Despite the buzz surrounding the cloud in recent years, only a small percentage of organizations worldwide rely on this service—so far. If you’re planning your long-term cloud strategy, this practical book provides insider knowledge and real-world lessons regarding planning, design, operations, security, and application transformation.

Author James Bond provides useful guidance and best practice checklists based on his field experience with real customers and cloud providers. You’ll view cloud services from the perspective of a consumer and as an owner/operator of an enterprise private or hybrid cloud, and learn valuable lessons from successful and less-than-successful organization use-case scenarios.

• Get updated trends and definitions in cloud computing, deployment models, and for building or buying cloud services
• Discover challenges in cloud operations and management not foreseen by early adopters
• Use real-world lessons to plan and build an enterprise private or hybrid cloud
• Learn how to assess, port, and migrate legacy applications to the cloud
• Identify security threats and vulnerabilities unique to the cloud
• Employ a cloud management system for your enterprise (private or multi-provider hybrid) cloud ecosystem
• Understand the challenges for becoming an IT service broker leveraging the power of the cloud