This article is a continuation of a series of articles on Azure Cloud architecture, design patterns, technology choices and migration guidance. Specifically, it discusses Cloud Adoption Framework. This framework discusses the Cloud Adoption Framework.

The cloud adoption framework brings it together for the cloud adoption journey. It involves:

1.       Getting Started:  A great starting point aligns with an existing scenario for which the starting guides have already been published.  For example, an organization trying to accomplish a certain goal might want to choose the cloud adoption scenario that best supports their strategy, examine antipatterns across methodologies and their solutions, align foundational concepts to onboard a person, project, or team, adopt the cloud to deliver business and technical outcomes sooner, improve controls to ensure proper operations of the cloud or establish teams to support adoption and operations. Specific cloud adoption scenarios include hybrid and multi-cloud adoptions, modern application platform scenario, SAP adoption scenario, desktop virtualization, and cloud adoption for the retail industry. Cloud adoption requires technical change, but it is never restricted to IT. Other teams might want to migrate existing workloads to the cloud, build new products and services in the cloud, or might want to be unblocked by environment design and configuration. A solid operating model improves controls. The Azure Advisor fits this role.

2.       Strategy: A cloud adoption strategy describes it to the cloud technicians and makes a case to the business stakeholders. This is efficiently done only when it encompasses the following a. the motivations are defined and documented, b. the business outcomes are documented, c. the financial considerations are evaluated, and d. the technical considerations are understood. There is a published strategy-and-plan-template that builds out the cloud adoption strategy and it helps to capture the output of each of these steps.

3.       Plan: The cloud adoption framework must come with a plan that translates the goals from the strategy document to something that can be executed in the field. The collective cloud teams must put together Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Relevant-and-Timebound action items that capture the prioritized tasks to drive adoption efforts and maps to the metrics and motivations defined in the cloud adoption framework. This includes a. digital estate, b. initial organizational alignment, c. skills readiness plan, and d. cloud adoption plan.

4.       Readiness: Before a plan is enacted, some preparation is required. In this case, the following exercises guide us through the process of creating a landing zone to support cloud adoption. These include: a setup guide that familiarizes tools and processes involved, a landing zone that establishes code based starting point for the infrastructure and environment, its subsequent expansion to meet the platform requirements specified in the plan and finally, the best practices, that validates landing zone modifications against the best practices to ensure the best configurations.