Cloud Adoption Framework
AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) — six perspectives for guiding organizational cloud adoption and AWS migration tools
Why Organizations Need a Framework
Cloud computing introduces a significant shift in how technology is obtained, used, and managed. It also shifts how organizations budget and pay for technology services. For most organizations, cloud adoption does not happen instantly — people, process, and technology must all be in alignment.
The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF) was created to help organizations design and travel an accelerated path to successful cloud adoption. It provides guidance and best practices to help organizations:
- Identify gaps in skills and processes
- Build a comprehensive approach to cloud computing across the organization
- Accelerate successful cloud adoption throughout the IT lifecycle
The Six CAF Perspectives
At the highest level, the AWS CAF organizes guidance into six areas of focus called perspectives. Each perspective consists of a set of capabilities that covers distinct responsibilities owned or managed by functionally related stakeholders.
- Business
- People
- Governance
- Platform
- Security
- Operations
Business Perspectives (People, Process)
| Perspective | Stakeholders | Focus | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business | Business managers, finance managers, budget owners, strategy stakeholders | Ensure IT aligns with business needs and investments trace to demonstrable business results | IT finance, IT strategy, Benefits realization, Business risk management |
| People | Human resources, staffing, people managers | Prioritize training, staffing, and organizational changes to build an agile organization | Resource management, Incentive management, Career management, Training management, Organizational change management |
| Governance | CIO, program managers, enterprise architects, business analysts, portfolio managers | Align IT strategy with business strategy to maximize business value and minimize risks | Portfolio management, Program/project management, Business performance measurement, License management |
Technical Perspectives (Technology)
| Perspective | Stakeholders | Focus | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | CTO, IT managers, solutions architects | Understand and communicate the nature of IT systems and their relationships; describe target state architecture | Compute/Network/Storage/Database provisioning, Systems and solution architecture, Application development |
| Security | CISO, IT security managers, IT security analysts | Ensure organization meets security objectives for visibility, auditability, control, and agility | Identity and access management, Detective control, Infrastructure security, Data protection, Incident response |
| Operations | IT operations managers, IT support managers | Define how day-to-day, quarter-to-quarter, and year-to-year business is conducted; align with business operations | Service monitoring, Application performance monitoring, Resource inventory management, Release/change management, Reporting/analytics, Business continuity/DR, IT service catalog |
Migration Services Recap
Two key services assist with the technical aspects of migration:
| Service | Purpose |
|---|---|
| AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) | Migrates databases to AWS quickly and securely. The source database remains fully operational during migration, minimizing downtime. Supports homogeneous (e.g., Oracle to Oracle) and heterogeneous migrations (e.g., Oracle to Aurora). |
| AWS Schema Conversion Tool (SCT) | Converts the source database schema and most custom code to a format compatible with the target database when migrating between different database engines. |
| AWS Snow Family | Physical devices for offline data transfer (petabyte-scale). AWS Snowcone, Snowball Edge, Snowmobile. Used when network transfer is impractical — too slow, too expensive, or constrained by security. |
Cloud Migration Quiz
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