PAUL COLMER
  • Blog
  • Vision
  • Influencer
  • Certifications
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Vision
  • Influencer
  • Certifications
  • Shop
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

19/9/2018 1 Comment

Cloud Adoption Roadmap in 10 Steps

Picture
Many CIO, CTO and business leaders are all working through their cloud strategies.  Most large companies in Australia have adopted a hybrid cloud approach, using both private and public cloud services.  In this blog, I'm wanted to outline  10 critical steps on how you can create a cloud adoption roadmap and then align this roadmap to your current execution path.
Picture
​
A cloud adoption roadmap is a really important tool, as it serves to visualise and communicate your plans to all key stakeholders in your organisation.  The important part of the roadmap is to ensure you have a clear 1 page visual outlining the key milestones / decisions points, backed up by clear definitions behind the roadmap of what each component on the roadmap means.  My suggestion is to use a modelling tool to create your roadmap and my top pick is the Abacus tool from Avolution.

Before we delve any deeper into our cloud adoption roadmap, let's be clear on some basic terminology, to ensure we're all on the same page:


Software as a Service (SaaS)
These are services that end-users consume.  Examples include: Social Media Tools, Salesforce, Office 365 and Xero.  The apps that you download to your mobile phone are predominantly SaaS.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)
These are services that developers consume to create SaaS products.  Examples include: Development Tools, Testing Tools and Datastores.  Apps that you download to your PC or laptop at home to allow you to write code, test code and setup datastores in the cloud are all examples of PaaS.
​
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
These are services that operations teams will build, test and commission to support developers, who consume PaaS and end-users, who consume SaaS on the PaaS, or SaaS via a 3rd party.  IaaS can be virtual machines, networking or basic storage.
If you're interested in digging deeper in cloud definitions, there is a simple whitepaper that the National Institute for Standards and Technology have produced.  It covers everything in 3 pages:
nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/legacy/sp/nistspecialpublication800-145.pdf

I've also created a simple reference model below:
Picture
DevOps
This is cultural change centred around ensuring that the developers (working on PaaS) are collaborating and communicating effectively with the operations teams (working on IaaS).  This is important to create secure, reliable and engaging SaaS apps.

Great video on DevOps from the DevOps Institute:
devopsinstitute.com/certifications/devops-foundation/

Hybrid Cloud
All organisations I have worked with in Australia, that have more than 100 employees will have a combination of private and public clouds in their environment.  This is the definition of hybrid cloud.  Probably 99% will have an on-premise (or 3rd party hosted) private cloud for Active Directory and using public cloud for Office 365  with Azure Active Directory.  The 1% is a single instance of G Suite I have come across. 

Great video on hybrid cloud here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5Le8aePB4

Picture
Now that we have defined these terms, we can take a look at our Cloud Adoption Roadmap and our 10 steps:
  1. Perform a current state architecture analysis to understand how each department / business area is already adopting SaaS apps in your organisation.
  2. Understand the needs each department / business currently has and develop a feature-centric SaaS cloud adoption roadmap to cover the next 12 months.
  3. Communicate and seek feedback with the key stakeholders regularly, to guide your cloud adoption roadmap, particularly as the business investigates and pilots new SaaS apps and develops new business capabilities.
  4. Define a clear strategy at the CTO / CIO level as to whether you are going to adopt PaaS and/or IaaS services, or simply remain with SaaS-only services.
  5. Ensure your IaaS / PaaS strategy includes key business drivers and evidence of business need.
  6. Feed in your IaaS and PaaS strategy into the cloud adoption roadmap and socialise with key stakeholders.
  7. Based on business situational awareness and factors that are important to the key stakeholders, embark on a short IaaS / PaaS cloud service provider shortlist selection.
  8. Once the IaaS / PaaS shortlist is down to say 2-3 candidates run a proof of concept for each cloud service provider to determine the value, test your hypothesis on how you may transform your legacy IT and seek input from key stakeholders.
  9. Extend the IaaS / PaaS proof of concept to a pilot with a single cloud service provider, to further strengthen the more complex hyposthesis you've made with your current legacy IT investments.
  10. Extend your cloud adoption roadmap to include how you will transition your current private cloud and/or legacy IT investments to IaaS, PaaS and SaaS services, being cognisant that this may be a 2-5 year journey.
I recommend using the Lean UX method for testing out your hypothesis when validating your cloud adoption plan.  This can be found in the Scaled Agile Framework:
www.scaledagileframework.com/lean-ux/
Picture
If you're interested in learning more, I offer a range of Cloud, DevOps and Scaled Agile courses at ALC Training:

Cloud Courses (Foundation to Advanced)
www.alctraining.com.au/courses/cloud-computing/

DevOps (Foundation to Advanced)
www.alctraining.com.au/courses/devops/

Scaled Agile
www.alctraining.com.my/safe-scaled-agile-spc/
www.alctraining.com.au/course/leading-safe/
Picture
1 Comment

    Categories

    All Active Directory AI Architecture Big Data Blockchain Cloud Comedy Cyber DevOps Driverless Cars MicroServices Office 365 Scaled Agile Social Media

    Picture

    Author​​

    Paul Colmer is an AWS Senior Technical Trainer.  Paul has an infectious passion for inspring others to learn and to applying disruptive thinking in an engaging and positive way.

    Paul has experience in building digital architecture strategies.  This includes the development and execution of training material and workshops, architecting and leading digital transformation initiatives, providing expertise on social media marketing, as well as advanced presenting using comedy, drama and music.

    Certifications include: Amazon Web Services(3 x Associates + 1 ML Specialty), Scaled Agile Framework (SPC), Cloud Security (CCSP), DevOps Culture (DevOps Foundation & DevSecOps Engineering), Big Data (EBDP), Data Science (EBDA), Microsoft Azure (AZ-900), Office 365 and a few others...... 

    He is currently one of the Rise.Global Top 50 Global Cloud influencers on social media.

    ​www.rise.global/the-cloud-social-influencers-power-100/p/1804096/r/2556192

    And one of the OnalyticsTop 100 Big Data influencers on social media:

    onalytica.com/blog/posts/big-data-top-influencers-and-brands/

    He is also a keen writer and an award-winning open-mic comedian.

    Contact Paul Colmer via LinkedIn.
    ​
    Or simply watch his videos on YouTube.

    Archives

    May 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    December 2021
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly