How to avoid the rain by succeeding in the cloud
T-Systems Cloud
No matter where you're in your cloud journey we can help you navigate through the right cloud strategy for your business
Welcome to the first of a blog series on why a cloud strategy is vital and how a Cloud Center of Excellence could drive it. ???
Your metaphorical umbrella
Why is it that so many organizations never quite realize their cloud ambitions? In my 33 years of IT industry experience – the last fifteen or so having been in cloud - there are many reasons, but one thing repeatedly stands out: a lack of strategic direction and C-level commitment to that strategy.
Classic cloud pitfalls ?
Certainly, there are common pitfalls, such as not identifying application dependencies and ill-timed database migrations, causing avoidable disruption. However, there is a bigger picture to consider here, such as lacking an overall cloud strategy and roadmap or anything resembling a plan for how to get there and where to land.
Further, if there is no post-migration planning for your new cloud environment (how to manage and maintain your shiny new cloud toys), it will be harder to get any business value or realize any savings from such an endeavor.
But enterprises can avoid these and other typical headaches with the clarity that a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) can potentially offer.
Looking back
?Cloud computing isn’t the contemporary concept you might think. Its origins lie in the 1950s, which saw the commercial introduction of IBM mainframes – space-guzzling hardware for large-scale transactions offering time-sharing functionality by the 1960s. This innovation culminated in the advent of virtualization (virtual machines) - arguably inspiring one of the biggest evolutions in computing. For telcos, this eventually meant the realization of digitizing all their services and finally jettisoning lumpy, proprietary network equipment.
What is a CCoE?
If you consult the cloud hyperscalers, you’ll find enough information on the topic to paper your walls and plenty of differing opinions as to its exact nature! But fundamentally, a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE), a Cloud Competency Center, or just a Competency Center, as some folks like to call it, is a team of people highly attuned to the organization’s ambitions and users’ needs. The team:
In the context of the cloud, the word ‘journey’ may seem overused, but it’s because it fits; the cloud is not a ‘set and forget’ concept but rather an evolution. Once in the cloud, the CCoE continues to exist, advancing the organization’s maturity and modernization, optimizing costs and performance, facilitating the latest innovations, flexing to new demands, and ensuring the changes stick.
The Origins of a Cloud Center of Excellence
Legend has it that Stephen Orban coined the term ‘Cloud Center of Excellence’ in 2016 when he was General Manager for cloud giant AWS. But the concept dates back to earlier in his career when he was CIO of Dow Jones.
The core premise of Orban’s vision was that every business with a presence in the cloud, regardless of its size, should have a team responsible for cloud governance. Orban and his team migrated a data center that was coming off lease to the cloud, which saved over 30 percent in costs. They used that migration as the foundation for a cloud-first business case and went on to migrate more than 50 data centers to the cloud over three years and build new digital products in the cloud. ????
Under Orban’s leadership, the team provided a springboard for adopting new technologies quicker and better serving Dow Jones interests.
You need a strategy to plan effectively
History is littered with strategic planning failures, but I’ll let some scary statistics speak for themselves. In a McKinsey Global Survey, less than one-third of respondents who had been part of a transformation plan in the past five years believed their companies had successfully improved organizational performance and sustained those improvements over time. Moreover:
Source: Soocial, 18 cloud migration failure statistics 2023
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In worst-case scenarios, some organizations question the value of their investment and reach the point of considering ‘cloud repatriation’ – essentially reversing their move to the cloud and relocating their workloads and applications locally. If only they had enjoyed the benefits of a CCoE to establish a well-architected approach and a cloud migration framework. ????
So, one of the first duties of a CCoE is to create a plan to implement its vision based on the organization’s cloud ambitions and operating model. Achieving goals starts by articulating the all-important ‘why’- what is your organization’s motivation for operating in the cloud? What do its stakeholders expect to achieve, and by when? My advice: no effective CCoE should put pen to paper (digitally, of course) until the organization has nailed this.
Essentially, your ‘why’ is your strategy, and your plan is your living, breathing blueprint for delivering it. It’s common for many organizations to conflate the two, but they are discrete elements. For example, by calling a cloud migration plan a strategy when actually it is purely the steps they will follow to achieve the desired goals.
Wholesale agreement and understanding of these strategic goals will inform your CCoE’s decision-making, especially in the crucial early weeks and months when many of their decisions will play out over future years.
Who makes up a CCoE team?
A CCoE must have teeth: the agency and autonomy to write its own charter and the authority to drive it through. The C-level, having backed the CCoE’s blueprint, is not there to approve the team’s every action in the coming months but rather to support it as it delivers on its original cloud strategy and decisions.
Fundamentally, the C-level needs to drive the CCoE’s decisions and roadmap into the organization. ????
Given the breadth of skills required, it’s no surprise that an effective CCoE team comprises many roles. However, focusing on job roles alone risks neglecting other essential characteristics of an effective CCoE team.
That same team will need the ability to communicate across all other levels of the business (especially to business roles, stakeholders, and product managers), be well-versed in user engagement and change management principles, and, above all, reflect the diversity of the wider workforce it serves. Personalities matter – from results-oriented project managers to big-picture experimental thinkers, each can bring something valuable to the team. Of course, harmonious relationships help, but in such a dynamic environment, different points of view can be healthy. After all, everyone is focused on the same goal: the organization’s success, which, by definition, is the CCoE’s success.
The other advantages of a Cloud Center of Excellence include accelerated cloud adoption and reduced risk, better selection criteria, improved structural and operational efficiencies, increased automation, faster innovation, compliance and regulation, and IT service efficiencies.
Looking forward:? Building a Cloud Center of Excellence
If setting an appropriate strategy, assembling a skilled team, and establishing a CCoE feel like an enormous undertaking, that’s understandable, especially against the backdrop of the war on talent and pressures on resources. Consequently, many organizations involve external expertise.
At T-Systems, we can help build your CCoE and resource it to whatever extent is needed. For example, our subject-matter experts can provide the necessary capabilities to start with and upskill your teams so they can take over when they’re ready. Whether that’s a leading or supporting role depends on your enterprise’s requirements. Ultimately, we focus on outcomes, ensuring your CCoE delivers the expected benefits. ?
Explore our customizable cloud services and get in touch if you’d like our help or just an informal chat off the clock.
About Author: Richard Simon, CTO at T-Systems International is a Cloud Native and Open Source advocate, with over 33 years of IT industry experience. He has been working in various roles related to Cloud Computing, over the past 10+ years.
A highly structured, respected, and accomplished IT professional who's accumulated a vast set of experiences, ranging in systems engineering, field engineering, solutions and cloud architecture, project management, and consulting as a trusted advisor.
He has worked for a number of prestigious IT service providers, such as IBM, Lenovo, SUSE, Mirantis, Heptio, World Wide Technology, and most recently, Contino.
Richard runs the YouTube channel, Cloud Therapist, and enjoys making audiences think, during his public speaking engagements at various Cloud Native, DevOps, and Security conferences.
Making a difference through technology leadership
1 年Spot on demystifying Cloud. I’ve come across the pitfalls around cloud strategy often in my career. Really enjoyed reading this and learned some new facts about the origin of cloud too - every day is a learning day. Thanks for sharing.