A Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) provides the structured process and best practices needed to navigate your cloud journey, helping you avoid expensive mishaps and align your technology strategy with business goals. This guide explains what a CAF is and how using it is the first step toward a successful adoption.
What is a Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF)?
For those new to the cloud, a Cloud Adoption Framework is a collection of guides, assessments, and best practices from cloud providers. Its purpose is to help your business align its goals with its technical readiness before making a move.
The framework achieves this by assessing key areas to identify gaps, plan a phased adoption program, and establish a model for continuous improvement. While the 'Big 3' (Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS) have slight variations in their frameworks, they all exist to help you migrate and innovate successfully. The CAF process informs the very design of your final cloud architecture by first understanding your appetite for change—whether you're looking for quick wins or a broader, more scalable transformation.
You can explore the specifics of each provider's framework on their respective sites:You can explore the specifics of each provider's framework on their respective sites: Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and AWS.
Why Preparation Matters
Moves to the public cloud aren’t without risk. Getting it wrong can leave you open to many areas of risk, such as:
Having an honest assessment of where you are today and what you’re looking to achieve helps to avoid these things. A properly designed cloud environment and planned migration instead will give you benefits such as optimised costs, security, availability and scalability.
Using the CAF for Better Cloud Adoption
Getting different business perspectives through the CAF should help to align business and technical strategies. After all, what's the use of a tool without business outcomes?!
To help do this and more, the framework also includes questions that cover people, processes, and technology. These are very big topics but overall running through these areas helps to identify gaps.
Some things to come out of the process could be, for example, spotting governance areas that need to be developed, identifying the training internal teams may need, needed restructuring of teams, or even the outsourced support that may be required.
It’s Iterative, Not Static
Once you start the process, you will soon realise that it’s an interactive process. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
The CAF really highlights that it’s a journey, the adoption process will usually highlight key areas or workloads to move and begin the transformation journey. Continuing to invest in more cloud migrations, automation, re-platforming, etc. will give you heaps more benefits.
Navigating the Challenges: Going it Alone vs. Expert Guidance
Adopting the cloud is disruptive. It requires a different approach to IT and operations, as well as a considerable investment in time and resources. You can’t just 'lift and shift' workloads and expect success.
While going it alone is possible, it often results in a longer, more uncertain journey. This is where an experienced partner can make a significant difference.
At Dynamo6, cloud is totally our jam; so, if you’re thinking of making the move, check out our Cloud Platform Adoption services. We apply our deep experience across AWS and Google Cloud in facilitated planning workshops to accelerate your cloud adoption and deliver a clear path forward. We act as your cloud partner, lending a hand across strategy, adoption, and management to ensure your migration is a success.
