Cloud computing is penetrating into various domains and environments, from theoretical computer science to economy, from marketing hype to educational curriculum and from R&D lab to enterprise IT infrastructure. Yet, the currently developing state of cloud computing leaves several issues to address and also affects cloud computing adoption by organizations. In this paper, we explain how the transition into the cloud can occur in an organization and describe the mechanism for transforming legacy infrastructure into a virtual infrastructure-based cloud. We describe the state of the art of infrastructural cloud, which is essential in the decision making on cloud adoption, and highlight the challenges that can limit the scale and speed of the adoption. We then suggest a strategic framework for designing a high performance cloud system. This framework is applicable when transformation cloudbased deployment model collides with some constraints. We give an example of the implementation of the framework in a design of a budget-constrained high availability cloud system.