Cloud Computing is a major buzz term that is being thrown around lately, but Cloud Computing doesn't come without its hurdles to implementation. Here a straight forward example of how to navigate right around those hurdles to make YOUR OWN CLOUD!
Acme Consulting has 3 offices and 10 mobile workers. The HQ has the billing database and accounts, South Office has the Knowlegebase WIKI regularly used by staff, and East Office is mainly marketing staff, so it has the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Staff from all locations, including the mobile staff, need access to all applications.
For Acme to change to a cloud infrastructure, they would likely need to change the applications and CRM to cloud enabled applications. Staff training and process change would be huge. 
Alternatively, Acme could buy their own cloud infrastructure on a remote Data center, migrate servers to the virtual world of the cloud, and continue to use the same applications - on a pay-per-use basis. However, existing systems are established and running at low cost, and possibly the subscription to cloud services could increase their operational costs.
An OpenVPN solution would fit in beautifully. Deploy an OpenVPN server - which could be at any of the sites, or even on a third-party cloud. And then deploy one Openvpn client for each site, which is configured to be permanently connected. The computers at each site could use this node as their gateway to the Acme private cloud.Then, each mobile user has an openvpn client installed, or use a device such as the Veritoken (TM) which also connects them to the cloud. Voila! A private cloud is established which provides the interconnectivity, mobility and security expected from a cloud solution, but also allows Acme to properly use their investment in existing systems.
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