The shift to cloud computing isn’t a simple lift-and-shift operation. It’s a transformative journey that requires strategic planning and systematic execution. Cloud maturity models serve as strategic frameworks that guide organizations through this transition by helping them assess their current position and chart a course toward cloud excellence.
Imagine this. A mid-sized company decides to “move to the cloud” without a proper assessment or planning. A few months later, they’ll be probably encounter with unexpected costs, security vulnerabilities and a fragmented infrastructure which is harder to manage than their on-premises setup. This scenario plays out frequently when organizations underestimate the complexity of cloud adoption.
What makes cloud maturity models essential?
Baseline Assessment
Cloud maturity assessments (or tests) provide organizations with a clear understanding of their current cloud capabilities across various dimensions. This baseline prevents the common pitfall of overestimating readiness and underestimating challenges.
Strategic Roadmap
Cloud maturity models outline logical progression stages instead of superficial approach. Each stage builds upon the previous one to ensure developing capabilities in a structured manner. This prevents the costly mistake of attempting advanced cloud implementations without foundational elements in place.
Risk Management
By following and applying a maturity model, organizations can identify and address potential risks at each stage of their cloud migration journey. This approach helps prevent security breaches, compliance issues and operational disruptions.
What to do?
For cloud adoption, cloud maturity models offer a proven path forward. They transform what could be a chaotic transition into a structured journey with clear milestones and objectives. The key is to treat the model as a living framework.
I prepared an example cloud migration maturity test – for especially those who think about to migrate their workloads to the cloud. I defined some questions to clarify the organizations’ needs under five different categories:
- Cloud Readiness
- Workload Suitability
- Security & Compliance
- Cost & Budget
- Operations & DevOps
You can reach the repository published on GitHub here. Also, if you want to assess your cloud migration maturity level, complete the assessment on web application page shared below. It will outline which readiness level you have after you submit the test.
Cloud Maturity App
The cloud maturity test aims to raise awareness for businesses interested in migrating their on-premises to the cloud platforms.
The test includes below categories. User should select a readiness level for each question. The test evaluates the average score based on the answers, then recommends a path to the user.
This is an open-source project. Please consider contributing. Any feedback is welcome.
Cloud Migration Maturity Test (web app) is built with Flask and Bootstrap. While coding this project, I used Amazon Q Developer in VS Code as an AI assistant to build the structure faster and reliable. Amazon Q Developer is available for a Free Tier use in your preferred IDE. I find it very useful while collaborating just inside the IDE itself. I used the help of Claude to clarify the assessment questions. The web app is deployed to Vercel as a hobby project.
Read more about the cloud maturity models: