Top business trends as a result of cloud adoption include:
Top technology trends as a result of cloud adoption include:
Enterprise Architecture, as a discipline focused on connecting an enterprise’s current reality to one desired in the future, can contribute to enterprises when it comes to managing cloud-based systems. A primary benefit related to EA and cloud includes seeing how and where newer, highly disparate cloud systems might fit with legacy versions.
A well-run EA program can streamline cloud transformations using best practices developed from IT strategy, business policy, organizational planning, and stakeholder decision-making. However, in order to integrate EA with the cloud computing services of an enterprise, a framework needs to be established whereby EAs manage all stages of an enterprise’s cloud adoption.
The following is an EA framework for migrating to and adopting cloud services:
Image 1: Cloud Adoption Framework based on Enterprise Architecture
This is the first step in cloud adoption. At this stage, the tasks typically involve collecting all artifacts and related information about an enterprise’s current “as-is” state and all formal procedures for the daily operations of existing EA. One should use this stage to analyze the needs, requirements, and trends in each of the business units of an organization while validating the potential weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats in the adoption of a cloud.
It is necessary to develop an understanding at this stage of the business’s overall strategy and its organizational goals.
Further, a Cloud Adoption Strategy stage is the time to outline all information about the expected goals of target architecture, the identities of relevant stakeholders, the complexity of architectural visions, and the various approvals required when initiating change.
Use this stage to understand the as-is architecture and existing EA across the organization. Doing so involves defining business models according to operational roles and activities, and the gathering of operational costs. It is a time to align requirements and motivations for cloud migration with EA models.
Cloud Adoption Planning is about envisioning the opportunities available for when cloud computing is actually implemented, describing these possible benefits in clear detail, and then evaluating it all to the concerns of relevant stakeholders and the capabilities of potential vendors. Following this awareness, an appropriate cloud environment for applications—as based on cost efficiency and performance—can be chosen.
EA can broaden a business case for cloud adoption by providing an understanding of overarching capabilities needed to support the implementation and ongoing maintenance of the new platform. Such methods might include delineating the business case and ROI inputs to estimate the required budget, assessing the ease-of-adoption in technical terms, and then selecting the cloud provider.
The following activities should occur in this stage:
The use of new cloud services to augment target Business Architecture, Information System Architecture, and Technology Architecture is detailed at this stage. Spanning also Information Architecture (physical and logical data models), Application Architecture (functional components, interrelationship between systems), and Technology Architecture (hardware, software, and communication infrastructure).
This stage should be when all information is identified on target architecture that can be used to accommodate cloud transitions and help detail business requirements. The impact of architectural changes on business models should also be defined at this stage.
Cloud Transition Planning is when all technical gaps between target and baseline EA must be recognized and then logically described. It is an analysis for identifying the shortfalls between actual and potential performance and then using this analysis to create a change management plan.
The creation of a detailed plan for the actual implementation and migration from the existing to the target architecture occurs during this phase.
Cloud Transition Planning typically consists of the following activities:
Given that cloud providers make such implementation arrangements, it is wise to review the many desired requirements of target architecture to obtain from vendors a worthwhile service lifecycle arrangement (SLA), a properly configured network setup, and a clear understanding of how it can be integrated to operate with other clouds.
At this stage, final confirmation is received on the scope and priorities of cloud migrations and deployment. SLAs are established, as are policies and security standards, and the allocation of authority and responsibility is distributed. Cloud Implementation Planning and Governance cover the strategy-to-execution phases of a cloud adoption strategy.
Identification of all deployment resources and skills is required during this stage. EA compliance reviews are performed here, and the implementation of business and IT operations plus post-implementation reviews occur.
Other activities performed during this stage include:
Any and all results from these many monitoring activities must be documented and shared in a post-implementation review to offer input for further improvements in future projects. Of note, long-standing providers of enterprise architecture management software have extended their offerings with dedicated products for end-to-end cloud implementation and governance planning.
Cloud technology is playing a major role in the transformation of modern enterprises. Though it is not a complete solution to the problems of on-premise solutions, transferring certain enterprise applications and processes to the cloud can certainly minimize many of the organizational hurdles once simplified only with good EA management.
Furthermore, as cloud technology matures, the core ways in which businesses operate will continue to change. It is thus necessary for EA to mitigate the speeds of disruption at a level carefully aligned to an enterprise’s capacity for change.
EA enables organizations to undergo digital transformation to implement new cloud systems with considerably fewer complications, and an EA Framework for Cloud Adoption like the one presented is an approach that can easily be followed to reduce development times, improve scalability, expand storage capacities, improve the reliability of services, and fortify security.
To repeat, cloud computing can assist enterprises in:
It all goes to show that no matter what tools enterprises choose to use, the core problem is not always with the technology. It is in defining the relationships between different components—from Business to IT.
And that is where EA comes in.
This content was contributed by Dr. Gopala Krishna Behara, senior enterprise architect in the GEA Practice division of Wipro. He has over 22 years of IT experience and can be reached at gopalkrishna.behra@wipro.com. The author would like to thank Hari Kishan Burle and Raju Alluri, Wipro Technologies’ GEA Practice for providing support and their knowledge in the writing of this article.
All views of the content is the author’s and doesn’t reflect the opinion of WiPro.
