| | MARCH 20188CIOReviewOrganizations of all sizes within every industry are abuzz about "The Cloud." Questions such as how can this bring more value to our company, can we save money, do we have the necessary talent and skills, and how will this affect our current applications are all critical factors, but many organizations may not be able to easily answer them. The difficulty or inability to address these concerns with confidence may point to larger and possibly missing needcomprehensive enterprise architecture. Enterprise architecture (EA) has many interpretations, but its best implementation is when organizations establish an EA practice that helps shape (or demystify) the business strategy and bridges the strategy-to-execution gap to drive positive business outcomes.Cloud technologies have a large role to play in the digital transformations that many firms are currently undertaking, but companies need to identify which cloud-based solutions can help deliver maximum impact in their digital journey. Enterprise architects can help executives and technologists evaluate the ever-evolving cloud landscape. One of the first aspects of this is to understand which components of the cloud an organization should pursue. Let us consider the three major categories of cloud technology: software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).Software-as-a-service (SaaS) allows organizations to use software free from having to install it on end users' workstations. While this can provide a very rapid path to begin getting value out of these applications, it also carries some undesired implications. First, the ease of provisioning access to these solutions could bring about increased per user costs that can quickly become higher than initially planned. Wearing a governance hat, enterprise architects can help their company identify personas types of users across the enterprise and determine which personas would require access to the SaaS application. Knowing the current By Ethan Pack, Director of Enterprise Architecture, TDECUEthan PackENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE IN THE CLOUD
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