No keywords provided in dissertation / Cloud Computing has gained traction since its emergence and client organisations that want to benefit from the Cloud are looking for ways to migrate their on-premise applications to the Cloud. To assist client organisations with migration projects, researchers and practitioners have proposed various Cloud migration approaches. However, these approaches differ in applicability depending on the type of application being migrated and the Cloud Service Provider where the application is being migrated to. The various approaches to Cloud migration create complexity in Cloud migration decisions as client organisations have to consider various approaches depending on the migration project. The purpose of this dissertation is to create a universal Cloud migration approach that can be applied to every Cloud migration project. In this dissertation, a cloud migration decision framework is proposed; namely, A Holistic Cloud Migration Decision Framework (HCMDF). The research strategy that was followed is Design Science Research (DSR) and was selected since the output of the research is going to be an Information Technology (IT) research artefact. By applying the DSR strategy, the HCMDF was successfully developed and evaluated in the real world using an adaptive case study. The analysis of the results indicated that the HCMDF solves Cloud migration problem and that it can be applied to every Cloud migration project. Throughout the evaluation, areas of improvement were identified and these will be considered in future research. / School of Computing / M. Tech (Information Technology)

Cloud computing brings widely recognized benefits as well as new challenges and risks resulting mainly from the fact that cloud service provider is an external third party that provides public cloud services in multi-tenancy model. At present, widely accepted IT governance frameworks lack focus on cloud computing governance and do not fully address the requirements of cloud computing from cloud consumer viewpoint. Given the absence of any comprehensive cloud computing governance and management framework, this doctoral dissertation thesis focuses on specific aspects of cloud service governance and management from consumer perspective. The main aim of doctoral dissertation thesis is the design of methodological framework for cloud service governance and management (Cloud computing governance and management) from consumer point of view. Cloud consumer is considered as a medium or large-sized enterprise that uses services in public cloud computing model, which are offered and delivered by cloud service provider. Theoretical part of this doctoral dissertation thesis identifies the main theoretical concepts of IT governance, IT management and cloud computing (chapter 2). Analytical part of this doctoral dissertation thesis reviews the literature dealing with specifics of cloud services utilization and their impact on IT governance and IT management, cloud computing governance and cloud computing management (chapter 3). Further, existing IT governance and IT management frameworks (SOA Governance, COBIT, ITIL and MBI) were analysed and evaluated in terms of the use of cloud services from cloud consumer perspective (chapter 4). Scientific research was based on Design Science Research Methodology with intention to design and evaluate artifact methodological framework. The main part of this doctoral dissertation thesis proposes methodical framework Cloud computing governance and management based on SOA Governance, COBIT 5 and ITIL 2011 (chapter 5, 6 and 7). Verification of proposed methodical framework Cloud computing governance and management from cloud consumer perspective was based on scientific method of case study (chapter 8). The main objective of the case study was to evaluate and verify proposed methodical framework Cloud computing governance and management in a real business environment. The main contribution of this doctoral dissertation thesis is both the use of existing knowledge, approaches and methodologies in area of IT governance and IT management to design methodical framework Cloud computing governance and management and the extension of Management of Business Informatics (MBI) framework by a set of new tasks containing procedures and recommendations relating to adoption and utilization of cloud computing services.