In the two previous posts in this series, we first explored the fundamentals of cloud governance and then followed up on strategies for managing shadow IT. A key theme throughout has been the importance of establishing a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) to centralize cloud expertise and drive governance across the organization.
In part three of this series, we'll dive deeper into how to design and operate a successful CCoE. We'll cover defining the purpose and composition of a CCoE, establishing a governance model, ensuring collaboration, and measuring success.
What is a Cloud Center of Excellence?
A CCoE is a cross-functional team that leads and governs an organization's cloud adoption and operation. Its primary purpose is to accelerate cloud adoption by establishing best practices, enabling teams, and driving cultural change.
As the AWS whitepaper Overview of the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework explains, a CCoE is comprised of two functional groups:
- The Cloud Business Office (CBO): Ensures cloud services meet the needs of internal customers and business services. Owns functions like organizational change management, governance, and cost optimization.
- Cloud Engineering: Owns infrastructure automation, operational tools and processes, security controls, and migration landing zones. Focuses on performance, availability, and security.
The CCoE helps the organization gain traction, provides expertise, and reduces risks in the initial stages of cloud adoption. However, it's important to note that a CCoE is not always necessary—it depends on the organization's specific challenges and context.
Determining the Lifespan of Your CCoE
One key decision in designing your CCoE is whether it will be a temporary or permanent team. The AWS blog post Using a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE) to Transform the Entire Enterprise suggests that a CCoE is best thought of as a temporary enablement team, as the cloud will eventually become the "new normal" for the entire IT organization.
The functions of a CCoE, such as cloud platform engineering, security, and compliance, will eventually be absorbed into the broader IT organization as cloud maturity grows. The danger is creating a separate silo for the cloud that persists long-term.
However, some organizations maintain a permanent CCoE to continuously optimize cloud operations. The key is ensuring the CCoE enables rather than gates the rest of the organization. As the Microsoft Azure Cloud Adoption Framework states, when successful, a CCoE model creates a significant shift in IT, moving from a control and operations focus to a broker and enablement role.
Key Responsibilities of the CCoE
The primary duty of the CCoE team is to accelerate cloud adoption through cloud-native or hybrid solutions. Key responsibilities include:
- Helping build a modern IT organization using agile approaches
- Developing reusable deployment packages aligned with policies
- Maintaining a functional cloud platform aligned with operational procedures
- Reviewing and approving the use of cloud-native tools
- Standardizing and automating common platform components over time
To fulfill these responsibilities, the CCoE must collaborate closely with application teams, infrastructure teams, security, compliance, finance, and executive leadership. Establishing a regular meeting cadence and clear communication channels is critical.
Establishing a Cloud Governance Model
A core responsibility of the CCoE is establishing a cloud governance model. This includes:
- Defining policies and standards for security, compliance, cost management, etc.
- Establishing processes for provisioning, incident management, change control, etc.
- Clarifying roles and responsibilities across IT and business teams
- Selecting and implementing governance tools and technologies
The CCoE's role includes creating an initial governance approach for the cloud, with a focus on automating policies and enabling teams. Over time, cloud governance should become integral to overall IT governance.
Ensuring Collaboration and Support
A CCoE requires ongoing collaboration and support from stakeholders across the organization to be effective. Some key strategies include:
- Securing executive sponsorship to champion the CCoE
- Building a cross-functional CCoE team with representation from IT, security, finance, and business units
- Engaging application teams early and often to understand and meet their needs
- Fostering open communication and providing training to build cloud skills
The CCoE should act as a partner and enabler to the business, not a gatekeeper. Building strong relationships and focusing on customer needs is critical. As VMware Tanzu advises, no matter what phase of cloud maturity you're in, the CCoE can help improve visibility, drive optimization, maintain governance, and align the cloud strategy with business goals.
Measuring Success and Evolving
To ensure your CCoE is effective, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure its impact. Metrics may include:
- Cloud adoption rate: Track the percentage of workloads and applications migrated to the cloud over time. This measures the CCoE's effectiveness in driving cloud adoption.
- Cost optimization: Measure the cost savings and avoidance achieved through the CCoE's efforts. This could include savings from right-sizing resources, reserved instances, or automated shutdown of idle resources.
- Agility and time-to-market: Assess how the CCoE has improved the speed and agility of deploying new applications and features. Metrics could include the time from idea to production or the frequency of releases.
- Compliance and audit readiness: Evaluate the effectiveness of the CCoE in maintaining continuous compliance. Track the time and effort required to prepare for and pass audits.
- Customer satisfaction: Survey internal customers (application teams, business units) to gauge their satisfaction with the CCoE's services and support. Use Net Promoter Score (NPS) or similar metrics.
Establish a baseline for these KPIs and set targets for improvement. Regularly measure and report on progress to stakeholders.
In addition to quantitative metrics, also gather qualitative feedback from stakeholders. Conduct regular surveys, interviews, and workshops to understand what's working well and areas for improvement.
Use these insights to evolve and optimize your CCoE continuously. Some areas to regularly reassess and iterate on include 1) Governance policies and processes, 2) Tooling and automation, 3) Skills and training, and 4) Organizational structure.
Remember, a CCoE is not a static entity. Its structure, focus, and services should evolve as the organization's cloud maturity and needs change. Embrace an agile mindset and adapt the CCoE to continuously meet the needs of the business.
Getting Started
Building an effective Cloud Center of Excellence takes time and iteration. Start small, stay focused on outcomes, and scale as you learn. Some key steps to get started:
- Define your CCoE's mission and objectives
- Secure executive support and assemble a cross-functional team
- Assess current state and identify gaps in skills, processes, and tools
- Establish an initial governance MVP and implementation roadmap
- Communicate early and often to build awareness and gather feedback
By starting lean and delivering value quickly, you can demonstrate the impact of the CCoE and earn the trust and support needed for long-term success.
How WEI Can Help
Designing and operating a successful CCoE requires deep cloud strategy, architecture, security, and governance expertise. A trusted and proven partner like WEI can help with this.
WEI's Cloud Strategy & Advisory Services help you align your cloud journey with business objectives. Our certified experts can assist you in developing a comprehensive cloud strategy and roadmap to accelerate innovation and drive value from AWS.
By partnering with WEI, you gain access to deep cloud expertise to help you build and operate a high-impact Cloud Center of Excellence. WEI is your trusted guide for cloud success from initial strategy through implementation and optimization.
Next Steps: WEI, an AWS Select Tier Services Partner, collaborates closely with customers to identify their biggest challenges and develop comprehensive cloud solutions. WEI emphasizes customer satisfaction by leveraging AWS technologies to enhance development, maintenance, and delivery capabilities.
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