As cloud managed service providers become more savvy and more money is invested in the infrastructure-as-a-service market, a concept that has become important in the industry is InterCloud. Many IaaS cloud providers are learning that they can create partnerships with other cloud companies in order to create a shared environment, and some have already chosen to invest in such endeavors. For instance, in September 2014, Cisco announced it would be investing $1 billion into Intercloud services in order to bolster services like hybrid cloud solutions and the functionality of the Internet of Things, according to Network World's Jim Duffy.

But let's take a step back for a minute. What, exactly, is InterCloud?  A useful analogy would be to call it a "cloud of clouds" – essentially, a group of virtually connected networks that can include public, private and hybrid cloud offerings. These offerings can be connected with one cloud provider or multiple, basically ensuring that enterprises get the best solutions tailored to their specific needs without feeling boxed into any one corner.

Let's take a look at some of the important benefits that the InterCloud has to offer:

1. Wealth of options
The InterCloud basically creates a peered environment where third-party IaaS providers are able to work together to enhance the benefits of cloud computing for enterprise customers. In this way, it allows users to pick and choose which benefits they receive because they can create a hybrid solution consisting of multiple providers.

For instance, by utilizing various cloud services providers, different security, regulatory and business requirements can be addressed and dealt with successfully. In the past, such an arrangement would require organizations to pick multiple vendors and have to ensure synergy among all of them by themselves. By partnering with just one vendor, companies can eliminate costly IT complexities and enjoy simpler cloud infrastructure management.

2. Enhanced security
A cloud service provider should offer good security management to its customers and the InterCloud offers this capability. It provides better security because of the private nature of the cloud network. Companies can access their outsourced critical applications through this end-to-end private network instead of hosting data and applications on the Internet or on their own – potentially vulnerable – servers.

3. Interoperability
Another important advantage of InterCloud is the inherent interoperability it brings to the table. In traditional models, each cloud service used by an enterprise must be separately managed. However, with InterCloud, companies can benefit from a seamless framework of cloud providers because separate management is no longer necessary. For example, Amazon Web Services customers that need enterprise storage environments are often actually utilizing cloud storage options from Faction due to InterCloud agreements.

Peder Ulander, vice president of cloud services at Cisco, told TechTarget that the goal of InterCloud is to "[g]uarantee apps that enterprises want, guarantee service-level agreements, guarantee that they can work across a group of providers to move workloads based on the reason to have it [in] one place versus another." In other words, organizations want to be able to move easily among multiple service providers using this hybrid framework.

The bottom line
An enterprise needs to make sure its cloud services provider allows flexible workload placement within the InterCloud architecture, because that is one of the main advantages of this peering structure. Consistency in network and security policies across all the cloud services within the hybrid network is also an important aspect of managing the InterCloud. By creating this peered cloud environment, providers are better able to meet the computing needs of customers. The unique nature of Intercloud also points to the rise of hybrid cloud architectures, which shows just how prevalent and necessary cloud computing has become for organizations everywhere.