In a typical cloud architecture or cloud adoption lifecycle, which of the following options lists three key phases that organisations usually go through?

Introduction / Context:
Moving systems to the cloud or designing new cloud native architectures is not a single step; it is a lifecycle with distinct phases. Organisations start by assessing their current environment and planning the move, then execute migration and deployment, and finally operate and optimise workloads over time. Understanding these phases is important for cloud architects, project managers, and engineers who participate in cloud projects. This question asks you to identify three commonly recognised phases in a cloud architecture or cloud adoption lifecycle.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• Cloud adoption involves both technical and organisational change.
• Organisations need to evaluate workloads, design target architectures, and estimate costs before migrating.
• Migration requires careful deployment, data transfer, and testing.
• After go live, systems require ongoing monitoring, optimisation, and governance.

Concept / Approach:
Cloud migration frameworks from major providers often divide the journey into three high level stages. The first stage is assessment and planning, where teams inventory applications, analyse dependencies, select migration strategies rehost, refactor, rearchitect, and create a cloud architecture design. The second stage is migration and deployment, during which applications and data are moved to the cloud, infrastructure is provisioned, and tests are performed to validate functionality, performance, and security. The third stage is continuous monitoring and optimisation, where operations teams use monitoring tools to track performance, scale resources, tune costs, and evolve the architecture based on feedback. These phases form a loop, because optimisation may lead to new planning and migration steps in the future.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Identify the need for an initial assessment and planning phase to understand existing workloads and design the target cloud architecture. Step 2: Recognise that an active migration and deployment phase is required to actually move applications and data into the cloud environment. Step 3: Acknowledge that after deployment, there must be a continuous monitoring and optimisation phase to manage performance, reliability, and cost. Step 4: Examine option a, which lists assessment and planning, migration and deployment, and continuous monitoring and optimisation in a logical order. Step 5: Compare with options b, c, and d, which mention unrelated business activities or suggest that planning and operations are unnecessary.

Verification / Alternative check:
Cloud adoption guides from major providers typically use similar wording, such as assess, plan, migrate, and optimise. For example, they may describe discovery and assessment, application migration, and ongoing operations and optimisation as separate workstreams. Real projects also follow this pattern: feasibility studies and proofs of concept, followed by migration waves, followed by continuous improvement. This consistency in real world practice supports the phases given in option a.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option b lists activities like buying chairs and painting walls, which are general office tasks but not specific to cloud architecture. Option c claims that only application coding is needed, ignoring critical phases such as planning, testing, and operations. Option d contains administrative activities such as billing and vacation scheduling, which are not the core phases of a cloud architecture lifecycle.

Common Pitfalls:
A common pitfall is rushing into migration and deployment without thorough assessment and planning, leading to unexpected costs or performance issues. Another mistake is treating migration as a one time project and neglecting the continuous monitoring and optimisation needed to maintain efficiency and reliability. For exam purposes, remember that successful cloud adoption involves at least these three core phases: assessment and planning, migration and deployment, and continuous monitoring and optimisation.

Final Answer:
The key phases are assessment and planning, migration and deployment, and continuous monitoring and optimisation in a cloud architecture or adoption lifecycle.