Introducing, Matthew Small. For the last six years, Matthew has worked for RightScale, personally assisting hundreds of organisations to move into the cloud. Matthew has worked on all types of cloud transitions, including; on-premises to cloud, virtualised to cloud, cloud to cloud, public to private cloud, private to public cloud, unmanaged to managed cloud, and pretty much every other possible variation in between.

RightScale provides a number of cloud services, ranging from cloud-readiness assessments to implementation engineering. These are complemented by a full suite of tools for the automation and governance of cloud resources, as well as the broader roll-out of cloud strategy across the organisation.

Rightscale has identified and defined four distinct Cloud Readiness stages, each requiring a different approach in transition.

Cloud Readiness Stages

Cloud Watchers: These organisations are actively developing cloud strategies and plans but are yet to deploy any applications into the cloud. Cloud Watchers want to evaluate all of the available cloud options to help determine which applications should be implemented in the cloud.

Cloud Beginners: New to cloud computing and are tentatively working on proof-of-concept experiments or minor pilot cloud projects. Cloud Beginners want to gain experience by testing the cloud to determine future projects.

Cloud Explorers: Already having multiple projects or applications deployed to the cloud, Explorers are focused on improving and expanding their use of cloud resources.

Cloud Focused: Heavy users of cloud infrastructure who are keen to optimise their cloud operations and improve cloud costs.

Eight reasons for having a Cloud Portfolio
1. Operate anywhere
2. Maintain vendor leverage
3. Leverage existing investments
4. Optimize costs
5. Future-proof your cloud strategy
6. Access unique capabilities
7. Create resilient architectures
8. Support future business needs