Solution provider Dimension Data has added Cisco’s (CSCO) Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) to its lineup of cloud-based unified communications (UC) services, in a move the company said fleshes out its portfolio of public, private and hybrid cloud services and sparks its strategy to help customers migrate to the cloud.

The Cisco deal enables Dimension Data to provide UC through the cloud, which means the solution provider can sell its customers on the benefits of the technology without asking them to invest in hardware and maintenance.

Steve Nola, Dimension Data IT-as-a-Service group executive, tied the Cisco deal to the solution provider’s strategy to transition enterprise customers to the cloud.

“Our clients are looking to leverage the cloud for more than just simple, temporary workloads,” he said. “Dimension Data is committed to providing enterprise-class cloud services with our integration expertise to help clients accelerate their migration of production applications, such as unified communications, to the cloud.”

Dimension Data said the Cisco HCS fits well with its existing UC voice, video, contact center, instant messaging and presence services and will enable customers to lower costs associated with a UC deployment while boosting productivity and collaboration. The solution provider leverages its public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service and managed private cloud platform to deliver cloud services to clients.

“UC provides numerous benefits to organizations, from equipping telecommuting employees with the tools to be productive, to the convenience of working with geographically dispersed offices,” said Scott Cruikshank, Dimension Data Converged Communications director. “However, installation and maintenance of UC solutions can be a costly and complex undertaking for many businesses. By expanding our existing cloud services with Cisco, we now have the ability to provide UC via the cloud, so that our clients can reap the benefits of the solution without needing to invest in complex and costly implementation and maintenance. This frees up clients’ IT resources so that they can focus them on other parts of the business that need attention.”

Eric Schoch, Cisco Hosted Collaboration Business Unit general manager, said the Dimension Data deal expands Cisco’s reach. “With Dimension Data adding Cisco’s HCS solution as part of its UC cloud offerings, our global client base will ultimately benefit from the utility cloud UC delivery model, while also offloading the complexities of ongoing UC management.”