VMware Private Cloud Computing with vCloud Director

Chapter 1

What Makes a Private Cloud?

Over the last few years, many people have struggled to understand what cloud computing is. Most folks have their own ideas about what it means, and various organizations have tried to formulate official definitions. Many niche and mainstream vendors have ridden the cloud computing wave, often contributing little more than confusion and marketing hype. “Cloud washing” is a term frequently used to describe vendors sexing up and repackaging existing solutions as “clouds”—often with only the most tenuous links to the concepts of cloud computing. Today, however, the most widely accepted definition is that of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST), which is a federal technology agency that ...