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Anyone who’s involved in the creation of software products should be well familiar with DevOps, a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations, with the goal of shortening the development lifecycle and providing continuous delivery and high-quality products.
A related concept, CloudOps, for “cloud operations,” has emerged as enterprises increasingly move application development and workloads to the cloud, and those cloud outlays become more complex.
Here we examine what CloudOps is, how it can benefit your organization, and the key issues you should keep in mind when implementing CloudOps in your enterprise.
What is CloudOps?
CloudOps is an operations practice for managing the delivery, optimization, and performance of IT services and workloads running in a cloud environment.
Whether an enterprise is operating with a multicloud, hybrid cloud, or private cloud strategy, CloudOps is intended to establish procedures and best practices for cloud-based processes, in much the same way DevOps does for application development and delivery.
CloudOps: A multilayered framework for cloud operations
“Holistic CloudOps is a framework with several layers that help enterprises manage all aspects of their cloud ecosystem,” says Jason Hatch, vice president and cloud center of excellence lead at consulting firm Capgemini Americas.
One is a governance layer that includes activities such as financial operations — also known as FinOps — to control costs and manage budgeting for the cloud. “The governance layer should also contain the architecture standards on how and what is able to be deployed in a cloud, and have a way to programmatically enforce those standards,” Hatch says.
Other framework layers include the cloud application layer, which covers how an organization deploys and manages/monitors applications and application-specific services in the cloud; the cloud operations layer, for the deployment, management, monitoring, and operations of cloud services; and the cloud foundations layer, which includes core services such as identity, network management, logging, central backup management, infrastructure as code, and central monitoring functions.
“Spanning all these layers is the ‘security layer,’ which includes vulnerability and threat management, workload protection, and the integration into a company’s larger cybersecurity management function,” Hatch says.
Where CloudOps fits in the enterprise
The CloudOps model has particular relevance for application delivery, something many organizations are focusing on with digital initiatives aimed at increasing...