Vision
In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, organisations are continually seeking ways to optimise their cloud operations and streamline their processes. A Cloud Op Model provides a framework for managing cloud resources and services in a consistent and efficient manner. It can help organisations to improve their cloud security, governance, and cost management.
The cloud operating model, when combined with the power of public cloud such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP) along with cloud automation tools such as HashiCorp’s product suite, offers a transformative approach that can make this vision a reality. In this blog, we will delve into the concept of the cloud operating model, its importance, the benefits it offers, popular team topologies, and a real-world example illustrating its implementation with GCP and HashiCorp.
What is an Operating Model?
A Cloud Operating Model is the blueprint of how an organisation conducts its operations. It defines how people, processes, and technology work together to achieve business objectives. In the context of the cloud, the cloud operating model outlines how an organisation leverages cloud resources, services, and tools to optimise its digital presence and deliver value to customers efficiently. It provides a framework for making decisions about cloud adoption, deployment, and management. A Cloud Op Model can help organisations to:
- Improve their cloud security and compliance posture
- Reduce their cloud costs
- Improve their cloud performance and reliability
- Increase their cloud agility and innovation
Why is it Important?
An Operating Model is important for any organisation that is using the cloud. The cloud provides a wide range of benefits, but it also introduces a number of challenges, such as managing complex infrastructure, ensuring security, and controlling costs. A Cloud Operating Model can help organisations to address these challenges and get the most out of their cloud investments.
A well-defined cloud operating model accelerates the digital growth of an organisation in several ways:
- Security and Compliance: A well-structured cloud operating model ensures that security best practices are integrated into all aspects of cloud operations. It simplifies compliance efforts and reduces the risk of data breaches, downtime and security vulnerabilities.
- Cost Optimization: By implementing cost controls, organisations can track and manage cloud expenditures effectively. They can identify opportunities to reduce costs and allocate resources efficiently, leading to substantial savings.
- Improved Collaboration: Teams work cohesively, enabling cross-functional collaboration.
- Improved performance, consistency and reliability: A Cloud Operating Model can help organisations to improve their cloud performance and reliability by providing a framework for monitoring and managing infrastructure and services. It ensures consistent deployment and management practices, reducing errors.
- Increased agility: A Cloud Operating Model can help organisations to increase their cloud agility by providing a framework for rapid deployment and scaling of applications. Organisations can respond to market changes faster by leveraging cloud services and infrastructure.
- Innovation: With a cloud operating model in place, organisations can embrace new technologies and services that drive innovation. They can experiment with serverless computing, machine learning, and other cutting-edge capabilities to gain a competitive edge.
Team Topologies in Cloud Operating Model
Team topologies are a way of organising teams around the work they do, rather than by function or product. This can be beneficial for cloud operating models because it allows teams to be more responsive to change and to collaborate more effectively.
There are four main team topologies:
- Stream-aligned teams: These teams are responsible for the end-to-end delivery of a product or service.
- Enabling teams: These teams provide support and expertise to stream-aligned teams.
- Complicated-systems teams: These teams are responsible for managing complex systems, such as infrastructure and security.
- X-as-a-Service teams: These teams provide self-service capabilities to other teams.
The key to success is collaboration and communication between these teams to ensure a seamless cloud operating model.
Real-World Example with GCP and HashiCorp
Let’s explore a real-world example of how a company can leverage Google Cloud Platform and HashiCorp products in its cloud operating model:
Company X, a global e-commerce giant, utilises GCP for a vast infrastructure that hosts its web applications and HashiCorp’s suite of tools to streamline its operations. The company uses Terraform to manage its GCP infrastructure and to provision new resources on demand. The company also uses Vault to manage its secrets and to provide secure access to its resources.
Utilising the team topology discussed above, below is a potential team structure for maintaining the services in company X:
- Platform Team: Responsible for building and maintaining the core GCP infrastructure, utilising Terraform for infrastructure as code, such as shared network, network / organisation policies, IAM etc. The team also uses Vault to manage the secrets that it needs to access and manage the company’s infrastructure.
- Web application team: These teams focus on developing and deploying applications / microservices on the virtual machines or Google managed Kubernetes platform, GKE clusters. The team also uses Vault to store and manage its secrets, such as database passwords and API keys.
- Security and Compliance Team: Ensures that security measures are in place and that compliance standards are met. The security and compliance team work with the platform team to employ Terraform Sentinel and GCP services to enforce policies and compliance standards across the cloud environment, ensuring robust security. The team also uses Vault to audit and monitor the company’s security posture.
- Ops Teams: Handle monitoring, automation, and incident response using Google Cloud’s robust monitoring and logging services, Cloud Operations Suite.
This Cloud Op Model allows the company to manage its GCP resources and services in a consistent and efficient manner. As a result, Company X enjoys unparalleled scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness, thanks to its well-structured cloud operating model using GCP and HashiCorp products. The company is able to accelerate its digital growth by bringing new products and services to market faster, improving the customer experience, reducing costs, and increasing its agility and innovation.
Conclusion
A Cloud Operating Model is an essential framework for any organisation that is using the cloud. It can help organisations to improve their cloud security, governance, cost management, performance, reliability, agility, and innovation. By adopting the right team topologies and fostering collaboration, organisations can unlock the full potential of this cloud operating model, just as Company X has achieved great success in its cloud journey. As technology continues to evolve, embracing a cloud operating model with the right tools is the path to success in the digital era.
GCP and the HashiCorp product suite provide a powerful combination of tools and services that can be used to implement a Cloud Op Model.
In conclusion, adopting the right cloud operating model with any cloud platform and automation product suites can empower organisations to stay ahead of the competition curve in the modernization journey. It enables them to remain agile, secure, and efficient, while fostering innovation and cost-effectiveness. By making the most of digital, app, infrastructure, and data modernization, organisations can achieve a competitive edge and meet the evolving demands of today’s digital economy.
Additional Resources
Automate your deployments | Architecture Framework | Google Cloud
Google Cloud Architecture Framework: Security, privacy, and compliance
Connecting the dots: how the cloud operating model meets enterprise CIO needs | Google Cloud Blog
A framework to build Cloud Operating Model and Governance — Part II | by Kapil Gupta | Google Cloud – Community | Medium Enabling a Cloud Operating Model
Disclaimer
This blog post is my opinion and research on Cloud Operating Model. Readers are encouraged to explore the official GCP and Hashicorp documentation and additional resources for more in-depth information. Feel free to leave comments with your opinion regarding Cloud Operating Model.
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Goo(gle)d Luck!!!