This article was provided by Subra Kumaraswamy consideration will help (by no means this is a comprehensive list): 1. Work load profile a) Average workload requirements - CPU, Memory, Storage, bandwidth b) Peak workload requirements - Variance of CPU, Memory, Storage, bandwidth and time duration of sustaining peak loads This will force the workload profiling requirement. 2. Architectural patterns and consideration a) If legacy app, cost to move to cloud bursting model or to fully hosted app in the cloud model b) If new app, integration requirements and cost to integrate with another application running in private cloud. c) Elasticity support requirements - What new tools are required to support workload orchestration? and the cost to deploy and mange the tools. 3. Technology requirements a) OS, DB, App stack vendor or specific software requirement - Provide solid evidence on these requirements. Add licensing cost based on the licensed model. b) Load balancing between private and public cloud or between disparate public clouds c) Integration of KPI (key performance indicators) of app running on cloud with existing monitoring tools. 4. Security, privacy and compliance requirements (this will dictate what new controls are required to meet the existing compliance and security requirements) a) Cost to implement new controls such as encryption if required b) Identity and access management of users in cloud (if required) c) Cost to maintain existing controls in cloud E.g. log monitoring, access monitoring, forensic evidence preservation, separation of duties, patching 5. End user/Business user requirements a) Latency to connect to the application b) Frequency of information accessed - This will feed into architectural requirements when consolidation information across many database, logs, etc c) SLA requirements on availability and support BTW, most companies may have an existing method to madness in deploying applications and may have a rationalized documented process to provision resources to applications. Fortune 1000 Companies that are thinking of taking advantage of cloud service should have a template that documents the requirements similar to the aforementioned decision template . If not, IMHO, the success may not be guaranteed. Startups looking to leverage clouds are a whole different beast because they are measured by time to market more than anything else. Hence they value elasticity (cloud bursting) more than any other virtues of cloud computing and they are not burdened by issues such as legacy app integration, extending existing IT processes to cloud, security and compliance requirements that are faced by established companies. |