Context This is a simple question, but it is hard to provide a simple answer. It has been asked by all companies plan to initiate their cloud practices. There are various cloud cost models on the market, including those from AWS, Azure, Gartner , etc. However, none of them can provide a simple answer to the question. The only practical right answer is: depends. It is said that one of large cloud providers hired a PhD in finance from Harvard. All s/he does is to figure out, make and tell a financial case/story for the company’s potential enterprise customers. Debate on “Whether Cloud Saves IT/Business Cost” When I led enterprise cloud practice initiations during consulting engagements with large companies, the debate on "whether cloud will save IT and business cost" was always on the table. Quite often the debate was about comparing “apple” with “orange”. The various stakeholders were never able to achieve an “agreement”. A typical dilemma is: some cloud-promot
Introduction There are many definitions of Enterprise Architecture (EA) on the market. Different people have different understandings about it. When I presented Enterprise Architecture and Business Innovation & Transformation in an international conference of The Open Group, I asked the audience: how many of you think you know the definition of Enterprise Architecture. There are about 90% of them raised hands. Then I asked: how many of you think you and your colleagues’ share a same understanding of Enterprise Architecture, there are about 40-50% of them raised hands. When I asked: how many of you think you and your managers share a same understanding of Enterprise Architecture, only about 10-20% of people raised hands. Then I asked: how many of you think you and your companies’ executives share a same understanding of Enterprise Architecture, only few people raised hands, about 1-2%. Generally, companies have some key players in their enterprise architecture practices(EAP), suc