CloudOps – The Cloud Operating Model

As organisations move towards cloud-first or cloud-native approaches, they want to optimise performance and capacity. Operational costs must be managed – resources shouldn’t run idle and space shouldn’t be wasted.

The cloud operating model – AKA CloudOps – transforms an organisation, making processes and working experiences entirely faster, safer and more straightforward than before.

What is CloudOps?

CloudOps explains the management of delivery, tuning and performance optimisation of a cloud environment’s workloads and IT services, including public, hybrid, multi, in the data centre, and at the edge.

Compared to traditional IT, the main difference is that cloud operations are proactive, not reactive. CloudOps is designed to keep cloud services and infrastructure on and running efficiently. By removing downtime, continuous operations are made a reality, and problems are solved before they occur.

Are there performance issues with your storage systems? CloudOps proactively identifies the problem so information can flow freely from one system to another without any failures.

Let’s look at a few examples.

Are there more customer needs that weren’t factored into the initial application build? The CloudOps production environment is always live: it will keep updating the software or deploying new features. It does so without disrupting other applications or services that are in use.

Is there an attempted system attack? CloudOps ensures the alert is sent out and executes the actions required to block the IP address.

Fixes and activities can be automated through CloudOps. The end-user experiences near-zero downtime with cloud applications.

How CloudOps sparks transformation

Traditional IT service delivery is clearly not suitable for cloud operations, though that doesn’t mean the shift to CloudOps is always simple. Organisations differ in their CloudOps adoption. Some won’t have yet discovered it’s importance, whereas others have developed specific strategies and tools to cater to growing complexity of systems.

To leverage CloudOps, organisations typically look for dedicated cloud or Managed Service advisors, bringing this mix of business and technical savvy to a business’s infrastructure, functions and services. CloudOps’ delivery process covers three steps: changing needs, defining strategy, and then building application platforms. Automation becomes a worker’s best friend – it minimises human error, improves quality, and speeds up processes.

Taking on the cloud, organisations will go out of their comfort zone as they handle diverse new configurations – across multi-clouds to hybrid clouds.

4 CloudOps learning curves

There are learning curves with CloudOps, as there are with all true transformation approaches. Here are four.

1. Operations and IT stakeholders’ alignment will become more agile. Tensions and misalignment between operations and IT stakeholders can result in built-up costs and lost opportunities. CloudOps helps promote an agile work environment, aligning teams and ensuring an organisation’s IT environment supports its overall business missions.
2. How budgets are managed and costs optimised will change. No longer are operating expenses as breakdown or upkeep of hardware an issue – now the provider keeps the lights on. Costs are made more predictable and expenses avoided using the cloud’s elasticity and scale.  
3. Security is integrated across wider business functions. We’ve transitioned from a “high-trust” world of little online fear to a “low-trust” or “zero-trust” world with no clear or fixed perimeter. Configuring security posture management with CloudOps is best done using identity-based authorisation to resources.
4. An underlying important trend is the role of machine learning and automation. With cloud capabilities expanding rapidly, automating processes can be a true force multiplier for a business. When automated, operational processes can scale and so become more advanced and effective. Then, teams can scale and focus on the business value and quality itself.