For a number of years Intercloud has been a term known only in the academic world and amongst few industry experts.
The Intercloud is a"cloud of clouds" and the Wikipedia description perfectly outlines the reason why Intercloud is the critical enabler to capture the immense value of the Internet of Everything-
"The Intercloud scenario is based on the key concept that each single cloud does not have infinite physical resources or ubiquitous geographic footprint."

That's exactly the point!
It's not about one cloud, no matter how large, but it's about how to distribute the capacity and the intelligence to deal with connecting billions of things and trillions of events.
And when it comes to people, processes and data that -along with things -form the Internet of Everything, new Data Sovereignty requirements make the goal of building one cloud to address all those requirements virtually impossible...until today!

Cisco and our Intercloud Provider Partners will turn the "impossible" into our second phase of our World of Many Clouds strategy as we state our intent to become the number 1 Platform for the Internet of Everything.

Just think about those disparate LAN protocols, mail systems, SNA networks, etc. that Cisco multiprotocol IP Routers interconnected via IP and the global Internet in the last decades.

Now think about today's cloud world with private and public clouds, based on disparate hypervisors, various software stacks, different security frameworks, different policies, geographical locations, etc.

Don't you see the same pattern? Much like Cisco was a key player in building the global Internet, we are now at the heart of building the global Intercloud!

Announcing Cisco Cloud Services

Today, at Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas, we announced a major evolution of our World of Many Clouds strategy -Cisco Cloud Services -with plans to build the world's largest global Intercloud together with key strategic partners and service providers. This first-of-its kind global open public network of clouds and represents the next phase in cloud computing.  This will be a cloud truly built for the Internet of Everything, capable of scaling to billions of connections, and trillions of events, offering customers unmatched flexibility to integrate their private, public, and hybrid cloud capabilities to achieve business advantage.

Cisco InterCloud Differentiators

Hosted across a global network of Cisco and partner data centers, the Cisco global Intercloud will offer the ability to achieve unprecedented speed, scale, and world class economics along with an expanded suite of value-added application- and network-centric cloud services to capture the full value of the Internet of Everything

Cisco's approach is different from other, more infrastructure-centric public cloud offers.
This first-of-its-kind open Intercloud, built with a commitment to open standards and based on OpenStack, will feature APIs to connect any cloud/hypervisor to any other cloud/hypervisor.   We are building an application-centric cloud that improves the performance of critical business applications. Cisco's global Intercloud is being architected with a distributed network and security architecture designed for high-value application workloads, real-time analytics, "near infinite" scalability, and full compliance with local data sovereignty laws.  Partners also gain the ability to extend services globally via a cloud operated and backed by Cisco service level agreements.

There are greater opportunities for everyone now.  We are adding to partner choice and differentiation through this announcement building on our leadership as the#1 cloud infrastructure provider and the#2 SaaS provider globally.   Much like Cisco had a key role in building the Internet, we're now going to play the same role to build the global open Intercloud (a network of clouds). We think this is the right time for Cisco and our partners to jointly invest in this groundbreaking, application-centric global Intercloud.  Together we will enable the world of many clouds by providing broader reach and faster time-to-market.  We envision a world where our customers have the choice to securely leverage the right cloud for the right workload and create strategic advantage that allows for rapid innovation and business growth.

Additional Resources:

Press Release 

Cisco's Robert Lloyd Platform blog on Cisco Intercloud

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