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of business and technical maturity to determine what factors need to be
introduced or improved in successful path toward the cloud adoption.
Analyzing the cloud in isolation of the business architecture and narrowly
focusing the plan on the technical adoption of cloud is unlikely to deliver
a holistic picture of existing concerns nor will it realistically address the
potential business benefits and the wider impact that it has on the entire
organization.
Some examples of useful concepts and tools that can contribute to this
stage of analysis are
• Use-case modeling and analysis
• Business process modeling and analysis
20.4.1.3 Analyzing the Current IT and IS Architecture and Systems
At this stage, we want to establish how information systems (IS) contrib-
ute to the business and what underlying IT infrastructure and architectures
support the IS provision. The key activities involve compilation of the cur-
rent systems portfolio followed by critical evaluation of effectiveness and
efficiencies and any issues or shortcomings that can be addressed. In this
context, we need to critically evaluate the nexus between IT and business,
that is, IT contribution to business and the extent to which business is able
to leverage the existing IT capabilities to achieve strategic objectives and
goals. Establishing the strengths and weaknesses of the current provision
and identifying potential opportunities and risks will also be an important
deliverable at this stage.
Some of the useful concepts, tools, and techniques that can help with this
analysis would be the following:
• McFarlan's IT portfolio grid analysis: that is, strategic, high-potential,
key operational, support systems.
• Evaluate each system employing the business value add versus
delivered technical quality assessments.
20.4.2 To-Be (Target/Future State) Analysis
The key task here is to develop appropriate target/desired cloud solutions.
This encompasses both business and technical aspects of cloud deploy-
ment. The core focus is to identify, define, and configure cloud-enabled
information system architecture and application portfolio that support the
business architecture.
At this stage, we also consider what aspects of business operation and
what business processes in what part of the business will be affected and
how. A detailed definition of target business and technology infrastructure,
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