In June the analysis firm Gartner published the 2010 edition of its Hype Cycle for Virtualization.
The Hype Cycle is a graph used to represent the maturity, adoption and social application of specific technologies.
Private cloud computing has been included in the graph and its position is rather interesting: it just left the Technology Trigger section to enter the Peak of Inflated Expectations one, with an expectation of hit mainstream adoption between 2 and 5 years.
Of course, here Gartner is considering as private cloud computing hardware virtualization based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud computing.
The research also reveals that 76% of respondents in a recent poll saying they plan to pursue a private cloud-computing strategy by 2012.
Additionally, Gartner outlines the following adoption strategy:
Let service requirements lead your private cloud- computing plans, rather than technologies.
Create a business case for developing a full private cloud service, versus using public cloud services, or modernizing established architectures.
Consider the long-term road map for your private cloud service. Build with the potential to take advantage of hybrid sourcing (using both your private cloud services and public) at some point in the future.
Start slowly with development/test lab provisioning; short-term, low-service-level agreement computing requests; and simple, non-mission-critical Web services (e.g., self-service requests and dynamic provisioning for Web environments). Pilot a private cloud implementation to gain support for shared services and to build transparency in IT service costing and chargeback.
Implement change and configuration management processes and tools prior to implementing private cloud services to ensure that you can standardize on the software stacks to be delivered through self-service provisioning and adequately maintain them.