Professional Services

Cloud Opportunity Assessment

The Cloud Opportunity Assessment is part of our Planning Phase of our Service Methodology. It is based on the information discovered in our Cloud Strategy Workshop or similar information obtained by another means. The primary function of the Cloud Opportunity Assessment is to match technical requirements to business requirements.

The exact length of a particular Cloud Opportunity Assessment depends on the complexity of the environment. We estimate that length based on the information available from the Strategy Workshop or other sources along with a scoping call prior to submitting a bid for the engagement. Typically a Cloud Opportunity Assessment requires two or three days on site plus time spent remotely analyzing the results and preparing the final report.

Objectives

The Cloud Opportunity Assessment is an onsite consulting engagement designed to identify specific solutions within the Cloud that will provide benefit to your organization and identify potential Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) that will be able to satisfy the solution’s requirements. The Opportunity Assessment will also identify the set of workloads potentially suitable for moving to the Cloud. It provides a weighted review of potential CSPs that helps match and rank potential CSPs that satisfy the future business and technical requirements for the identified workloads.

The objectives of this assessment service are:

• Determine Business Strategy
• Business services provided and delivered by IT
• Business initiatives and scalability of existing services
• Challenges facing the business related to the impact on IT
• Review current IT state at a high level
• Existing infrastructure, facilities, processes and services
• Existing limitations and scalability issues
• IT matruity of processes and controls
• Business applications
• IT tools
• IT supporting services
• Service definitions, measurement of IT services (SLAs) and reporting
• Existing IT limitations and challenges in meeting business demands
• Determine security and compliance issues
• Specific security requirements for data at rest and data in motion
• Regulatory and compliance requirements
• Auditing and remediation
• Measure value
• Risk vs. reward
• High level TCO and ROI: comparison of current state vs. future state
• Cost of Cloud solution services vs. anticipated benefits

Pre-visit Items

Prior to the actual on-site visit, Purposeful Clouds collects any existing information. This could be the Cloud Strategy and Workshop Report from a Cloud Strategy Workshop, or equivalent information collected by other means. If this information is not already available, that will impact the required length of the Readiness Assessment engagement.

We also hold a Kick-off Call to establish the roles and responsibilities, logistics, schedules and high-level goals for the on-site visit.

During the on-site visit

The on-site session usually starts with:

• A short presentation of your major goals and issues, and your criteria for calling a Cloud engagement a success.
• A review of the initial workloads currently targeted to move to the Cloud first, concentrating on the requirements for security, performance and availability for each workload.
• A short explanation of how we intend to proceed with the data collection.
• A scheduling conversation to get the information necessary to satisfy the Objectives listed above based on availability of your personnel.

The majority of the on-site visit is spent in small groups capturing the required information. Each mid-afternoon we have a quick review of what has been covered, what needs to be covered, and list any data collection issues so they can get addressed.

Post-visit

After the on-site visit, we analyze the information provided and prepare the deliverables. We may have a few specific questions which we will ask via a scheduled conference call.

Deliverables

Cloud Opportunity Assessment Executive Summary

This brief executive-level report covers the scope, approach, high-level findings and recommendations identified during the Assessment Service for the benefit of your senior management.

Cloud Opportunity Assessment Report

This comprehensive report has detail from the Assessment Service including:

• Summary of key findings and strategic approach to the Cloud as indicated during the Workshop.
• A high-level assessment of the existing environment and the impact that moving to the Cloud will have on business and technical operations.
• The top two or three Cloud-based opportunities that will provide the most value, with the least risk, in the shortest duration of time.
• The areas of potential risks and benefits.
• The impact of Cloud implementation on operations.
• An initial high-level ROI and TCO outlook on the costs and benefits of moving to the Cloud.
• The high-level requirements for a subsequent project and specific recommendations on the best approach that will highlight the benefits the Cloud could provide.
• A strategic roadmap of potential opportunities, for short and long term implementation, of a Cloud strategy aligned to current business and IT initiatives.
• A short-term plan to continue the discovery process through a final Cloud decision and implementation.

Summary Presentation

We deliver a summary presentation highlighting the findings of the Assessment Service in a 1-2 hour on-line meeting usually about two weeks after the on-site visit.

Next Steps

An essential and usual next step after a Cloud Opportunity Assessment is a Cloud Readiness Assessment Service to determine the actual implementation plan to move the selected workloads to the Cloud. We may also recommend a Cloud Security and Compliance Assessment Service based on the level of data security requirements. If appropriate, we may additionally recommend a training program tailored to your specific needs from the Purposeful Clouds Academy.

Downloads

• Sample Cloud Opportunity Assessment Report
• Cloud Opportunity Assessment Service Data Sheet