Cisco and NetApp have validated their joint FlexPod IT architecture to run Microsoft’s private-cloud platform, the companies said Thursday.

Companies can now get pre-designed and pre-integrated full IT infrastructures delivered to their data centers to deploy private clouds on the Microsoft-designed cloud platform.

This is the most recent in a series of cloud platforms validated to run on FlexPod – an architecture that combines Cisco’s Unified Computing System and Nexus network switches and NetApp’s FAS storage components.

Brad Anderson, Microsoft’s corporate VP of management and security, said Microsoft’s “cross-platform” approach to private cloud enabled companies to build one cloud for multiple heterogeneous workloads and platforms.

“The FlexPod solution validated with Microsoft private cloud implements best practices for effectively integrating server, storage, and network elements with Windows Server, Hyper-V, and System Center,”Anderson said.

The partners are selling the solution through Avnet, which will act as a single source for channel partners for delivery of the private-cloud solution. The enterprise IT distributor will offer a choice of configurations to channel partners’ clients.

Some Microsoft Technology Centers around the world have the FelxPod solution available for demonstration.

The technology centers are showcase facilities for Microsoft’s and its partners’ technologies. They are staffed with Microsoft employees and provide environments for clients to build and test technology solutions. There are more than 25 of them around the world.

The solution announced Thursday predictably uses Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization platform, but there is a FlexPod configuration validated to run Hyper-V’s competitor VMware.

More than 600 customers have deployed systems built on FlexPod architecture in their data centers. The architecture currently offers 13 designs, supporting a variety of hypervisors, business applications and workloads.