Once a reason for using the private cloud has been justified, the next step is building the cloud infrastructure. And for that, Bittman has 10 elements to making private successful:

1. Leadership. Deploying a cloud strategy requires having someone that understands the needs of the business and the IT shop. The IT department's job is to serve the business, so IT must understand the needs of the business and create solutions that will address the business's concern. There also needs to be buy-in at the highest leadership levels of an organization to embrace a cloud strategy, Bittman says.

2. Define your services upfront. A crucial element for deploying a cloud strategy is understanding the services the business offers so that IT can create strategies to solve those problems. The key to doing that is to understand the services that are offered. But Bittman says not everything is optimized for the cloud: Private clouds are usually best for servicing recurring business needs that are dynamic in nature. "The cloud isn't for the once-every-10-years ERP system you're installing; it's for what comes in once a week or several times a week," he says.

3. Evaluate alternatives. Bittman recommends researching the solution that will create true value-add for your business. In many cases, that may end up being at the platform-as-a-service level, he says, where applications are customized to the needs of the business while taking advantage of the benefits of a cloud environment. "You're not going to differentiate your company by using SaaS or even IaaS," Bittman says, because almost every company will eventually be using some of those services. "You differentiate by using new applications that are written specifically for your needs that are scale dynamically."

4. Create metrics. A successful cloud deployment is about optimizing a business practice so that it is being done more efficiently than before. How is that done? Metrics allow for quantitative evaluation of a strategy. While cost is a natural metric to measure, customer satisfaction and speed of delivery are other metrics that can be used. The most important metric, Bittman says, is the one that is most critical to the business unit.