What should be Enterprise Strategy in moving applications into cloud.

Following enterprise strategy was drafted for our organization (XYZ) to move applications into Cloud.

 There are two main areas of focus in creating a “Cloud First” initiative within the organization:
1. Developing new applications for the cloud
2. Migrating legacy applications to the cloud

The XYZ organization  Cloud Strategy will leverage a “Cloud First” mentality in the adoption, evaluation, and selection of new technologies within the Organization.  The approach will be used on all new and existing technologies for acceptance within the Organization. XYZ’s “Cloud First” approach for IT modernization shall include a thorough evaluation of Cloud alternatives to IT solutions as new requirements are developed and capabilities are analyzed.  XYZ will adopt the insertion of technology components leveraging Cloud services such as IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS where appropriate.  Additionally, a full alternatives analysis will provide insight as to why a “Cloud First” approach is not applicable prior to use of traditional systems implementation at XYZ.

Developing new applications for the cloud
As businesses within the agency require new applications for mission support, the XYZ should design and develop applications to be deployed directly to the cloud, or build applications with the ability migrate to the cloud in the future. By integrating this “Cloud First” mentality into the design and development of business applications, the XYZ will save time and money as it creates applications and services that are cloud ready.

Migrating legacy applications to the cloud
All legacy applications within the XYZ should be evaluated for their cloud readiness – or the ability to migrate the application to a private or public cloud. Legacy applications that are coming to their end of life should be evaluated for new development for the cloud.

Cloud considerations

When implementing any cloud strategy, the XYZ should abide by the following 5 considerations when selecting a cloud provider.

1 Availability
2 Customer support
3 Compliance requirements
4 Billing
5 Expanding business needs

Thanks
skm5573@psu.edu

Leveraging IT for Enterprise Architecture at Federal agency XYZ’s (our organization):

XYZ’s Enterprise Architecture fundamentally changes how the Department interacts with, and provides information and services to its customers, stakeholders and employees. Its Enterprise Architecture Division (EAD) strategically partners with all agencies to provide value to its mission areas, business processes, and Information Technology (IT) capabilities.

Information technology (IT) is leveraged to deliver innovative, cost-effective solutions to support the business delivery needs of mission areas. XYZ’s shared purpose is to realize rural prosperity, preservation and maintenance of forests and working lands, sustainable agriculture, and alternative, renewable fuels and bio-based products; however, the Department and its Agencies, as well as farmers, ranchers and agri-businesses in the United States will not thrive without advances in IT. To ensure the secure, effective, and efficient implementation and oversight of innovative IT solutions, the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), as part of XYZ’s Departmental Management (DM) organization, is transforming how Agencies and Staff Offices collaborate through the use of EA.

Is Enterprise Architecture IT Centric?

At the topmost level there is (optimally) only one Mission or one Strategic Plan.  This level manages a portfolio of transformative investments, shown at the next level down, as one portfolio.  This is the level which addresses enterprise level architecture. ...Could you say this level is IT centric? Only if you are doing it wrong. You could say it is mission centric, or strategy centric or investment centric- but Information technology has no place here." (Matthew Kern -LinkedIn) “

This debate recurs again and again as the underlying misunderstanding are never cured. Ego-centric IT Organizations who are obsessed with their own importance. They often consider IT architecture as Enterprise Architecture. If EA is the focal point of a strategy capability, IT is one of the responders to the strategy and the architecture.

EA is outcome centric designing people, process and technology to deliver stakeholder desired value.

EA Governance: The main integrating piece in the EA stack.

EA governance
EA governance primarily revolves around decisions that are taken that will influence the future design of the IT environment. EA governance sets in place design related Policies, Standards, Guidelines and Procedures that must be complied with. EA governance is concerned with ensuring a design integrity of the business as a whole and will govern decisions that are outside of the domain of IT.

IT governance
IT governance is more operational and relates to the services delivered by IT operations. IT governance addresses aspects like project management, configuration management, incident and problem management, business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning. IT governance will set up vendor contracting and procurement policies, standards, guidelines and procedures.

In summary
- Both IT and EA governance provides policies, standards, guidelines and procedures to follow.
All of IT is subjected to EA governance but EA governance does not cover all IT activities.
- EA governance covers decision making beyond the scope of IT, IT governance only apply to the IT environment.
- If there is a conflict between EA governance and IT governance then EA governance applies.

Bottom line:
The primary difference for me between IT governance and EA governance:
- IT governance is primarily operational and secondary strategic with the focus on directing how IT services enables business operations.
- EA governance is primarily strategic and focused on directing the evolution of the IT and business environment towards a desired design of a future state that will enable a new competitive competency.