Despite the buzz surrounding the cloud computing, only a small percentage of organizations have actually deployed this new style of IT—so far. If you're planning your long-term cloud strategy, this practical book provides insider knowledge and actionable real-world lessons regarding planning, design, operations, security, and application transformation. This book teaches business and technology managers how to transition their organization's traditional IT to cloud computing. Rather than yet another book trying to sell or convince readers on the benefits of clouds, this book provides guidance, lessons learned, and best practices on how to design, deploy, operate, and secure an enterprise cloud based on real-world experience. Author James Bond provides useful guidance and best-practice checklists based on his field experience with real customers and cloud providers. You'll view cloud services from the perspective of a consumer and as an owner/operator of an enterprise private or hybrid cloud, and learn valuable lessons from successful and less-than-successful organization use-case scenarios. This is the information every CIO needs in order to make the business and technical decisions to finally execute on their journey to cloud computing. Get updated trends and definitions in cloud computing, deployment models, and for building or buying cloud services - Discover challenges in cloud operations and management not foreseen by early adopters - Use real-world lessons to plan and build an enterprise private or hybrid cloud - Learn how to assess, port, and migrate legacy applications to the cloud - Identify security threats and vulnerabilities unique to the cloud - Employ a cloud management system for your enterprise (private or multi-provider hybrid) cloud ecosystem - Understand the challenges for becoming an IT service broker leveraging the power of the cloud "A cloud systems integrator would charge me tens of thousands of dollars for the guidance and lessons learned in this book. I wish I had this design, deployment, and operational guidance when I deployed my enterprise private cloud-- I could have saved so much time." --John Burkholder, Systems Architect, NORC at the University of Chicago "Finally, an industry insider provides actionable guidance on how to begin your cloud journey." --Wes Hogentogler, Director, Pure Integration "James Bond has painstakingly and methodically written what I consider to be one of the definitive books on the subject of the Enterprise Cloud... I learned a great deal from reading this... I highly recommend it!" --Dennis Devlin, Chief Information Office and SVP at SAVANTURE Almost every day during my professional career in the cloud computing industry, CIOs and IT managers ask me: "how do I actually get started planning and transitioning to cloud.  I'm sold on the concepts  and don't need another "sales pitch" to convince me--I just need guidance on  how to move f orward moving from traditional IT and managed services to a new cloud- based service  environment."    This is why I created this book.  Not to repeat more content as to how cloud computing can benefit your organization, but how to plan and deploy a cloud environment including operational management, security, governance, and transformation from a legacy IT department. James Bond is a subject matter expert in cloud computing with over 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He is a true cloud industry pioneer having created several successful companies, business practices, and hosted infrastructure and software services long before the term cloud computing was first used. James is a Chief Technologist for Hewlett Packard (HP) providing cloud strategy, guidance, and implementation planning to Fortune 100 organizations that are planning a transition from legacy IT to cloud. He is a featured speaker at industry conferences and customer executive briefings throughout North America. Mr. Bond has built several Application Service Provider and Software-as-­a-­Service companies and practices in the past 10 years serving in Chief Technology Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Vice President, Senior Architect, and Software Development roles. He is currently focused on cloud computing and creating technology reference architectures and solution deployment standards for HP. He routinely delivers technology strategy and lessons learned briefings to C-level executives--both educating and providing guidance on how to transition to cloud computing environments and lessons learned based on the first five years of the cloud industry and this new style of IT service delivery. Mr. Bond has a Bachelor Degree in Information Technology from the University of Maryland and has received numerous industry certifications and awards throughout his career. While this is his first published book, he has been a long-­time contributor to numerous industry magazines and blogs as well as speaker at IT conferences.