Vice President and Distinguished Analyst, Thomas Bittman of Gartner Research, delivered a powerful presentation this morning at TeamQuest Technology Summit 2012. Bittman’s presentation focused on, “Ten Steps to Building Private Clouds.”

The presentation started with a level set of what exactly cloud computing is. According to Bittman, cloud computing is a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to customers using Internet technologies. Here’s a funny cartoon that was used to highlight the varying definitions of cloud computing:

With all new technologies there are concerns. The main concerns highlighted were security/privacy, immaturity, costs, performance, and regulatory compliance. With these concerns, 78% of respondents to a Gartner poll said their organization would be pursuing a private cloud strategy by 2014.

Here are the ten steps to building private clouds:

1. Leadership
   1. Buy-in, culture, politics, new usages, vision
2. Define Services
   1. Automatable, need speed, high-volume, with business
3. Evaluate Alternatives
   1. Non-IaaS, public, non-cloud
4. Create Metrics
   1. Economics, quality, agility
5. Build a Business Case
   1. Proactively evaluate cost and benefits, with business
6. Develop a People Plan
   1. Skills, organization, buy-in
7. Develop a Business Management Plan
   1. Funding model, Hybrid IT
8. Develop a Technology Plan
   1. Fabrics, hybrid, interoperability, cloud management platform
9. Develop an Operational Process Plan
   1. Speed, fit to purpose, DevOps
10. Start Small, Think Big
    1. Build in learning, proactive expansion