What is Cloud Maturity Model (CMM) and How it Helps Improve Cloud Capability?
Cloud Computing has always been at the forefront of the ever-changing IT industry.
Given its outstanding business benefits, every organization, irrespective of size and revenue, are leveraging cloud in one way or another.
Although the businesses across the world are already quite advanced in utilizing cloud services, many are ultimately failing to get the full value of their cloud investment. That’s because many organizations perceive cloud as just another technology project. They neglect to address the critical changes required to imbibe the right organizational mindset, behavior, and culture.
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Precisely at this juncture, the Cloud Computing Maturity Model (CCMM) proves to be an advantage.
Defining Cloud Maturity Model (CMM)
The Open Alliance for Cloud Adoption (OACA) defines CMM as:
A framework for identifying specific solutions to enterprise adoption of cloud/hybrid IT. The CMM thereby seeds a road map to cloud adoption, pointing to potential gaps and possible frameworks and solutions to consider and identifying capabilities required to achieve specific levels of maturity and address targeted use cases.
It describes CMM as an effective means to analyze an organization’s current cloud state and plan the implementation of cloud technologies.
With business objectives in consideration, a CMM perfectly defines the target state and offers a solution to perform a gap analysis to reach the level of cloud maturity.
Besides, it precisely answers ‘how should a journey to cloud and hybrid IT look like’, for cloud users of all levels from beginners to mid-level to experienced.
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How the Cloud Maturity Model (CMM) Helps?
The Cloud Maturity Model (CMM) typically assists enterprises in multiple ways:
- Understand cloud maturity in both consumer and service provider’s perspective
- Define goals and develop a cloud strategy
- Determine target maturity levels to enable use-cases for the cloud in line with business objectives
- Develop clear roadmap projects that boost maturity levels of all cloud capabilities and domains to realize the implementation of desired use-cases
- Plan focused investment towards attaining maturity levels to cloud capabilities and domains
- Manage priorities pertaining to cloud adoption and service utilization
- Tap the potential to achieve the complete cloud benefits
While traditional environments exist in place, organizations should plan a cohesive, practical cloud roadmap and strategy to reap the financial and organizational benefits of cloud maturity.
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Achieving Cloud Maturity: 4 Stages of Transformation
The Cloud Maturity Model (CMM) helps build a clear-cut cloud roadmap by analyzing maturity in terms of technical and non-technical capabilities.
While the technical perspective measures cloud maturity in terms of cloud and ICT, the non-technical perspective does so by business applications of cloud such as cloud service models and cloud deployment models, among others.
Cloud Transformation Maturity Model lays down the path for an effective strategy to successful cloud adoption. Built on four stages namely – Project, Foundation, Migration and Optimization, CMM defines characteristics in each stage of maturity, followed by transformation and outcomes at the end of every stage.
Maturity Stage 1: Project
| Challenges | Outcomes |
| Limited awareness about cloud services | Organizational knowledge and assistance |
| Limited executive support on investment | Proper support and appropriate funding |
| Inability to purchase required services | Ability to purchase all that required |
| Less confidence in cloud capabilities | Boosted confidence and decreased resistance |
| Inability to own or lack of direction | Strong ownership, strategy and direction |
Maturity Stage 2: Foundation
| Challenges | Outcomes |
| Assigning resources that drive transformation | Dedicated resources for policy architecture |
| Lack of organizational transformation plan | Detailed plan: People, Process and Technology |
| Security and compliance concerns | Best practices, policies and architecture |
| Cost and management concerns | Detailed TCO for operating environment |
Maturity Stage 3: Migration
| Challenges | Outcomes |
| Developing an effective migration strategy | Clear-cut strategy from current to target state |
| Implementing migration process | Cost-effective, efficient application migration |
| Environment management concerns | Robust management and effective governance |
| Migration of all targeted applications | Successful migration and significant benefits |
Maturity Stage 4: Optimization
| Challenges | Outcomes |
| Cost management optimization | Robust process for continuous cost optimization |
| Service management optimization | Optimized management, customer satisfaction |
| App management service optimization | Rigorous optimized app management services |
| Enterprise service optimization | Optimized enterprise services |
Each of these four cloud maturity models promises analysis, capability and efficiency gains, velocity and quality, and proactiveness.
Beginning with an analysis of the existing environment, the model involves finding opportunities specific to the cloud, followed by the introduction of relevant tooling, measurable controls to manage system landscape and effective optimization.
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Key Business Benefits of Cloud Maturity Model
The core objective of CMM is to ensure the identification and provision of necessary elements that lay down a clear-cut roadmap for achieving desired cloud benefits.
With this level of support, the Cloud Maturity Model benefits your IT business in multiple ways:
- Increased domain capability
- Shared responsibility
- Flexibility
- Improved efficiency
- Enhanced service quality
- Cost savings
- Easy integration
- Mature implementation
- Effective resource utilization
There are many such business benefits that a perfect cloud maturity model can offer. It all depends on the way you implement it.
In Conclusion
The first step in harnessing the benefits of the cloud maturity model is educating the people working on the organization’s cloud transformation about the cloud maturity levels and their components. Once you get a clear picture of your company’s cloud capabilities and the targeted cloud maturity levels, it will be easier for you to seek more information and support to reach your goal. If you are not sure where to start, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Veritis can help you better your knowledge of the cloud maturity model and how technology, processes, and people relate to various aspects of cloud maturity. Our cloud experts help you travel the journey to the cloud efficiently, and in such a way that cloud migration is on par with the business objectives. Partner with us and make the most of your cloud investments.
Key Takeaways:
- The cloud maturity model is a multidimensional approach that assesses a company’s readiness for cloud transformation.
- The CMM takes into account business objectives, technology perspectives, organizational mindset, behavior, and culture.
- If you are not sure what to do first and where to start, Veritis can help you make it happen.
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FAQs of Cloud Maturity Model (CMM)
The Capability Maturity Model is an approach that allows an organization to develop new processes and refine the existing ones.
In addition, this approach allows the companies to embrace better software development production methodology as it is pretty organized and streamlined.
In a nutshell, CMM is the foundation which boosts the business goals while defining the target state and enables the users to reach the cloud maturity level.
The five pillars which prop CMM are:
- The initial organization of everything
- Deft execution of repeatable tasks
- Defining the development process
- Management of the development process
- Optimizing the existing processes
A developer can only function better if given the required information as to what is working and what to refine.
Therefore, the Model would enable developers to work better due to the streamlined processes.
Additional Resources:
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- Cloud Governance Services and Solutions