Service quality is one of the key factors that businesses cite as a reason for not moving their business applications to the cloud. Many organizations feel that SLAs provided by cloud providers are not adequate to provide the assurance to run a production application on the cloud. Enterprises have also failed because they were unable to develop a cloud strategy that effectively linked IT services to business outcomes.  Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) leaders are required to adopt cloud computing strategy based on cloud service definitions.

Take a look at the following steps that demonstrates the development of cloud projects using a service-centered approach.

1.    Identify the Cloud Computing Services to Offer or Procure

While adopting a cloud computing solution, services must be classified and defined from the perspective of the users of that service. These services can be automated IT processes and tasks or IT service delivery activities. As long as they consist of application and infrastructure components that are tied to one or more business processes, they are eligible for migration to the cloud. Thus, I&O leaders must first understand the desired business outcomes such as cost savings, speed, etc. and then identify the services that will be offered via the private or public cloud.

The following questions must be addressed while identifying services:

• Which users will consume the cloud services?
• What services do the users want or need; of these, which will you offer, procure or support?
• How much of the service will be for the consumption of non-IT users?
• Are there any peak periods?
• What is a reasonable price for the service?

2.    Document How the Cloud Service Definition Can Affect Processes

Automation is significant for any successful cloud deployment. It is critical for an organization to understand the internal IT processes that will be involved with the service offering. Organizations must conduct an analysis that eliminates inefficient processes and targets manual repetitive processes that require automation.

Let’s take a look at the key process areas that must be targeted.

• Governance

Organizations must define processes to provide appropriate governance for applications and infrastructure. Eliminating redundant governance processes and services will make the deployment and support of the service easier and more cost-effective.

• Application Development Support

In this area, I&O leaders must understand the application development pipeline and automate those processes, which are essential for development and support.

• Security

I&O leaders must decide the level of security they require for cloud project deployment. While analyzing these areas, focus should be given on providing identity and access management (IAM) for the users as well as administrators. This may often involve tweaking existing security processes. Once the services and processes have been defined and analyzed, companies can move to the next step.

3.    Map Workloads to the Associated Cloud Services

A detailed review at the workload level should be formulated in which each workload is analyzed for its applicability to cloud computing and its location. The workload that supports significant services should be the focus of I&O leaders.

I&O leaders should address the following questions:

• What is the overall architecture of the workloads within the application?
• How do the tiers communicate?
• What is the security profile for each workload? E.g. a CIA rating.
• Where should the workloads be run? E.g. in a public cloud or an on-premise private cloud?

Based on this analysis, further tooling decisions should be made.

Follow these three steps to successfully initiate and deploy your cloud project.