Cloud adoption is becoming a crucial step to achieving digital transformation, due to the many business advantages offered by cloud computing. However, like any major change, a cloud migration must be handled carefully. If you rush into cloud adoption without the proper preparation, you could find yourself dealing with cost overages, security issues, broken workflow processes, and other major problems. This is why many businesses are using a cloud adoption framework to ensure the success of their cloud migrations.
A cloud adoption framework is a set of tools and guidance for the technological aspects of a cloud migration, as well as advice and requirements for the processes, people, and business elements involved in the move.
A cloud adoption framework helps you create and execute a cloud migration plan in iterative steps while avoiding common pitfalls and obstacles. They’re offered by big public cloud providers to help you successfully migrate to their specific platform. Let’s look at the three biggest cloud adoption frameworks—Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud—before discussing the benefits of using a cloud adoption framework versus migrating on your own.
The AWS cloud adoption framework breaks down a cloud migration into two broad categories—business capabilities and technical capabilities. All of the requirements and steps involved in migrating to AWS fall under these two umbrellas:
The Microsoft Azure cloud adoption framework breaks up their cloud migration process into eight steps.
The Google cloud adoption framework is built around four themes that define the foundation of cloud readiness, and three phases that determine a level of readiness within each of those themes.
The four themes of cloud readiness are:
In the Google cloud adoption framework, you’ll evaluate each of these themes in terms of three readiness phases:
Now that you’ve seen how three of the biggest cloud providers structure their adoption frameworks, you’ll understand why they’re so beneficial. A cloud adoption framework takes a lot of the guesswork out of migrations, so even teams without specialized experience in your chosen cloud environment can successfully execute a cloud migration and continue managing and optimizing cloud workloads in the future.
The documentation and guidance provided in a cloud adoption framework is both abstract enough to be applicable to almost everyone, and practical enough to be used in an operational setting. Using a cloud adoption framework, your migration process will be supported by your public cloud provider’s best practices, and all of the key steps and processes are clearly defined in detailed documentation. Plus, a cloud adoption framework is a great way to align the technical changes involved in a cloud migration with the business goals for the project.
A cloud adoption framework provides a robust and flexible model for you to develop migration strategies and mechanisms that support your business goals.