Private Cloud Reality Check

What is a private cloud? What’s in your private cloud? Simple questions. Complex answers. There is the classical definition centered around self-provisioning from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), but many organizations are implementing private clouds – and calling them private clouds – without self-provisioning. Why? How can this be a private cloud? Reality is private cloud means different things to different IT architects. What’s required is a broader view of private cloud where we turn the focus to features, functions and benefits, and away from rigid nomenclature. In other words we take into account a private cloud’s value to the organization in addition to its functional characteristics.