Cloud computing is emerging as a promising enabler of some aspects of the ‘agile’ and ‘lean’ features thatbusinesses need to display in today’s hyper-competitive and disruptive global economic ecosystem.However, it is increasingly obvious that there are essential prerequisites and caveats to cloudification thatbusinesses need to be aware of in order to avoid pitfalls. This paper aims to present a novel, EnterpriseArchitecture-based approach towards analysing the cloudification endeavour, adopting a holistic paradigmthat takes into account the mutual influences of the entities and artefacts involved, in the context of their lifecycles. As shown in the paper, this approach enables a richer insight into the ‘readiness’ of a businessconsidering embarking on a cloudification endeavour and therefore empowers management to evaluateconsequences of- and take cognisant decisions on the cloudification extent, type, provider etc. based onprompt information of appropriate quality and detail. The paper also presents a brief practical example ofthis approach and illustrates, using the Enterprise Architecture viewpoint, the necessity of well-definedbusiness architecture, policies and principles dictating solution selection and design and transition programas sine qua non preconditions towards successful cloudification.
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