Governance Framework for Cloud Computing

In the current era of competitive business worldand stringent market share and revenue sustenance challenges,organizations tend to focus more on their core competencies ratherthan the functional areas that support the business. However,traditionally this has not been possible in the IT management areabecause the technologies and their underlying infrastructures aresignificantly complex thus requiring dedicated and sustained inhouse efforts to maintain IT systems that enable core businessactivities. Senior executives of organisations are forced in manycases to conclude that it is too cumbersome, expensive and timeconsuming for them to manage internal IT infrastructures. Thistakes the focus away from their core revenue making activities.This scenario facilitates the need for external infrastructurehosting, external service provision and outsourcing capability.This trend resulted in evolution of IT outsourcing models. Theauthors attempted to analyse the option of leveraging the cloudcomputing model to facilitate this common scenario. This paperinitially discusses the characteristics of cloud computing focusingon scalability and delivery as a service. The model is evaluatedusing two case scenarios, one is an enterprise client with30,000 worldwide customers followed by a small scale subjectmatter expertise through small to medium enterprise (SME)organisations. The paper evaluates the findings and developsa governance framework to articulate the value propositionof cloud computing.. The model takes into consideration thefinancial aspects, and the behaviors and IT control structures ofan IT organisation