Tales of empirically understanding and providing process support for migrating to clouds

Summary form only given. Cloud computing has become an attractive option for acquiring and using IT infrastructure and services. In order to exploit the potential benefits of cloud computing, existing software and services need to be migrated to cloud based infrastructures. A successful migration effort needs to be supported by a well-defined process and appropriate practices. However, there is a little evidence-based guidance for supporting cloud migration. One of our main goals is to experimentally understand the key technological, social, and organizational issues in evolving business critical software and services to cloud computing and devising and deploying appropriate solutions. To this end, we have been conducting and/or studying several case studies in industrial and academic environments. The lessons and evidence from these case studies have enabled us to pinpoint the areas of cloud migration that need immediate attention of practitioners and researchers, devise a process-centric support framework, and identify the educational and training needs for cloud migration.