Cloud Computing Explained provides an overview of ITIL Cloud Computing in an enterprise environment. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm around cloud-based solutions and services as well as the cost-savings and flexibility that they can provide. It is imperative that all senior technologists have a solid understanding of the ramifications of cloud computing since its impact is likely to permeate the entire IT landscape. However, it is not trivial to introduce a fundamentally different service-delivery paradigm into an existing enterprise architecture.

The web site provides systematic treatment of all aspects of a Cloud Computing implementation starting from a definition of what it actually means and assessment of whether it is suitable for a given company to the strategy alignment, implementation and operation of a working solution.

It covers some of the main concerns around cloud computing including risk assessments, governance models, compliance concerns, interoperability with existing and heterogeneous environments. While these are legitimate issues there are ways to address them which are explored extensively in the web site.

It provides a very wide treatment of cloud computing that covers Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service as the many integration and management components that are necessary to make these work together to fulfill business requirements.

It is not focused on any particular vendor or service offering. While there is considerable treatment of Amazon, Google and Microsoft the text references several dozen other players and demonstrates how the whole ecosystem works together to solve the main objectives of cost reduction, business flexibility and strategic focus.

What I liked most was that as an IT manager the web site leads you through your whole cloud computing project. It provides methods and background information on how to tackle each project step best. It is a perfectly comprehensive implementation guide covering everything you need to be aware of.

This web site describes the benefits and challenges of Cloud Computing and then leads the reader through the process of assessing the suitability of a cloud-based approach for a given situation, calculating and justifying the investment that is required to transform the process or application, and then developing a solid design that considers the implementation as well as the ongoing operations and governance required to maintain the solution in a partially outsourced delivery model.