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Framework 2.0

    categories
  • Providing cloud strategy execution aligned with strategic business drivers, general IT strategy and sourcing strategy

    strategy
  • Involving the business in cloud transition, supporting them in adopting new cloud solutions to increase business value

    business
  • Facilitating an organisational structure that enables successful cloud use and building up necessary cloud knowledge and capabilities

    organisation
  • Designing, building and continuously improving the cloud platform (including landing zones, IAM, connectivity and integration) for the sole purpose of serving the business

    platform
  • Fostering a culture where innovativeness leads, people learn and adapt quickly, responsibility and autonomy are embraced, and business & IT work seamlessly

    culture
    capabilities
  • Maintaining a desired speed of cloud adoption and digital transformation according to the cloud strategy and KPIs

    cloud strategy execution
  • Realising the optimal mix of cloud services, products and suppliers according to cloud strategy

    strategic sourcing
    capabilities
  • Creating cooperation amongst DevOps and value teams, IT, and the various cloud stakeholders to automate processes, and spread knowledge and competences so that the CCoE becomes obsolete

    business support
  • Supporting the deployment, change management and policy compliance of applications, infrastructure and services using automation pipelines by autonomously operating business teams

    cloud solution management
  • Acquiring full control of the cloud services provided by the CCoE and those supplied by external services and suppliers

    cloud services & supplier management
    capabilities
  • Enhancing and embedding organisation wide cloud expertise, proactively and continuously, so that a CCoE is not needed anymore for that purpose

    knowledge management
  • Reorganising teams, mandates and responsibilities, the way of working within and amongst those teams, so that competences and talents are optimally used

    organisation development
    capabilities
  • Providing for an effective and efficient cloud platform that is designed according to the guidelines and principles which is flexible with a high level of self service opportunities

    platform development
  • Enabling the business to increase innovation in a controlled way by providing a platform so the operational processes are automated as much as possible

    platform operations
  • Providing fully automated tooling, reporting and recovery in the area of security and compliance of the cloud platform and the solutions it serves

    security operations
    capabilities
  • Developing leadership styles that are based on a validated mission and vision allowing for continuous innovation

    innovative leadership
  • Creating common ground for digital transformation and cloud transition

    change management
    building blocks
  • Achieving and monitoring the objectives of the cloud strategy, during and post transformation

    strategic value tracking
  • Identifying and maintaining active relations with those stakeholders who are likely to contribute to successful transformation

    stakeholder management
  • Maintaining an enterprise architecture that fully supports and contributes to the realisation of the objectives of the cloud strategy

    cloud focused enterprise architecture
    building blocks
  • Selecting and contracting cloud partners and suppliers that bring strategic value and positively impact the creation of value for the organisation and business

    partner selection & contracting
  • Facilitating and managing full alignment of the services provided by the different cloud partners and suppliers for the purpose of (cost) efficiency and integration

    partner alignment
    building blocks
  • Building, maintaining and sharing sufficient cloud knowledge in the organisation

    knowledge building & sharing
  • Ensuring sufficient cloud expertise through accessible and efficient cloud training and certifications

    learning paths
    building blocks
  • Initially setting up and continuously optimising the responsibilities, tasks, roles and positioning of the CCoE in the organisation and in relation to other organisational components

    CCoE formation & positioning
  • Adopting a way of working through which the CCoE enables the organisation to adapt to business needs and organisational changes

    way of working & mandate
  • Shaping and facilitating cloud talent acquisition and development

    career & incentive management
    building blocks
  • Initial design and implementation of a cloud platform (foundation) and landing zones that perform checks, offers guidelines and services to be used by (DevOps) teams

    platform design & build
  • Creating, managing and deploying re-usable reference architectures to be used to build solutions

    reference architectures
  • Ensuring that the platform and solution architectures used are consistent with the principles and guidelines laid down in the enterprise architecture

    enterprise architecture alignment
    building blocks
  • Creating and evangelising core values that are in line with vision, mission and change process

    core values & vision
  • Creating support for change in the formal and informal network of the organisation

    leadership of change
    building blocks
  • Creating new rituals and stories that strengthen and develop new behaviour towards cloud

    storytelling & rituals
  • Creating an environment feeding a continuous drive for optimisation and innovation

    continuous improvement

cost control & optimisation

“Controlling and optimising cloud economics”

overview

“Cost control is fundamental to successful cloud adoption”

To make cost control possible, financial transparency is essential. In an organisation that has fully embraced cloud, it should be possible that those using cloud resources, services and solutions can be held and feel responsible for controlling the costs and continuously optimising the spend: “the user pays”.

For instance, business domains are responsible for the cost of the SaaS solutions they use, management is responsible for making sure that cloud costs are included in product pricing, and DevOps teams must be responsible for controlling costs related to their solutions and features. Cloud costs, to a large extent, vary with the use of resources and can increase significantly over a very short period. Hence the need to implement cost controls and increase cost awareness.

DevOps teams can allocate budget to a solution and monitor spend, using alerts. By optimising the solution in terms of using the most cost-efficient services, DevOps teams can increase customer’s satisfaction. Cloud costs can be managed in many ways, and there are several opportunities to drive down costs in cloud. Cloud services are available in different forms and variations, and it pays to evaluate purpose and fit periodically. For instance, there are several different database management systems which can be used. They can be evaluated based on functional fit, but also on costs. Updated resource models could also mean reduced costs. For example, if the cloud service provider updates IaaS instance models it could be that a newer, smaller model provides just enough resources to handle your workload: all in all, little effort to save cost.

As cloud services are updated and added frequently, their life cycle is much shorter than we are used to. A regular evaluation of services used, makes sense. DevOps teams should also think of an automation strategy with the goal to optimise costs. Shutting down VMs when they are not needed is an obvious one. Also, DevOps teams must comply with the organisation’s tagging strategy in order to warrant correct costs reports.

activities checklist

initial:

  • Designing and implementing dashboards to increase cloud spend insight and ownership
  • Implementing feedback loops from cost discrepancies to technology choices
  • Incorporating cost optimisation in agile workflow
  • Training teams and team leads on the cost control and  optimisation opportunities
  • Drafting tagging strategy
  • Drafting an automation strategy with regard to cost optimisation

recurring:

  • Analysing operational costs as input for business case
  • Configuring budget alerts and thresholds
  • Monitoring and document approved deviations from policies and principles to account for cost increase
  • Continuously optimising cloud spend, both proactively and reactively

cloud governance RASCI

cloud consultantconsulting
cloud architect
cloud security specialist
cloud developerconsulting
cloud engineer
cloud analystconsulting
product owner CCoE
managementinformed
cloud partnersconsulting
DevOps teamaccountable
business stakeholderinformed
architecture
security
financeinformed
procurement