This is a continuation of an article that describes operational considerations for hosting solutions on Azure public cloud.

There are several references to best practices throughout the series of articles posted on the documentation for the Azure Public Cloud. This article focuses on the antipatterns to avoid.

Antipatterns are experienced when planning a cloud adoption. Misaligned operating models can lead to increased time to market, misunderstanding and increased workload on IT departments. Companies choose the wrong operating model when they assume Platform-as-a-service decreases costs without their involvement. Sometimes change of direction in business can lead to radical changes in architecture requiring replacement projects which can become complex and cost intensive.

A model articulates types of accountabilities, landing zones and focus and the company chooses a model based on strategic priorities and scope of its portfolio. When we assign too much responsibility to a small team, it may result in slow adoption journey. Such a team is burdened to approve measures only after fully understanding the impact on the business, operations and security and it could be worse if these aren’t the teams’ main area of expertise.

Subject matter experts would like to use the cloud service, so business units increase pressure and if this is unregulated, shadow IT will emerge. Instead of this antipattern, models could be evaluated, and a readiness plan can be built. There are four most common cloud operational patterns which include decentralized operations, centralized operations, Enterprise operations, and Distributed operations from which a choice is made based on the strategic priorities and motivations and the scope of the portfolio to be managed. Strategic priorities could be one of innovation, control, democratization or integration. Portfolio scope could be one of workload, landing zone, cloud platform, or full portfolio.  It identifies the largest scope that a specific operating model is designed to operate.

A decentralized operation is the least complex of the common operating models. In this form of operations, all workloads are operated independently by dedicated teams. Innovation is prioritized over control. Speed is maximized with reduction in cross-workload standardization.  It introduces risk when managing a portfolio of workloads and it is limited to workload level decisions. The advantages include easy mapping of cost of operations, greater workload optimization, responsibilities shifted to DevOps and automation and DevOps and development teams are most empowered by this approach. They experience the least resistance to driving the market change. Many public cloud services are incubated and nurtured in this manner.

A centralized operation is for a stable state environment. It might not require as much focus on the architecture or distinct operational requirements of the individual model. Commercial off-the-shelf applications and slow-release cadence products benefit most from this model. The advantages include the economies of scale when services are shared across several workloads. Responsibilities are reduced on the workload focused team. Standardization and operations support are improved. Build tools and release pipelines are examples of centralized operations.

Enterprise state is the suggested target state for all cloud operations. Enterprise operations balance the need for control and innovation by democratizing decisions and responsibilities. Central IT is replaced by a cloud center of excellence and holds them accountable for decisions as opposed to controlling or limiting their actions. The advantages include cost management, cloud native tools, guardrails for consistency, clear processes and greater impact of the centralized experts along with separation of duties.

Distributed operations are unavoidable when existing operating model is too engrained or there are restrictions which prevent specific business units from making a change. It prioritizes on integration of multiple existing operating models. Since there is no commitment to a primary operating model, it requires a management group hierarchy to lower the risks. There is a distinct advantage for integration of common operating model elements from each business unit.

Finally, the choice of the right model improves the cloud adoption roadmap.