Mumbai, Feb 10 (IANS) IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has tied up with networking and communications infrastructure provider Cisco Systems Inc. to jointly develop and deliver IT services and solutions.

The two companies in a joint declaration said they would work on delivering next generation data centres for customers, with TCS developing compatible technology to match Cisco’s data centre networking infrastructure.

The companies aim to facilitate virtual data centres to their customers through the alliance.

“The partnership is holistic and multi-levelled through which we will aim to provide customers an array of solutions which would include data centres, virtualisation, security, software as a service (SaaS) among others,” TCS chief executive N. Chandrasekaran said.

As part of the deal, the San Fransisco-based Cisco will set up a technology lab at TCS’ campus in Chennai, and the Indian giant will double its employee strength from 500 to 1,000.

The two companies currently do business worth about $100 million annually, Chandrasekaran said.

He added that the two partners “hope to garner a considerable share” in the market for next generation data centres in the next few years.

Cisco chairman and chief executive John Chambers said the companies hope to offer a new level of productivity to their clients through the joint offerings.

“Virtualisation is growing big by the day and through this alliance we will focus on processor, applications and storage virtualisations among other offerings. We can dramatically change the bottomline of the two companies through this initiative,” Chambers told reporters.