Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Adoption Framework

Adopting the cloud is a multilayered process that extends beyond the implementation of new technology. Adopting the cloud requires organization-wide change management, including executive support, clear business goals, a comprehensive workforce readiness plan, and modernization of current business and information technology processes.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) provides best practices and prescriptive guidance for your organization to plan, adapt, and iterate while adopting the cloud. The CAF divides the cloud adoption process into six conceptual pillars, with key capabilities in each pillar. The pillars help you connect business strategy to technology solutions, while aligning people, processes, and technology.

Business strategy helps you document and communicate the business goals that you want to achieve with cloud adoption. Your organization should build a business case to support the human, financial, and technological investments. Evaluating the total cost of ownership will ensure that your organization is prepared to shift vendors, or to evolve from an on-premises IT procurement process to a cloud-based investment model.

People strategy helps your organization formalize a cloud center of excellence (CCOE) to sponsor and guide the cloud adoption initiative. The CCOE is an extended multidisciplinary team that includes both business and technical stakeholders. Its role is to lead your organizational change management process, and to define roles, responsibilities, and training plans for business and technical users.

Security helps you define the foundational aspects of security that are needed to protect data and minimize risks in the cloud. The security best practices in this pillar guide your organization to define a secure cloud architecture, identify and implement the right security controls, and monitor and prevent issues such as configuration drift.

Process design helps you identify the business and technical processes that your organization needs to achieve its goals for cloud adoption. The process design best practices in this pillar show you how to define the enterprise architecture, governance model, and risk and compliance guidelines for your organization to follow in the cloud. As part of this pillar, you can evaluate alternative approaches to the cloud, such as a multiple-vendor cloud or a hybrid on-premises/cloud environment.

Technology implementation helps you transform the business and technical processes that you identified into a personalized, secure cloud environment that meets your organization's needs. This cloud environment is called a landing zone. The landing zone serves as the foundation for your cloud deployment, helping you to migrate existing on-premises data center solutions or to create new cloud native solutions that address your business goals.

Management and operations focuses on what happens after your new cloud environment is up and running in the landing zone. The management and operations best practices in this pillar help technology teams keep your cloud environment running smoothly, optimize for performance and cost, and position your organization so that it is ready to grow as business demands require.

As your organization follows the recommendations that are described in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CAF, you will be able to report on the business value that your organization achieves with its first cloud adoption project. You also prepare your organization to prioritize its next cloud adoption initiative.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure CAF defines a complete, standardized approach to adopting the cloud, but every organization is unique.

Your organization will be most successful if you start your cloud adoption process with a clear understanding of where you are and where you want to go. By assessing your current progress and identifying gaps to the standardized approach, you help your organization to define the right strategy, build a solid foundation, and accelerate the pace of cloud adoption.

The framework is presented as a complete story. We encourage you to adapt the framework depending on the needs of your organization. You can follow the recommendations in each pillar independently if that suits your business needs. As your priorities change and your cloud adoption strategy evolves, you should revisit the framework, and take an iterative approach to cloud adoption.