- [Andrew] Hello, my name is Andrew Larkin and welcome to this learning path. If you are looking to begin a CloudFormation project or just wanting to learn more about how cloud services impact business process then you're starting in the right place. This learning path is designed to help people in non-technical roles acquire the knowledge and skills, to support and be involved with technical cloud projects. The Cloud Adoption Frameworks from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure provide a guide to help organizations design and travel an accelerated path to successful cloud adoption. These frameworks are proven business tools and remove a lot of the heavy lifting with migration planning. However, the Cloud Adoption Framework still needs to be implemented and executed, and that is often where organizations struggle. Most of the common pitfalls experienced in migrating to the cloud tend to have a root cause and operating process shortfalls or a lack of executive or business support. Computer World lists five common pitfalls to avoid in migrating to the cloud. I will overlay my own experiences to help add more perspective. The first common pitfall is not analyzing applications enough before migrating them. Now if you don't analyze applications for improvements first. It is likely you will be transferring application issues to the cloud, which doesn't solve them. Second, forgetting or skipping doing a business analysis first. Starting without a business case can mean you don't know what the benefits are or what success is. Third, underestimating time and costs. Cloud services mean things can be done quickly. But migration projects still need the right time and cost estimates to be successful. And fourth, not having the training that is needed. To get the most benefit from cloud services often requires a different way of working. If all aspects of the business do not know how to practice these new ways of working, then cloud projects can often lose momentum and stall. And fifth, not moving past the lift and shift stage. Much of the benefit of cloud computing comes form refactoring applications to use cloud services and so improve performance availability and scalability. A business that has integrated cloud services into its operating model will be able to gain most advantage from cloud services and therefore move beyond the lift and shift stage. This learning path is specifically designed to provide people who have roles within the business perspective of the cloud adoption framework with the knowledge and skills to support cloud projects. So we start this learning path by gaining an understanding of what is cloud computing. And most importantly for us, what are the benefits, opportunities, and impacts of cloud services from a business perspective? We then examine the business considerations of cloud migrations and some of the business considerations of moving to a cloud service model. Following this learning path you will have a better understanding of cloud computing from a business perspective. Okay, if you are ready, let's get started.