Three key pillars to nail your cloud operating model

Your cloud investment can be the ultimate power move if you use it wisely. But how do you turn your cloud investment into a strategic advantage?

The key lies in adapting your operating model for the cloud era. An operating model defines how your organization delivers value, and the cloud provides many capabilities to enhance this delivery.

As you transition from a data center to the cloud, your operating model must evolve to fully leverage these new possibilities. Many start by replicating their data center in the cloud. This approach can help achieve quick wins, like exiting a physical data center. However, it often misses the true strengths of cloud computing—and can lead to unnecessary costs.

To fully benefit from the cloud, you need to refine your approach. This means tapping into advanced services such as auto-scaling, cloud apps and functions, and PaaS services. You create an efficient path to cloud adoption that drives real value by aligning these capabilities with your business goals.

This shift demands a fresh perspective on how your organization approaches IT infrastructure. Let's explore three key areas to consider as you move from on-premises to the cloud.

#1: A significant mindset change

With about 85% of organizations either starting to invest or increasing their investment in the cloud, organizations are riding the new wave of transformation.

Moving from a data center environment to a cloud environment requires significant planning. This shift also takes a new way of thinking and operating. With a data center environment, you must invest wisely when deploying capabilities, applications and other infrastructure components. In a data center you must size for maximum consumption so your application can perform well under load.

In contrast, when moving to the cloud, you focus more on the standard run rate and ability to scale your environment as demand changes. You can automatically grow your environment when there’s high demand and shrink it when demand decreases, reducing costs because you only pay for what you use.

However, all that sharing, expansion and contraction requires more work in the architectural space to make it possible.

How to prepare: Introduce innovation into the operating model for a more forward-thinking, cost-effective approach. Seek out structured innovation workshops that offer repeatable, cost-effective and differentiate solutions. The cloud offers numerous opportunities to agilely adapt cloud development to use these capabilities.

#2: A shift in required skills

Organizations are embracing the major benefits of the public cloud. In a data center environment, the required skills are more technology-oriented. Organizations will have OS specialists, database specialists and Network specialists, among others.

In the cloud, it’s more abstract. While you’ll still likely have specialists, you’ll also have cloud engineers with a broader skill set. Those cloud engineers will tap a solid knowledge base and skillset in cloud systems. These broader skills are made possible because the cloud is more consistent in how you interact with it.

Whether you’re dealing with a Windows image, a Linux image or a PaaS database, you’re working in cloud consoles and using scripts in a consistent way to access those capabilities. And you’ll need a broad understanding of the ever-growing and changing cloud capabilities to effectively utilize those capabilities to achieve your business objectives.

Most recent advancements in AI tools are cloud-centric and cloud providers are building them into their solutions. These new and evolving skills should be considered part of your toolbox. A best-of-breed approach can be valuable with any type of technology, including muti-cloud and hybrid cloud using multiple hyperscalers. You can take certain capabilities from one hyperscaler and other capabilities from another.

How to prepare: Harness expertise from multiskilled cloud architects and engineers who know the overall cloud environment. An example skill set may include an operating system, network, storage and security. This will give you the broad set of skills necessary for success with the cloud.

#3: Governance policies to protect your organization

Governance ensures your users behave consistently and are on the same page with how to achieve your business objectives. With the cloud, you can set policies that act as guardrails for users. This guides them in their use of the cloud, including where in the cloud to provision and what components are approved to be part of provisioning. Having a well-thought-out operational team structure also plays a vital role in governance.

How to prepare: Adopt an organizational structure that helps to enforce governance and ensure it stays in place. A trusted advisor can guide you in enacting the best governance policies and procedures. Consider adopting a cloud business office to monitor governance.

Maximize the value of your operating model

Transforming from a historic, data center-centric operating model to a modern, cloud-centric operating model is a powerful move that can drive significant business value. Lay the groundwork for success by considering the necessary mindset, skillsets and governance shifts that enable you to prepare for these differences.

For guidance, automated deployment and greater scalability on your cloud journey, consider the Unisys Cloud Transformation solution. Our expert consultants can increase your cloud confidence and shepherd that journey with everything from innovation workshops to proof-of-concept pilots.