rPath has got itself a Cloud primer, a supposed hype-dispelling five-step plan for the incremental adoption of technologies that create a foundation for cloud computing.

The start-up calls it the Cloud Computing Adoption Model and suggests that the primer’s investments will yield a “progressive series of returns.”

The five steps are:

· virtualizing the infrastructure and applications;

· taking virtualization to the cloud using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to experiment;

· encouraging governance, controls, procedures, policies and best practices to form around internal, non-mission critical applications;

· scaling up the volume of cloud applications through broad-based cloud deployment;

· and finally Cloud Actualization, described as “dynamic workload balancing across multiple utility clouds.”

When actualized, rPath says “applications are distributed based on cloud capacity, cost, proximity to user and other criteria.”

Its Cloud Computing Adoption Model outlines strategic goals, investment requirements, expected returns, risk factors and readiness criteria for advancement.

It’s organized a webinar around the primer’s rollout on October 23 with folks from Amazon and Forrester Research dancing attendance.