What are the steps to transition to a private cloud?

The first step is to expand outside of server virtualization. At this stage, many users are focusing on virtualization in order to achieve usability goals. Therefore, the focus on virtual infrastructure to improve usability is the first step towards a private cloud.

Today, enterprise users who are combining storage and virtualization are beginning to understand the impact of broadening resource virtualization, says Iams of Ideas Analysys. "When we get to this stage, the virtualization of the server has become a routine and no longer an exception, and most workloads are virtualized, which is the stage where virtualization interacts with business processes."

Once you're at this stage, you'll have to rethink how you plan your storage process, Iams says. "For example, how does virtualization affect backup and disaster recovery?" ”。

Iams the creation of a private cloud into the following steps:

* Virtualization of storage to achieve the same flexibility as possible on a virtual server.

* Match server virtualization, storage virtualization with various management tools, such as Windows Azure Storage management and VMware Vstorage.

* Virtualization of the network infrastructure is complemented by management tools.

When you implement server virtualization, storage virtualization, and network virtualization, your infrastructure is completely virtualized. And when you have a management tool that can use these three types of resources--servers, storage, and networks as a single resource pool that can be allocated on demand--you're on the point of moving from a virtual infrastructure to a private cloud.

Of course, all of this is from a technical point of view. Iams that there is also a need for parallel tracking of the entire transition process from an organizational perspective, including people, processes, governance, policies, and funding. A key question is: what is the impact of the private cloud architecture on the budget and capital flow within the organization?

The public cloud requires users to pay only for the resources they use. But since private clouds cannot provide users with a fixed amount of capacity like traditional data centers, charging systems are certainly an integral part of the private cloud environment.

The virtualization expert Bernard Golden the charging system very important, because price is a very important rationing mechanism--in a virtual environment where access to resources is as easy as filling a web table, it becomes important to quantify computing resources.

However, it is not uncommon for companies that have gone through all of these phases and steps to turn to private cloud. In fact, there is no single "right" path that can transition from a traditional data center to a private cloud environment. To some extent, private cloud is the logical result of server virtualization to storage virtualization and network virtualization, and then use management tools to treat servers, storage, and networks as a single resource pool. Automation and coordination optimization tools are key to moving from a virtual infrastructure to a real private cloud.

But one thing is clear: if your IT department is unwilling to devote itself to the transition process of the data center to the private cloud, then enterprise users cannot have a cloud environment that is flexible, resilient, and lowers the cost of each application.

As part of this transition, you have to determine whether your employees have the experience and skills required for a private cloud environment, or whether you need to hire professionals to help you build a private cloud.

How to start building a private cloud depends on the enterprise's existing infrastructure. If your organization has deployed server virtualization, you must have an advantage over companies that have not done so. The most important thing is not to blindly buy a lot of software from a vendor, because no one vendor will have everything you need.