“Strategy is the difference between making a wish and making it come true.”

Most books on cloud computing either stay at a very high level, offer simplistic recipes, or dive deep into vendor-specific product details. This book helps you fill the very large space in between: aligning technology change with organizational transformation, making architectural decisions, and communicating trade-offs to diverse stakeholders. The book balances structured decision models with real-life anecdotes, both harvested from half a decade of defining and implementing cloud strategies for major organizations.

A Decision-Based Approach

Today’s enterprises need a more nuanced strategy than simply proclaiming “cloud first!” Just lifting and shifting legacy applications to the cloud is unlikely to bring the anticipated benefits whereas re-architecting applications to run optimally in the cloud would be cost prohibitive. Such a strategy isn’t something you can copy-paste from a recipe book or from another organization: you’ll have different starting points, objectives, and constraints.

This book shows you how to develop a cloud strategy for your context, based on a sequence of meaningful decisions—those that force conscious trade-offs.

Cloud Strategy Book

Print & Kindle on [Amazon US] [UK] [DE] ♦ DRM-free eBook (all formats) ♦ Japanese eBook Print

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Why You’ll Like This Book

Harvested from half a decade of moving organizations to the cloud, this book presents a fresh take on cloud computing. Staying clear of product pitches and buzzwords, it takes a deeper look at both the architectural choices but also the organizational implications of adopting cloud. It helps IT leaders devise a cohesive strategy that utilizes an organization’s existing assets while also fundamentally transforming the way it looks at IT.

As a technology book that isn’t “technical”, Cloud Strategy engages both the reader’s interest and intellect through real-life anecdotes. Decision models and actionable Do’s and Don’ts provide CIOs, CTOs, IT leaders, and architects alike with a structured approach for their cloud journey.

Table of Contents

On over 300 pages, the book’s six major parts accompany you on your cloud journey via 33 chapters:

Understanding Cloud
Cloud Isn’t IT Procurement It’s a lifestyle change.
Cloud-ready Organizations… …think in the first derivate. And then cloud makes total sense.
Wishful Thinking Isn’t a Strategy Wishes are free but rarely come true. You better set concrete goals and decide what you’re not doing.
Principles Connect Strategy and Decisions Defining a cohesive set of principles is an important step in any strategy because it guides consistent decision making.
If You Don’t Know How To Drive… …buying a faster car is the worst thing you can do. The same is true for many fancy IT tools and architectures.
Organizing for Cloud
Cloud Is Outsourcing And outsourcing is always a big deal.
Cloud Turns Your Organization Sideways From layers to end-to-end thinking.
Retain / Re-Skill / Replace / Retire The four “R”s of migrating your workforce.
Don’t Hire a Digital Hitman What ends in mayhem in the movies is unlikely to end well in IT.
Enterprise Architecture in the Cloud Does Cloud need Enterprise Architecture? Hint: Yes.
Moving to the Cloud
So why exactly are you going to the cloud again? There are many good reasons for moving to the cloud. But you must decide which ones you’re after.
No One Wants A Server Driving cloud adoption from the infrastructure could be your first major mistake.
Don’t Run Software You Didn’t Build! Running other people’s software is a pretty bad deal. Time to rethink your basic assumptions!
Don’t Build an Enterprise Non-Cloud! Be careful not to throw the cloud baby out with the enterprise bathwater.
Cloud Migration: How Not to Get Lost Migration is not a “business-as-usual” activity. Your team won’t have any habits for it like they have for regular sprints.
Cloud Migration per Pythagoras Your high school trigonometry lessons come in handy when planning your migration strategy.
Value Is the Only Real Progress The number of applications migrated is a dangerous proxy metric because your end customers won’t care.
Architecting the Cloud
Multicloud: You’ve Got Options Time put some architectural thinking behind the biggest buzzword in the industry. A decision model comes to the rescue.
Hybrid Cloud Enterprises can’t avoid hybrid cloud. Here are eight ways to slice.
The Cloud - Now on Your Premises Dissecting hybrid cloud architecture choices and their trade-offs.
Don’t Get Locked Up Into Avoiding Lock-In While it’s nice to have options, they don’t come for free.
The End of Multitenancy? Cloud makes us revisit past architecture decisions.
Disposability: The New -ility When it comes to servers, it’s better not to recycle.
Building (for) the Cloud
The Application-Centric Cloud A simple model helps us understand how to build a cloud that puts the application in the center.
What Do Containers Contain? Metaphors are powerful because they help us reason about complex systems - As long as they hold. Let’s test the container metaphor.
Serverless = Worry Less? If no one wants a server, serverless should be the way to go. But does it make all your worries go away?
Keep your FROSST Cloud ready applications should exhibit FROSST - 6 essential capabilities for being loved by the cloud.
Infrastructure as actual Code Modern automation is about more than infrastructure but most of it isn’t actually code.
Keep Calm and Operate On Successful cloud applications embrace resilience, anti-fragility, and chaos. And thus become more stable.
Budgeting the Cloud
Cloud Savings Have To Be Earned. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Not even in cloud.
It’s Time To Increase Your “Run” Budget. Cloud challenges the way your IT budget works.
Automation Isn’t About Efficiency. IT grew big by automating existing processes to reduce labor cost. Cloud is different.
Beware the Supermarket Effect! You know when you go to the market to get a jug of milk and pay 50 bucks? Cloud can be like that.

Read a free sample chapters on Leanpub or expand the table of contents above to download PDF sample chapters.

Buy the Book

Buy the DRM-free eBook on Leanpub. Or get the best deal in a bundle with 37 Things One Architect Knows.

Buy the print or Kindle version on Amazon [US] [UK] [DE].

Cloud Strategy is also available in Korean and Japanese

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