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Cloud Strategy
& Assessment

One question drives everything we do in this engagement: "What should move, why, when, and how?" We answer it with rigour — covering business case, current-state analysis, workload assessment, security, architecture, cost, and a practical roadmap.

01

Business Context

Define the business goals driving cloud adoption and align stakeholders on what success looks like.

Every cloud strategy begins with a clear understanding of why the organisation is moving. We work with your leadership team to articulate the primary drivers — whether that is cost reduction, scalability, faster product delivery, resilience, modernisation, or regulatory compliance.

This phase identifies key stakeholders and their priorities, establishes measurable success metrics, and surfaces any industry-specific constraints such as data residency requirements, sector regulations, or board-level risk appetite. The output is a shared definition of scope and a set of guiding principles that will govern every decision downstream.

Key Outputs
  • Business drivers and strategic objectives
  • Stakeholder map and decision-making authority
  • Success metrics and KPIs
  • Regulatory, compliance, and industry constraints
  • Risk appetite and tolerance thresholds
02

Current-State Discovery

A detailed inventory of your existing IT landscape — infrastructure, applications, data, and operations.

You cannot plan a migration without knowing what you have. Our discovery process produces a comprehensive picture of your current environment through a combination of automated tooling, stakeholder interviews, and documentation review.

We document every layer of the stack: physical and virtual infrastructure, application portfolio, data platforms and flows, network topology, identity and access model, security controls, and operational processes. Dependency mapping is a critical output here — understanding what talks to what prevents costly surprises during migration.

Key Outputs
  • Infrastructure inventory (physical, virtual, containerised)
  • Application portfolio catalogue
  • Data platforms, pipelines, and storage landscape
  • Network topology and connectivity model
  • Identity, access management, and directory services
  • Security controls and tooling in use
  • Operational processes, runbooks, and support model
  • Inter-application and external dependency mapping
03

Workload Assessment

Every application evaluated for cloud suitability with a clear disposition recommendation.

Not every workload belongs in the cloud, and not every workload should move the same way. We assess each application or service against a consistent framework covering business criticality, technical complexity, dependency footprint, performance requirements, licensing constraints, and supportability.

The output for each workload is a disposition recommendation using the standard 6-R model. This becomes the foundation of the migration roadmap and ensures effort is directed where it delivers the most value.

Key Outputs
  • Application criticality and business impact scoring
  • Technical complexity and risk rating
  • Dependency mapping per workload
  • Performance, availability, and SLA requirements
  • Licensing and vendor support considerations
  • Disposition: Rehost, Replatform, Refactor, Repurchase, Retire, or Retain
04

Security & Compliance

Assess your current security posture and define what changes are required in the cloud model.

Security cannot be retrofitted. This section evaluates your existing controls against cloud-native security requirements and identifies the gaps that must be addressed before, during, and after migration.

We review identity and access management, encryption at rest and in transit, logging and monitoring coverage, vulnerability management practices, data classification and protection, and audit trail requirements. Where applicable standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or ISO 27001 apply, we map your current posture against those frameworks and produce a remediation plan.

Key Outputs
  • Identity and access management review
  • Encryption posture (at rest and in transit)
  • Logging, monitoring, and SIEM coverage
  • Vulnerability management and patch cadence
  • Data classification and protection controls
  • Audit and evidence requirements
  • Applicable standards: GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, SOC 2
05

Platform & Architecture

Define the target cloud model, provider selection, and high-level architecture direction.

With the current state understood and workloads assessed, we define the target architecture. This includes cloud provider selection or multi-cloud strategy, landing zone design principles, network architecture, tenancy model, and governance framework.

We evaluate public, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud options against your requirements and produce a reference architecture that will guide the detailed design phase. Provider selection is always driven by workload fit, commercial terms, and your team's existing skills — not by partner incentives.

Key Outputs
  • Cloud provider evaluation (AWS, Azure, GCP, or multi-cloud)
  • Landing zone design principles and guardrails
  • Network architecture and connectivity model
  • Tenancy and account/subscription structure
  • Governance framework and policy hierarchy
  • Public, private, hybrid, or multi-cloud recommendation
06

Cost & Business Case

Compare current costs with projected cloud spend and build the financial case for leadership.

Cloud should deliver measurable financial value. We build a detailed total cost of ownership model that compares your current on-premises or legacy costs — including hardware refresh cycles, data centre costs, licensing, and operational overhead — against projected cloud costs across compute, storage, networking, and managed services.

The business case includes ROI analysis, migration effort and one-time costs, ongoing run rate, reserved capacity and savings plan opportunities, and a payback period. The output is a financial recommendation that leadership can take to the board.

Key Outputs
  • Current-state TCO (infrastructure, licensing, operations)
  • Cloud cost modelling per workload
  • Migration effort and one-time investment
  • Ongoing run cost projection (3-year view)
  • Reserved instance and savings plan opportunities
  • ROI, payback period, and NPV analysis
  • Executive financial summary
07

Skills & Operating Model

Address the people and process changes required to operate effectively in the cloud.

Technology is the easy part. The organisations that struggle with cloud are almost always dealing with a skills gap, an unclear operating model, or a governance structure that was designed for on-premises. We assess your team's current cloud maturity and define what needs to change.

This covers cloud skills gaps and training plans, DevOps and automation maturity, support model design (who owns what in the cloud), governance readiness, and how day-to-day operations will change post-migration. We also define the target operating model so your team knows exactly what they are building towards.

Key Outputs
  • Cloud skills gap analysis and training plan
  • DevOps and automation maturity assessment
  • Target operating model definition
  • Support model and escalation paths
  • Governance and compliance readiness
  • Change management and communication approach
08

Roadmap & Recommendations

Turn all findings into a phased, actionable migration plan with clear priorities and next steps.

The roadmap is the deliverable that ties everything together. It translates the findings from every preceding section into a sequenced, phase-wise migration plan that is realistic, risk-managed, and aligned to your business priorities.

We identify quick wins that can demonstrate value early, sequence complex workloads to minimise risk, and define clear milestones and success criteria for each phase. The executive summary distils the entire assessment into a concise narrative for leadership, with a clear recommendation on how to proceed.

Key Outputs
  • Phase-wise migration priorities and sequencing
  • Quick wins and early value opportunities
  • Modernisation and innovation opportunities
  • Risk mitigation actions per phase
  • Timeline and resource requirements
  • Executive summary and go/no-go recommendation
  • Defined next steps and engagement model
What You Receive

Assessment deliverables.

01
Business goals and scope document
02
Current-state inventory and dependency map
03
Application and data assessment report
04
Security and compliance gap analysis
05
Target cloud architecture blueprint
06
Cost and TCO analysis with ROI model
07
Skills and operating model assessment
08
Migration roadmap and executive recommendations

Ready to build your
cloud strategy?

Talk to a Nimbara cloud architect. We will scope the engagement, agree on deliverables, and get started within days.