What Is Cloud Operations?
Cloud Operations (CloudOps) is an operations-oriented framework describing the integration of an organization's unique set of technologies, people, and processes set up to manage the delivery, performance, and optimization of the IT workloads they run in the cloud.
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How does CloudOps work?
All aspects of CloudOps are addressed through a multilayer management approach, including a governance layer, cloud application layer, cloud operations layer, cloud foundation layer, and a security layer that permeates all previous layers.
Why is it important to improve CloudOps?
Improving CloudOps can:
- Keep cloud infrastructure and services running and available
- Optimize resource performance and reduce costs
- Honor service-level agreements (SLAs)
- Manage compliance and configurations
What is the role of CloudOps?
CloudOps establishes best practices for cloud-based processes and is built upon a cloud operating model underpinned by principles to promote operational agility and simplicity.
What are the benefits of CloudOps?
Effective and efficient CloudOps processes provide exceptional agility and scalable resources, setting the standard for a company's effectiveness.
In short, improving CloudOps processes, technology, or people also improves a company's delivery effectiveness and efficiency and benefits the business in multiple ways, including:
- Metered services are more cost-effective and cost controlled
- Cloud resources can more effectively scale up and scale out
- Automation of routine tasks emancipates time and reduces errors
- Infrastructure abstraction benefits innovation and insight
How is CloudOps similar to other operations processes?
Sharing many of the same principles, CloudOps is similar to DevOps, SecOps, and NetOps, each of which describes the operational practices, technologies, and workflows used to manage each specific area of operation.
Multilayered CloudOps framework
CloudOps is a holistic framework for managing all aspects of an organization's cloud ecosystem. This framework is generally stratified into several general layers: a governance layer, an application layer, an operation layer, a foundation layer, and a security layer that spans the others.
Governance layer
The governance layer includes the activities that address real risk, business drivers and requirements, compliance standards, and data security. The key activity areas include cloud financial management, cloud operations management, cloud data management, and cloud security and compliance management.
Cloud application layer
At the top of the tech stack the cloud application layer is concerned with how the organization deploys and manages and monitors applications and application-specific services in the cloud.
Cloud operation layer
The cloud operation layer supports the application layer through the deployment, management, monitoring, and operations of cloud services.
Cloud foundation layer
The cloud foundation layer supports the application and operations layer with core services: identity, network management, logging, central backup management, infrastructure as code (IaC), and central monitoring functions.
Security layer
The security layer spans all other layers to help ensure that the system is not vulnerable to threats. Ideally, the CloudOps security layer is integrated into the organization's larger cybersecurity efforts.
Stratifying cloud operations into a multilayered approach is just one way to add to an organization's cloud agility. In addition, organizations should embrace seven CloudOps principles that lay the foundation for operational agility.
Key CloudOps agility principles
Developmental agility allows companies to rapidly develop, test, and then deploy software to drive business growth. The monitoring and management of cloud resources creates operational agility that enables enterprises to quickly respond to changing business needs.
To support this agility, enterprises should consider platforms that support the following principles:
Anywhere access
Anywhere access is the provision that users have access to enterprise cloud services from any location and from different devices, such as a mobile, tablet, or desktop. This feature may extend beyond employees to other constituents of the access model, such as customers and suppliers.
On-demand self-service
Self-service is the provision that cloud resources can be utilized, expanded or contracted, on demand, to meet operational needs. Self-service features offer control of on-demand cloud resources typically through online control panels.
Consistent policy
Policies, which help document internal and security controls, are critical for organizations to help ensure their cloud integrity and privacy. Management of cloud policies helps to ensure cloud resources are supporting business goals while complying with external compliance requirements if needed.
Common data telemetry
Cloud telemetry allows IT teams to access and analyze data from devices across clouds. By analyzing common data telemetry sources, such as logs, metrics, events and network traces, it becomes possible to easily determine the health of applications and the cloud network they run on.
Policy automation
A policy automation defines the conditions to be met before an action is triggered. It typically layers complex business logic over operational IT. Even further, policy automation enables enterprises to quickly respond to changes in policies and implement those changes throughout the organization quickly.
Application Programming Interface (APIs)
APIs allow two disparate systems to easily communicate without needing to expose their inner logic to each other. A common interface allows for easy and consistent interoperability between systems that can undergo constant code updates. In the cloud, this means cloud infrastructure can continuously improve underneath a common interface that users do not need to relearn or adjust their applications to work with as updates are rolled out.
Visibility
From a resource and cost standpoint, visibility into cloud performance and resource usage is a key advantage of cloud operations. Metered services are able to catalog exact resource usage on a monthly, even hourly, basis—ideal for companies whose needs fluctuate, like with seasonal demand.
These underlying principles can increase agility while improving controls over the whole system by tightly monitoring devices and policies and favoring transparent and independent systems.
The cloud operating model
The key purpose of a cloud operating model is to optimize the delivery of cloud services, enhance the agility and efficiency of an organization's IT operations, and align the business goals and objectives of the organization. A cloud operating model lays out the mix of elements that are organized to bring life to a cloud operation. Although a cloud operating model is unique to each organization, generally operating models address the three key buckets to operational success: people, processes, and technology.
People
People remain the most critical aspect of a cloud operating model despite the fact that automation has advanced to remove many of the lower-level repetitive, mundane tasks. Because company culture cannot easily be automated away, it remains the biggest challenge in addressing organizational structure, cloud-focused roles, and the accountability of team members. People and company culture must adjust from old operational IT models in order to take full advantage of cloud models.
Processes
As with people, processes must also adapt. With the advent of cloud models and its emphasis on dynamism and automation, the legacy processes that IT teams follow have had to undergo tremendous changes, even wholesale replacement where antiquated processes no longer fit with the newer technology. In the cloud operating model, processes cover everything from governance and policies, operational processes, and the management of SLAs, master service agreements (MSA), and other monitoring efforts.
Technology
Cloud technology is the foundation of CloudOps. Its primary goal is to support the people and processes that make the business a success by delivering cloud IT services. Specifically, technology supports a cloud operating model's ability to reach organizational transformation, operational readiness, and time-to-value in the cloud.