This article provides a complete blueprint for designing Enterprise Cloud Outsourcing services.

The primary objective of our Cloud Best Practices group is to establish a feedback loop between real-world client requirements and our expertise production process, to develop solutions and services directly in-line with client needs.

For example we’re analyzing RFPs from the MERX site and feeding this into our Product Innovation Process.

Canada Cloud – Business Transformation Blueprint

Another example is that we’re using the Cloud Computing Roadmap for the Canadian Federal Government as a repeatable framework for the core objective of this site – Business Transformation through Cloud computing.

The key component of a Business Transformation exercise is the “Target Architecture”, ie. the intended destination of your journey, broken down into a series of steps that defines a Roadmap for how to get there.

In this 18-page PPT the Canadian Federal Government provide a blueprint for their planned transformation strategy. This has been analyzed and used to define the services and indexing taxonomy structure for this site.

This overall transformation is achieved through a number of distinct solution domains united together, with each offering related business benefits in three main areas:

Open Government ROI strategy

Ultimately the goal is to achieve “Government 2.0″, using social media and other tools to better engage the public into government process and re-invent new ‘collective intelligence’ approaches to business workflow.

This is known as ‘Open Government‘.

Specifically in Canada, on September 1st, 2010, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner announced the Open Government resolution for Canada. This dramatically changes the expectations for how government agencies proactively share information with the public.

This can be accomplished through ‘Unified Cloud Collaboration‘, utilizing Unified Communications and Collaboration software internally and externally to empower these processes.

Key to this is ‘Cloud Identity‘ – a single username/password identifier that works seamlessly across SaaS as well as internal applications.

In the Target Architecture the requirement for this is identified on slide 15, through “GEDS2.0″, a software framework that will enable an environment of common functionality for credentials, directory synchronization and single sign-on across multiple internal and Cloud apps.

Green Data-centre

The business benefits can be further maximized through consolidation cost-savings and environmental improvements.

Cloud computing can greatly reduce enterprise IT complexity through building standardized virtual servers, consolidating common application requirements into a shared “Community Cloud” and modernizing the legacy estate of mainframes into a greatly reduced data-centre footprint, offering a positive response to Climate Change.

Legacy 2 Cloud Transformation

Slide 12 of the presentation highlights that the technical architecture at the heart of the benefits of Cloud computing are ‘Community Clouds‘ – Multi-tenancy applications jointly shared by a number of collaborating agencies, providing the opportunity to generate cost-savings through consolidation.

The goverment operates numerous sofware applications like OpenText, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, for line of business systems like Pay and Pensions, and a Community Cloud enables these to be offered on a “Private SaaS” (Software as a Service) basis to multiple agencies.

It also facilitates Mobile Integration and their plans include moving to a Community Cloud model for a Common Messaging Platform.

Cloud MSP

Migrating applications from a traditional in-house approach to a Cloud results in them being delivered via the ‘MSP’ model (Managed Service Provider).

Third party suppliers in operating infrastructure to host these applications, mapping and migrating them via Professional Services in the following key areas:

• Cloud VPN – Slide 8 of the Canadian Roadmap presentation describes the overall GC Cloud logical architecture for enabling ‘Cloud VPN’ – A Cloud Services Access Layer for a variety of users from internal, partner and external organizations, including citizens. This enables a series of security domains for different PaaS and IaaS elements, within an overall ITSS security domain.

• Inter-Cloud Services – “Cloud peering” privately between departments, and also “brokering” to the public Cloud. Optimize utilization and enable faster provisioning of new apps through virtualization and Cloud Provisioning Services.

• Cloud BCP – Enhanced Business Continuity through Cloud automation and replication across multiple data-centres.