02302nas a2200121   4500008004100000022001400041245003600055210003400091260004200125520195500167100002202122856003602144       2010                        eng d  a1913-610200aPrivate Clouds: Reality or Fog?0 aPrivate Clouds Reality or Fog  aOttawabTalent First Networkc04/20103 aProduct marketers love a bandwagon, and no bandwagons have been more appealing in the past ten years of information technology as the Service Oriented Architecture and Cloud Computing ones. Much of the challenge of marketing products is getting the attention of the target customer in order to create an opportunity to pitch products or services to them. Of course, if it doesn't work with one bandwagon, as the old adage goes, try, try again. This is why we often see the same products marketed with different labels and categories applied to them. Product vendors will insist that they have developed some new add-on or tweaked a user interface to include the new concept, but at the very core, the products remain fundamentally unchanged.

It is particularly frustrating when product marketing gets in the way of implementing what otherwise would be a valuable concept. Competing vendor, consultant, and individual implementer messages on what a specific term means interferes with realizing real value. This is especially the case with the emerging concept of private clouds. While the term could potentially have real meaning and lasting value, the product and consulting marketers have turned any potential meaning into mush that hides that value.

Cloud computing is primarily loosely-coupled, location-independent virtualized services run on abstracted infrastructure with the primary intent of reducing IT expenditures, increasing flexibility, or improving overall system robustness. Given that this is the general cloud concept, is there any value in a new concept called "private clouds?" How does the addition of the word private add value to the service-oriented cloud computing that has been discussed for a handful of years? Is it a valuable term, or mere marketing spin? This article first examines the range of definitions being applied to the private cloud concept, then offers a summary on the value provided by private clouds.1 aSchmelzer, Ronald  uhttp://timreview.ca/article/342