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