Cloud Management and Governance: Adapting IT Outsourcing to External Provision of Cloud-Based IT Services

Outsourcing is a strategic option which complements IT services provided internally in organizations. The maturity model for IT service outsourcing (henceforth MM-2GES) is a new holistic maturity model based on standards ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 38500, and the frameworks and best practices of ITIL and COBIT, with a specific focus on IT outsourcing. MM-2GES allows independent validation, practical application, and an effective transition to a model of good governance and management of outsourced IT services. Cloud computing is a new model for provisioning and consuming IT services on a need and pay-per-use basis. This model allows the IT systems to be more agile and flexible. The external provision of cloud-based services as part of Cloud computing appears as an evolution of traditional outsourcing, due to the emerging technologies related to the provision of IT services. As a result of technological developments, traditional outsourcing and external provision of cloud-based services, share common characteristics, but there are also some differences. This paper adapts MM-2GES to external provision of cloud-based services, from the point of view of the customer. This way, the applicability of the model can be implemented in organizations that have both models traditional IT outsourcing and cloud-based services provided externally, in order to achieve excellence in governance and management of all kind of IT services provided externally to organizations.