While cloud computing services come in many forms, Gartner, Inc. predicts that through 2012, IT organizations will invest more in private cloud services than in offerings from public cloud providers.

Private cloud computing is a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to internal customers using internet technologies. This definition is very similar to Gartner’s public cloud computing definition, however the focus on internal is related to who can access or use the services in question and who owns or coordinates the resources used to deliver the services.

Gartner predicts that private cloud services will be a stepping-stone to future public cloud services. For many large organizations, private cloud services will continue to be required for many years, as public cloud offerings mature.

There are two characteristics that companies need to consider when investing in private cloud computing delivery, as opposed to public cloud computing delivery. Private cloud services are implemented for an exclusive set of consumers. The access will frequently be controlled by a centralized organization, such as a company’s IT organization or an industry association, but this control is not essential to the concept of the private cloud.

They can be built on top of a public cloud infrastructure or in a hybrid model.The scope of internal cloud services around intimacy and integration can be compared to external cloud services that are dependent on interface and independence from the organisation. IT services used in the public cloud are standard across businesses, and not differentiators.