About the Book

"This book successfully addresses the approach for adopting cloud into organizations (small and large), realizing that every application may not be a fit for a cloud environment. The writer does an excellent job of integrating cloud into the approach for an enterprise architecture and drilling down into how to evaluate cloud in its variety of implementation techniques, along with the benefits and drawbacks of each."
-- Sue Miller-Sylvia, IBM Fellow and Vice President, Application Innovation Services, IBM Global Business Services

Make the Right Cloud Adoption and Deployment Decisions for Your Business

This is the first complete guide to cloud decision making for senior executives in both technology and non-technology roles. IBM(R) Global Business Services(R) Executive Architect Pamela K. Isom and IBM Fellow Kerrie Holley present practical business cases, vignettes, and techniques to help you understand when cloud investments make sense and when they don't. You'll find decision models that are anchored with practical experiences and lessons to guide your decision making, best practices for leveraging investments you've already made, and expert assistance with every aspect of the cloud transition.

Drawing on their extensive experience working with enterprise clients, Isom and Holley show how to integrate both business and technical considerations, set the right priorities, and successfully manage everything from security and performance to governance. Whatever your company's size, industry, or challenges, this book will help you drive maximum business value from the cloud--on your terms and on your timeline.

Coverage includes

• Assessing the business value of a cloud adoption strategy based on 10 specific expectations
• Gaining more value by incorporating cloud into enterprise architecture
• Implementing cloud when you don't already have an enterprise architecture
• Fully understanding the financial implications of cloud-based strategies and technologies
• Incorporating cloud in environments that have already adopted Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Selecting components of your cloud portfolio, including elements of larger outsourced or managed solutions
• Governing cloud as part of your overall organizational landscape
• Systematically recognizing and mitigating cloud adoption risks, including security, cost, and performance
• Planning the transition: retiring legacy applications, transforming business processes, and selecting partners
• Anticipating and guiding the use of cloud business patterns, trends, and technologies

About the Author: Pamela K. Isom is a Global Principal Consultant at Dell Inc., where she leads very large cloud strategy and next generation data center engagements. On the customer front, Pamela partners to ensure IT transformation success, working with all stakeholders from the CEO to delivery practitioners where her ultimate strength is driving business value with strategy and technology. Prior to Dell, Pamela was executive architect in IBM^(R) Global Business Services_(R) and a chief architect of Complex Cloud Integration and Enterprise Application Delivery in the Application Innovation Services, Interactive Solutions Practice. While at IBM, Pam was a member of the IBM Academy of Technology where she led smarter cities and cloud computing in highly regulated environment initiatives. She also managed the GBS/AIS patent board having filed and received issuance of several patents with the U. S. Patent Attorney's office.

Pamela is a graduate of Walden University She is an active alumni and plans to teach other students; she is an active member of IEEE, The Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), The American Legion where she and her husband connect with and support the military and their families, and Pamela is a frequent speaker at global, industrywide conferences. Pamela is a two time recipient of the Black Engineer of the Year Award for Modern Day Technology Leaders and a contributor to numerous publications on Intelligent Enterprise Architecture, Smarter Buildings, and Maximizing the Value of Cloud for Small-Medium-Enterprises, an Open Group Guide; and she is a key contributor to three books: The Greening of IT by John Lamb, SOA 100 Questions Asked and Answered by Kerrie Holley and Ali Arsanjani, and Cloud Computing for Business by The Open Group where she also resided on the editorial board.

Kerrie Holley, IBM Fellow, is the global CTO for application innovation services in IBM's Global Business Services (GBS). His responsibilities include technical leadership, oversight, and strategy development, consulting, and software architecture for a portfolio of projects around the world. He also provides technical leadership for IBM's SOA's and Center of Excellence.

IBM's CEO in 2006 appointed Kerrie to Fellow, IBM's highest technical leadership position. It is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM (and perhaps in the industry) can achieve. Thomas J. Watson, Jr., as a way to promote creativity among the company's "most exceptional" technical professionals, founded the Fellows program in 1962. Since 1963, 238 IBM Fellows have been appointed; of these, 77 are active employees. The IBM Technical Community numbers more than 200,000 people, including 560 Distinguished Engineers. IBM Fellows have invented some of the industry's most useful and profitably applied technologies. Few computer users may realize how much of this group's innovations have created the computer technology we take for granted.

Kerrie's expertise centers on software engineering, software architecture, application development, business architecture, technical strategy, enterprise architecture, service-oriented architecture, cloud computing, and cutting-edge network-distributed solutions. Kerrie is an IBM master inventor, and holds several patents. He has a BA in mathematics from DePaul University and a Juris Doctorate degree from DePaul School of Law.