San Jose-headquartered Cisco has expanded its Meraki offering in India by launching a new cloud region within the country. This strategic move aims to host business data locally, catering to the regulatory and privacy needs of enterprises, particularly in highly regulated sectors like finance, banking, and public sector organizations.
Cisco acquired Meraki, a cloud networking company, in 2012 for approximately $1.2 billion. Meraki’s solutions simplify IT operations, management, and control of both wired and wireless networks, while reducing operational costs. The new India cloud region will leverage a cloud service provider empanelled with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. Additionally, Cisco is investing in a data center in Chennai, expected to be operational in the latter half of the year. Globally, Meraki serves over 810,000 customers.
Cisco anticipates Meraki’s business growth in India to outpace its overall growth in the region. Daisy Chittilapilly, President of Cisco India & SAARC, noted that despite Meraki’s presence in India for nearly 8-9 years, small and medium industries currently form the bulk of its customer base.
A recent Data Privacy Benchmark Study by Cisco revealed that 97% of Indian organizations believe their data is safer when stored locally, and 94% trust global providers more than local ones for data protection. Cisco expects the new India cloud region to expand its market, especially among public sector entities, government, education, financial institutions, healthcare, and professional services.
The India region is in a beta phase, with early access offered to customers. Meraki plans to scale and enhance its services based on user feedback and overall performance. The region is fully supported by Meraki Support and Engineering teams with a local team presence in India.
Source: Fortune India
