Operating models
As your organization moves from an on-premises environment to the cloud, you need to determine which operational model to use. Will you continue to use a central IT model or move toward a CCoE model? Both approaches are valid. They're alternative views of responsibility and management.
Central IT
Stable-state environments might not require focus on the architecture or the operational requirements of individual workloads. Central operations tend to be the norm for technology environments that consist mostly of stable-state workloads.
The following resources could provide the skills for centralized IT functions:
- An existing central IT team
- Enterprise architects
- IT operations
- IT governance
- IT infrastructure
- Networking
- Identity
- Virtualization
- Business continuity and disaster recovery
- Application owners within IT
Central IT team risks
Centralized IT became prevalent when all IT assets could be housed in few locations, managed by a small number of teams, and controlled through a single platform for operations management. Global business practices and the digital economy have largely reduced those centrally managed environments.
In the modern view of IT, assets are globally distributed. Responsibilities are delegated. A mixture of internal staff, managed service providers, and cloud providers delivers operations management.
In the digital economy, IT management practices are transitioning to a model of self-service and delegated control with clear guardrails to enforce governance. A central IT team can be a valuable contributor to cloud adoption by becoming a cloud broker and a partner for innovation and business agility.
A central IT team is well positioned to take valuable knowledge and practices from existing on-premises models and apply them to cloud delivery. But this process requires change. New processes, new skills, and new tools are required to support cloud adoption at scale.
When a central IT team adapts, it becomes an important partner in cloud adoption efforts. But if the central IT team doesn't adapt to the cloud or tries to use the cloud as a catalyst for tight-grained controls, it quickly becomes a blocker to adoption, innovation, and migration.
The measures of this risk are speed and flexibility. The cloud simplifies adopting new technologies quickly. When new cloud functionality can be deployed within minutes but the central IT team's reviews add weeks or months to the deployment process, these centralized processes become an impediment to business success. When you encounter this indicator, consider alternative strategies to IT delivery.
Exceptions
Many industries require rigid adherence to third-party compliance. Some compliance requirements still demand centralized IT control. Delivering on these compliance measures can add time to deployment processes, especially for new technologies that haven't been used broadly.
In these scenarios, expect delays in deployment during the early stages of adoption. Similar situations might exist for companies that deal with sensitive customer data but aren't governed by a third-party compliance requirement.
An organization should apply centralized IT in the cloud only when existing delivery on-premises is based on a central IT team model. If the current on-premises model is based on delegated control, consider a CCoE approach for a more cloud-compatible alternative.
Cloud center of excellence
Many IT organizations share the core objective of achieving business and technical agility. A CCoE can help organizations balance speed and stability while they pursue this objective.
A CCoE model requires collaboration between each of the following resources:
- Cloud adoption (solution architects)
- Cloud strategy (the program and project managers)
- Cloud governance
- Cloud platform
- Cloud automation
Impact
When this function is properly structured and supported, the participants can accelerate innovation and migration efforts while reducing the overall cost of change and increasing business agility. When this function is successfully implemented, it can noticeably reduce time to market.
As team practices mature, quality indicators like reliability, performance efficiency, security, maintainability, and customer satisfaction improve. These gains are especially vital if the company plans to implement large-scale cloud migration efforts or wants to use the cloud to drive innovations associated with market differentiation.
When a CCoE model is successful, it creates a significant shift in IT. In a CCoE approach, IT serves as a broker, partner, or representative to the business. This model is a paradigm shift away from the traditional view of IT as an operations unit or abstraction layer between the business and IT assets.
A CCoE model can fit within the technology strategy if you want to establish a self-service model. That is, you want to allow business units to make their own decisions while adhering to a set of guidelines and established, repeatable controls.
Key responsibilities
The main duty of the CCoE team is to accelerate cloud adoption through cloud-native or hybrid solutions.
The objective of the CCoE is to:
- Help build a modern IT organization through agile approaches to capture and implement business requirements.
- Use reusable deployment packages that align with security, compliance, and management policies.
- Maintain a functional Azure platform in alignment with operational procedures.
- Review and approve the use of cloud-native tools.
- Standardize and automate commonly needed platform components and solutions over time.
Application of these operating models
Each of these operating models is a theoretical construct to help determine which form of operations best aligns with your cloud adoption plan and the culture of your organization. Shifting your operating model will require a mixture of both for an extended period. After you define the operating model for your organization's future state, that decision will shape many of your downstream technical decisions.
Before you make any changes to operating models, consider your organization's tolerance for a growth mindset. Also consider IT's comfort level with releasing central responsibilities.
This type of change takes time, experimentation, and negotiation. There will be bumps and setbacks during the process. But if the team stays diligent and isn't discouraged from experimentation, there's a high probability of success in improving agility, speed, and reliability.