus Experience will also feature an integrated marketplace where customers can subscribe to additional services or hardware as needed.

Finally, as Cisco transitions more of its portfolio to a subscription model, the company remains committed to its channel partners. The company claims the offering will be predicated on its existing partner ecosystem.

“Most Cisco customers work with our partner ecosystem to get additional services, integration, support, and that's part of what helps our customers overall succeed with their deployments in their businesses,” Compton said. “We've taken the time to really get feedback from our partners and design Cisco Plus to be a partner-friendly framework.”

While Cisco is transitioning to a subscription service, Compton said the company understands that it’s not going to be a perfect fit for everyone.

“It's definitely true that there's some customers who are super interested in these types of offers and some others who are less interested,” he said, adding that due to how some companies operate, they may continue to favor a capex-heavy model.

“We're finding though the majority of our customers are very attracted to the, for the lack of better way of putting it, agility argument,” he added.