Migration to cloud begins with consolidation of server, storage, and network resources to reduce redundancy, decrease wasted space, and increase equipment usage, all through measured planning of architecture, processes and enterprise security.

Although many agencies turn to virtualization to improve resource usage and decrease capital and operating costs, virtualization enables the abstraction and aggregation of all data center resources creating a unified resource that can be shared by all application loads. This allows for the allocation of resources on demand and - as an ultimate goal in cloud computing — the abstraction between applications and infrastructure to manage infrastructure as a service (IaaS) in a true cloud environment.

Once the physical IT infrastructure is decoupled from the applications and services being hosted, automation becomes necessary to enable reallocation and automated provisioning of computing resources to meet the varying capacity demands of the cloud computing environment. The automation phase provides self-service application deployment to the business users, while building usage rules into the environment to guarantee fit and function.

With self-service and metering, IT gains insight into allocation of resources allowing for better IT management. With a private cloud utility model, security is enhanced, scaling and expanding as user demands change is enabled, and IT resources can be pooled in a single operating system.

Cloud internetworking federation allows the sharing of a range of IT resources and capabilities including capacity, monitoring, and management, and the movement of application loads between clouds. Ultimately, rather than operating in isolation, IT services throughout agencies can be shared and costs lessened.