Author: Dave Rollins, Director of Technical Product Marketing for Cross-Cloud Services at VMware.

One of the biggest mistakes a company can make in its multi-cloud journey is to jump in without a well-thought-out plan. In the previous post introducing the cloud smart journey, the initial phase was Cloud First. Most businesses shifted to the cloud without a thought, ultimately leading them to a state of Cloud Chaos. To create this plan, you will need to understand where you are in your cloud journey and identify any gaps with a plan on how to solve them.

Companies that are successful in their cloud journey focus on more than just technology; there are also people and process considerations. In addition, the cloud strategy should align with a company’s business goals. This means the right roles and responsibilities, along with the toolset to support them, are in place to support their company’s objectives.

Customers can get a clear picture of where their company is on its journey with the VMware Multi-Cloud and App Maturity Model (MCAM) tool and help drive the successful adoption of cloud technologies and services. It assesses where a company is today with multi-cloud and modern apps and what the desired future state would be. The tool utilizes a set of 30 questions across different roles in a company’s organization around the current and future state of maturity. MCAM assesses more than just the infrastructure and application aspects of a business.

It focuses on six key domains:

• Cloud Vision and Strategy
• Business Outcomes and Goals
• Leadership, Governance, and Processes
• People, Tools, and Enablement
• Applications and Development
• Infrastructure, Data, and Platforms

MCAM calculates these details and provides two critical pieces of information:

A set of recommendations, including different services and resources, to help close the gap between where a company is today and what the desired end-state is.

A Gap Analysis and Heatmap to help visualize the areas that need the most attention and investment to achieve the desired maturity level.

The report and recommendations can be exported and shared with a VMware representative or a VMware Partner. In addition, VMware Partners can leverage this tool and walk their customers through the assessment and recommend their own services to help close the gaps.