On the rugged road to building a private cloud, CIOs need to be ready.

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When cloud computing became a hot topic for discussion a few years ago, the public cloud began to receive widespread attention. This is due to the high-profile publicity that some large companies include, including Google and Amazon. However, as the discussion has entered into the implementation phase, some IT companies have begun to alienate the public cloud due to security risks. Because the data is placed outside the company's firewall and is largely out of the control of the company.

Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester, agrees that the focus of the recent IT department will shift to private clouds. He thinks IT managers are not interested in getting out of the firewall. ”

Bittman's blog also points out that private clouds are also facing challenges. In his survey, managing and developing business processes was considered to be the most vexing issue. Of course, an internal private cloud requires the IT department to build internally, so the time frame, learning curve, and budget will all be part of the build equation.

Below, we will explain some related issues in two parts. First we will differentiate between cloud and virtualization and "legacy" data centers. Then we'll explore some management issues and then look at the few companies that are actively building private clouds and listen to their opinions.

We typically think of a private cloud within the company's firewall, but the private cloud may also be external--in other words, hosted by a third party, but it is still controlled by the company's IT department. But in this article, we only discuss the internal private cloud.

Besides, in addition to the hype you might hear, today, no factory chamber offers all the software needed to build and manage a truly private cloud. These software should involve server virtualization, storage virtualization, network virtualization, and resource automation and compilation.

Virtualization is just one corner of the picture

Many IT managers equate a private cloud with virtualization. Typically, they describe virtual infrastructure, "you can think of your servers, storage, and networks as a single pool of resources where you can implement workload on demand," said Tony Iams, vice president and senior analyst at Ideas Analysys.

However, virtualization and cloud are not in fact the same thing: as a cloud, the infrastructure must be built on top of the virtual layer to achieve programming and automation.

Programming involves many types of resources, such as the coordinated delivery of processors, storage, and networks, to provide an integrated supply process. Resources can be delivered in minutes, not days or weeks. In other words, a single command or request can cause a series of operations to occur, coordinating supply requirements in a particular order.

The key to a private cloud is to allow IT managers to reduce costs and achieve what is called a flexible configuration, rather than just making the infrastructure more convenient to manage.

Without the focus of delivering IT services, you are less likely to maximize the profits of private clouds.

(Responsible editor: Liu Fen)