Cisco and NTT are celebrating their 30-year partnership and highlighting how they work together to serve about 11,000 customers, including 65% of the Fortune 500, with managed services for networking, security, hybrid cloud, data centers, wireless LAN and more.

The collaboration involves over 14,000 technical experts in more than 50 countries for a broad range of services, from setting up a branch network with wireless access points and IoT devices for a small organization to a global network for a large enterprise with private 5G, NTT touted.

“We put the Cisco software to work with our managed services that include 11 portfolios, starting with SDI [software-defined infrastructure] services,” NTT Chief Digital Officer Dilip Kumar told SDxCentral. This makes the vendor one of only four Cisco global partners with 11 or more Cisco Powered Services specializations.

NTT has integrated more than 180 Cisco APIs into its SDI platform. These APIs provide telemetry for users’ infrastructure across networking and security to enable the managed service provider to collect metrics including software license and hardware usage, security vulnerabilities and configurations.

Cisco has been enhancing these APIs to give their clients a better experience, said Tony Hopson, director of global and strategic partners at Cisco.

Kumar noted these API integrations enable the two companies to offer a unified, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, cloud-based adoption system, which is one of the three building blocks of this partnership. The other two are cloud migration services and lifecycle management for technology transformation with clear outcome metrics.

“The entire business model was around technology and services and helping our clients to install the technology, configure the technology, support the technology and operate the technology. That was the business model for almost like 25 to 30 years,” he said.

For the last three to four years, the partnership has pivoted to be more software focused, using NTT's managed services to add Cisco’s software to customers’ systems, Kumar said.

The partners serve customers including Heineken, Royal Caribbean, Santa Clara County and Compagnie Intercommunale Liégeoise des Eaux (CILE).

Cisco and NTT offer managed security, SD-WAN and SASE

In the wake of the recent software shift, NTT has tapped Cisco for managed security, SD-WAN and SASE services.

NTT offers a multitenant, subscription-based security service for hosted and managed models based on Cisco’s security services, featuring zero-trust security. The service aims to offer continuous monitoring and analysis of user behavior to quickly detect and respond to anomalies while enforcing trust-based access to protect sensitive data and systems.

The Japanese service provider also uses Cisco’s Viptela and Meraki SD-WAN platforms to power its Managed SDx portfolio. It also offers managed SASE based on Cisco’s SD-WAN and Umbrella security services.

Other collaboration areas for the two companies include business communications, campus access for managed LAN and wireless LAN, cloud calling, full-stack observability, hybrid cloud, infrastructure-as-a-service and contact center.

The path forward

As NTT and Cisco celebrate this 30-year milestone, Kumar and Hopson identified several future opportunities for the partnership.

Refresh and renew existing software and services

Kumar noted NTT is one of Cisco’s largest partners and has a massive install base. Updating their substantial existing client base with new software and services, including advanced digital platforms, AI and insightful data analytics, is a big opportunity, akin to Apple's model of regular product refreshes.

Expanding Cisco technology adoption

NTT plans to expand managed services for new technology from Cisco on networking, security and data centers, Kumar said.

The digital wallet approach

Hopson noted NTT can act as customers' broker of record to manage and optimize clients' Cisco software investments, improve return on investment (ROI) and offer advice to help make informed decisions about new investments and compliance.