What is Cloud Computing Governance?

Are you certain about the answers to the following simple questions?

  • Are all individuals involved doing the right things?
  • Is every responsible individual for certain aspect of the service delivery doing them the right way?
  • How do we know? How can we show it is being done right?

Governance means having the necessary processes and procedures in place. And on some regular basis they are tested to ensure everyone involved is following the established and agreed upon checks and balances.

 

 

Cloud Governance should be part of implementation of Cloud, if security, privacy, and compliance are top of mind for your organization.
Our Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL v4) experts can assist in doing Cloud right from the very start. ITIL v4 framework defined and established tailor made to your needs and the ITIL manual. and What it Means and Why it Matters in supporting:

  • Problem Management
  • Incident Management
  • Change Management
  • Service Operations
  • Incident Management
  • Problem Management
  • Asset Management
  • Continuous improvement

 

Cloud adds another layer to the governance picture. Cloud’s simplicity of consumption also means things can become chaotic very quickly. A good example is standing up a test bed in the cloud, but no one is keeping an eye on taking them down after the test. When the bills come in everyone is surprised. Should somebody be assigned to this task, or after 30 days of 0 use of that instance in the cloud the instance is automatically taken down.

Cloud computing governance is even more important for the organizations than before for the following:

  • Be more agile
  • Be better equipped to adapt what they do
  • Be ready to adopt new ways of working to succeed
  • Accountability
  • Defining decision, rights, rights management, and balancing benefit or value, risk, and resources in the cloud

Cloud computing governance creates business-driven policies and principles that establish the appropriate degree of investments and control around the lifecycle process for cloud computing services.

This ensures all enterprise expenditures related to cloud are aligned with the business objectives, promote data integrity across the enterprise, encourage innovation, and mitigate the risk of data loss or non-compliance with regulations. It recognizes that cloud computing increases the pervasive nature of IT and ensures enterprise-level decision-makers are able to address the overall IT investment, resource requirements, opportunities for value, and implications of risk – regardless of organization or delivery provider.

 

Landscape of Governance Models and Standards

The landscape of governance models and standards includes models and standards that satisfy the following criteria:

  • Driven by business governance while addressing IT governance
  • Global and not specific to any geography
  • Not specific to any one industry domain
  • Align with existing governance models and standards

In summary, sound business, IT, ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE, service management, Service Oriented Architecture, and governance are essential to effective cloud computing governance. The frame work of Cloud Governance is depicted in the following diagram:

 

Cloud Computing Governance

 

 

Cloud Computing Governance

 

PROCESS MATURITY

Problem:
Consuming cloud services can very quickly become a problem if appropriate processes and checks and balances are not in place.

  • Execution of IT service management (ITSM) for any IT process engagement
  • Examination of current processes
  • Documentation of current processes
  • Utilization of maturity models to determine areas of improvement
  • ITIL (formally an acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library): a set of practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business

Solution:
Cloudify will engage our black-belt ITSM experts to work with our clients in any process improvement project. Certified ITSM process improvement analysts will ensure your business is ready to consume IT as a Service rather than a function.

 

Cloud Computing Governance

 

We are pragmatic about what the role of processes are and what impact they can have in an organization:

  • We will examine all current processes
  • We will perform a gap analysis
  • Process is not put in place a s red-tape but to truly improve the underlying services
  • Define pragmatic, actionable and tailored roadmap for individual process that will really serve each organization and improve the offerings to end-client of IT services

 

Information Technology Asset Management (ITAM)

 

A critical component in the maturity of an IT department is the accuracy of their asset management. ITAM is introduces discipline and maturity through accountability and controls. It’s a fact that a mature IT department will be significantly less expensive than an immature department. Introducing the Asset Management Life Cycle leads to cost avoidance and cost reductions that are immediately recognized by the business. It also addresses critical governance and controls required for security and compliance. IT leaders recognize that Asset Management is the only department under their control that reduces and controls IT spend.

Leaders are looking for effective measures to reduce their IT spend. When an organization knows what infrastructure assets they own and where those assets reside, they can better provide service continuity and service availability and can more effectively manage the costs of IT services. When implemented, ITAM processes capture an organization’s asset portfolio details, such as asset configurations, contractual terms and conditions, ownership and financial attributes. A comprehensive, centralized ITAM program can make accurate, up-to-date information available as needed for billing, reporting, harvesting and reusing assets, asset allocation, budgeting and chargeback of IT services to meet business goals

 

Some first steps to implement ITAM are:

  1. Policies must be written and adopted
  2. Processes must be developed and deployed
  3. Resources may need to be hired and trained
  4. Tools may need to be evaluated and deployed

 

 

Few things in your control have a bigger impact to the bottom line than the accuracy of your IT assets because inaccuracy has an enormous cost to an organization as well as other negative impacts. Optimization and efficiency through ITAM is a proven method of reducing IT spend. Investing in accuracy is investing in cost reduction and cost avoidance. Every dollar saved is directly reflected on the bottom line of the organization. The solution to inaccuracy isn’t expensive or burdensome to the organization, but it does require experience and determination.

Engaging Cloudify to perform an ITAM examination is a solid first step to introducing discipline and maturity into your organization. The examination will be a roadmap to reductions in costs and increases in efficiency as well as introducing critical controls and governance.