This is the second installment in our series that explores the evolution of the intelligent private cloud. From the foundation provided through virtualization to AI-driven automation, each blog post will examine a critical aspect of building a modern, efficient, and scalable private cloud infrastructure.

Building an intelligent private cloud

Today's private clouds are highly sophisticated combinations of hardware infrastructure, software, and services. They leverage advanced data observability and AI capabilities to enhance performance, optimize resource utilization, and enable as-a-service consumption models, all while ensuring robust security and compliance.

In my previous post, I covered the importance of virtualization in the development of these intelligent private clouds, and how it allows for the breaking down of the infrastructure into modular, abstracted layers using open-source tools like KVM, Open vSwitch, and Ceph. However, virtualization alone doesn’t make a private cloud intelligent. That transformation requires operationalizing the cloud using what I call the Triple-O Loop.

In this post, I’ll explore how the Triple-O loop turns a virtualized environment into an adaptive, AI-enhanced platform — delivering today’s Intelligent Private Cloud.

Operationalizing intelligence: Introducing the Triple-O Loop

At the heart of the Intelligent Private Cloud is the Triple-O Loop — a closed, continuous cycle where cloud components work together to Orchestrate, Observe, and Optimize operations. This concept is somewhat akin to the decision-making model developed by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd, known as the OODA loop. A major difference, however, is that in the Triple-O Loop, orchestration, observation, and optimization are used in a proactive manner to drive system behaviors, as opposed to the more reactive OODA model that starts by observing the field operations environment and then reacts to field events.

In the Triple-O Loop, each element of the loop enables the platform to take action, sense its environment, and adapt intelligently.

• Orchestrate: Executes provisioning, workflows, and policy actions.
• Observe: Gathers and correlates telemetry, events, and behavior.
• Optimize: Uses AI to tune resources and improve performance, sustainability, and compliance.

These elements operate not as standalone silos, but as a tightly integrated system. Each informs and enhances the others, forming the feedback engine behind a truly intelligent infrastructure.

Aligning elements to the private cloud

To visualize how these elements function within the architecture, imagine the Triple-O Loop converted into horizontal layers, with each mapped to a role in the private cloud stack:

• Top: Optimize layer – intelligence and control plane with AI and compliance logic.
• Middle: Orchestrate layer – automation and policy enforcement.
• Middle: Observe layer – telemetry and system awareness.
• Base: Hardware and software infrastructure.

These layers correspond directly to the structure of a modern private cloud, from unified control and security at the top to observability and telemetry at the base. Here, the Triple-O Loop transforms the virtualized environment into an adaptive, AI-enhanced platform — delivering today’s Intelligent Private Cloud.

Agentic AI: Intelligence that acts

A defining feature of the Intelligent Private Cloud architecture is the presence of Agentic AI—intelligent agents embedded within each layer of the Triple-O Loop. These agents operate autonomously, performing crucial tasks that enhance the cloud's intelligence and responsiveness.

These agents are capable of:

• Monitoring infrastructure and application behavior continuously, ensuring that all components are functioning optimally.
• Predicting failures or inefficiencies based on learned patterns, thereby preventing potential issues before they impact operations.
• Taking corrective action by enforcing policies, or escalating issues without human intervention, ensuring that the cloud can self-manage and adhere to compliance requirements.

By aligning Triple-O capabilities with architectural layers and empowering them with Agentic AI, the Intelligent Private Cloud transcends being a mere management system. It becomes a self-optimizing, mission-aware platform capable of sustaining operations in real-time, regulated, and mission-critical environments. This transformation is pivotal in creating a cloud environment that not only adapts to current conditions but also anticipates future needs and challenges.

The expanded loop

To further understand the intricacies of the Triple-O Loop, let's delve into each of its components: Orchestrate, Observe, and Optimize.

Orchestrate:

At its core, the orchestration layer executes provisioning, workflows, and policy actions. This involves automating the deployment and management of resources, ensuring that the infrastructure can scale dynamically and efficiently. Tools such as Kubernetes, Ansible and HPE Morpheus are instrumental in this layer, enabling seamless orchestration of containers, configurations, and infrastructure as code.

Observe:

The observation layer is crucial for maintaining system awareness. It gathers and correlates telemetry, events, and behavior from various components of the infrastructure. This data is then analyzed to provide insights into the performance and health of the cloud environment. Tools like Prometheus, ELK Stack, Grafana and HPE OpsRamp play a vital role in providing visibility and actionable insights.

Optimize:

The optimization layer leverages AI to fine-tune resources and improve overall cost, performance, sustainability, and compliance. By continuously analyzing data, AI algorithms can dynamically adjust resource allocation, identify inefficiencies, and implement improvements. This ensures that the cloud environment remains optimized and compliant with regulatory and sustainability standards.

In a Venn diagram representation, the three elements — Orchestrate, Observe, and Optimize — form layered capabilities that interact continuously across the private cloud stack. Signals from observability trigger automation via orchestration, and insights generated through optimization feed both layers to refine behavior over time.

At the center of the Venn diagram, where all three capabilities intersect, lies the autonomous, agentic platform — a zone of continuous feedback and intelligent action. Here, AI agents monitor, decide, and execute in real time, creating a living, learning system that adapts dynamically to workload, policy, and mission demands.

The outcome: The Intelligent Private Cloud

The Intelligent Private Cloud integrates open-source technologies, enterprise-grade orchestration, AI-augmented optimization, and deep observability to deliver a living infrastructure system.

Key features include:

• A built-in data fabric that ensures seamless data management and integration across various environments.
• Integrated GPUs for AI/ML/GenAI workloads, enabling high-performance computing capabilities.
• Seamless module onboarding via orchestration, which simplifies the deployment and management of new services and applications.

Together, these features enable hybrid, edge, and multi-cloud operations with full visibility, intelligence, and control.

A note on organizational alignment

To effectively deliver such a closely integrated private cloud, organizations must rethink their team structures. Moving away from discrete product silos and aligning teams around the three core capabilities — Orchestrate, Observe, and Optimize — can enhance agility, quality, modularity, and efficiency.

This concept, known as the reverse Conway law, will be explored in greater detail in a subsequent blog post. Organizations that follow the reverse Conway law intentionally design their team and organizational structures to align with the desired architecture, thereby ensuring that the technology and organizational strategies are in harmony.

Conclusion: A living cloud

The Intelligent Private Cloud represents more than just infrastructure — it is a dynamic system that senses, decides, and acts. Powered by the Triple-O Loop, it revolutionizes IT operations by transitioning from reactive management to proactive, intelligent automation.

This transformation is critical for organizations seeking to stay ahead in an increasingly complex and fast-paced digital landscape. By embracing the principles of the Intelligent Private Cloud, enterprises can achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency, agility, and resilience.

In my next blog post, I’ll do a deep dive into observability and AI-powered insight and show you the power of OpsRamp as demonstrated within this architecture.