Ahead in the Cloud: Best Practices for Navigating the Future of Enterprise IT

by Stephen Orban, Andy Jassy, Adrian Cockcroft (Foreword)

Cloud computing is the most significant technology development of our lifetimes. It has made countless new businesses possible and presents a massive opportunity for large enterprises to innovate like startups and retire decades of technical debt. But making the most of the cloud requires much more from enterprises than just a technology change. Stephen Orban led Dow Jones’s journey toward digital agility as their CIO and now leads AWS’s Enterprise Strategy function, where he helps leaders from the largest companies in the world transform their businesses. As he demonstrates in this book, enterprises must re-train their people, evolve their processes, and transform their cultures as they move to the cloud. By bringing together his experiences and those of a number of business leaders, Orban shines a light on what works, what doesn’t, and how enterprises can transform themselves using the cloud.

Genres: Business, Technology, Nonfiction, Technical

336 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 4, 2018

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two and a half stars really. There is some good content but it is a collection of blog post and is VERY repetitive.

[Kevin Gunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this to be a interesting read. The company I work for was started in the cloud, so I haven't had to experience a cloud migration, but it was interesting to read how other companies have made the transition and to read about Stephen's own experience of migrating companies to AWS.

My favorite chapter in these book is probably Ch 48: "Tenets Provide Essential Guidance on Your Cloud Journey by Joe Chung, Enterprise Strategist & Evangelist at AWS". Even though I won't be working on any cloud migration projects, I found the idea of tenets, defined as "a principle, belief or doctrine generally held to be true; especially: one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession", to be interesting and can be helpful for any team. Chung goes on to say that when writing a tenet for a team or organization, think of the mission or vision as the what, and the tenet as the how. Examples of tenets include (pg 271):

We need the ability to provision and manage the cloud services as fast as consuming the "native" platform directly-"Provision as fast as with a credit card."

Give app teams the control / ability to consume cloud services without artificial barriers-"If AWS deployed to the public, why can't we use it?"

And my personal favorite, from Jonathan Allan (pg 292):

All of your assumed constraints are debatable

This is a recommended read for those in IT that are moving to the cloud or considering it.

[Mark Weaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro book for anyone contemplating a journey to the cloud for their organization.

Enjoyed the book. Easy read but has a lot of good advice from leaders who have gone before. Our company is just starting this journey and I’m excited by the prospect. Lots of learning ahead but the payback for that investment will be huge. If you are reading this post. Then good luck on your cloud journey!

[Vivek Gupta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read from Stephen Orban. He goes into best practices and in turn challenges facing Enterprises on their cloud journey. Applicable for any public cloud platform. Validates my own experience over the years and what I have heard from colleagues on this journey.

My favorite quote - “having a dedicated team with single-threaded ownership over an organization’s most important initiatives is one of the most effective way to get results fast and influence change.” 101 but hard to do.

[Perry Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahead in the Cloud is an extremely well-written and informative text on cloud strategies, and a must-read not only for persons already familiar with cloud principles but also for anyone simply wishing to learn more about the enormous potential of the cloud's future. Clearly one of the best books I've ever read on cloud fundamentals, and I commend it most highly.

Perry Beaumont

[Diana Ortiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of reference

This is a comprehensive collection of blogs with the wisdom to help you to build your own Cloud strategy. It’s not a technical book, but it is a inspiration source for everyone starting the Cloud journey.

[Dawid Pośliński · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good read with plenty of battlefield reports.

The book could be a bit shorter, because it is a bit repetitive, but it bolds the message that many leaders gets to the same conclusions over their cloud journey.

[Fernando Peoples · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome Book

If you are looking to migrate to the cloud.Please read this book.
It will help you out in many ways.

[Justin Broadbent · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a great topic but the book was lacking. It was mainly a series of blog posts put together to make a book. It also had a few typos.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great for making IT decisions in a business. Still a little technical, but you don't have to be a developer to understand the overall points.

[Jon Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good practices and some nice examples.

The book could use a professional editor though.

[LiamsMum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Guide To The Cloud

Stephen uses his outstanding experience to provide a personal guide to help you with your journey to the Cloud. Highly recommended.

[Cristian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un buen libro para introducir conceptos de Cloud y su aplicación en los negocios. Un poco repetitivo al final, pero aporta la estructura para saber qué proyectos y cómo subirlos. Un libro fuera de lo tradicional que leo pero interesante en la fusión de tecnología y negocio.

[Felipe Leite · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative, but gets very repetitive. Since this book was built from a collection of blog posts a lot of things are repeated through the boo.

[John DeRosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly a ton of leadership elements threaded through

[Tristan Greaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collection of blog articles which means a large amount of repetition throughout which became irritating. Superseded by the superior ‘Reaching Cloud Velocity’ book which is much better.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quality book that outlines the how and the why with movement to the cloud.

[John McDougall]

A great book for readers that are interested in migrating their organizations from an on-premise IT architecture to a cloud-based one. The book describes how to educate the workforce, gain employee support, and provides several vignettes from successful executives on their transition. The book does read like it is a mash up of blog posts, as it does have many repetitive themes, but if the reader concentrates on the core message and takes to heart that, the book is still worth the time to read.

[Delhi Irc]

Location: ND6 IRC
Accession No: DL030028