Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) has announced that it has updated its Cloud Maturity Model (CMM) to include five levels of cloud maturity and maturity models for Software as a Service (SaaS), PaaS (Platform as a Service), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Information as a Service (Info-aaS). The paper reviews both the business and technology issues associated with each level of cloud maturity and has been developed to serve as a roadmap enterprises can use to plan cloud adoption strategies and implementations based on ODCA usage models and requirements.

The ODCA CMM provides an end-to-end visualization of how the enterprise cloud develops over time, starting with no cloud adoption and progressing through five maturity levels that eventually lead to defining an enterprise's capabilities and requirements for deploying full-scale federated cloud services that are open, secure, and interoperable. The CMM represents the enterprise's ability to sustainably adopt cloud services within defined governance and control parameters and includes assessment of cloud architecture, infrastructure, information, and management. Organizations can use the CMM to identify where they currently are on the cloud maturity model and to determine where they want to be in the future based on the enterprise's unique business goals and criteria outlined in the CMM.

"The ODCA Cloud Maturity Model is an important resource for enterprises just beginning to establish a path to cloud and for enterprises already deploying cloud services and solutions," said Ryan Skipp, Portfolio and Solution Development at DTAG/T-Systems and chair of the ODCA Manageability and Services Workgroup. "The CMM provides information that can be used immediately to analyze enterprise cloud readiness and as a business and technology roadmap for continuously adding new services as enterprise cloud requirements evolve."

The Cloud Maturity Model has been developed within ODCA's Manageability and Services Workgroup with input from ODCA members AT&T, BMW, The Walt Disney Company, Intel, National Australia Bank (NAB), and T-Systems. The paper is part of ODCA's extensive library of output that includes over 25 usage models and requirements focused on enterprise cloud computing and big data. ODCA usage models have been instrumental in the development of new products from cloud vendors and solution providers and when specified using PEAT, ODCA's online Proposal Engine Assistant Tool, have proven to dramatically streamline enterprise cloud RFP (Request for Proposal) processes. The CMM is available for free download on the ODCA website.