What is the cloud operating model?

Introduction

The cloud operating model is a new approach for IT operations that enables organizations to be successful with cloud adoption and thrive in an era of multi-cloud architecture.

HashiCorp's cloud operating model enables your organization to unlock the fastest path to value in a modern multi-cloud datacenter. When your organization adopts this common operating model; it enables people, process, and tool to work most efficiently.

The Unlocking the cloud operating model whitepaper reviews each component of this approach and the path to standardizing application delivery across all layers necessary to support a cloud-based architecture.

This document provides a brief overview of each component in that whitepaper and an introduction to HashiCorp Well-Architected Framework.

Multi-datacenter transition

To begin, your organization must negotiate the initial challenge; the shift from largely dedicated servers in a private datacenter to a pool of compute capacity available on-demand, with many cloud providers.

This approach allows your organization to optimize your infrastructure for consistent and reusable workflows across multiple clouds while addressing the common enterprise challenges of:

• core business databases and internal applications that must stay private.
• application delivery that's dependent on multiple teams.
• technology changes from contained VM environments to cloud 'resources'.

Cloud operating model foundations

Your IT organization can deliver on-demand resources when infrastructure is consistently provisioned, secured, connected, and run. For most enterprises, delivering on-demand resources will require a transition in each of those areas.

• Provision. The infrastructure layer transitions from dedicated servers at limited scale to a dynamic environment where organizations can adjust to increased demand by spinning up thousands of servers and scaling them down when not in use.
• Secure. The security layer transitions from a fundamentally “high-trust” world with a strong perimeter and firewall to a “low-trust” or “zero-trust” environment with no clear or static perimeter.
• Connect. The networking layer transitions from heavily dependent on the physical location and IP address of services and applications to using a dynamic registry of services for discovery, segmentation, and composition.
• Run. The runtime layer shifts from deploying artifacts to a static application server to deploying applications with a scheduler atop a pool of infrastructure which is provisioned on-demand. In addition, new applications have become collections of services that are dynamically provisioned, and packaged in multiple ways: from virtual machines to containers.

HashiCorp stack implementation

Implementation of the HashiCorp stack eases the infrastructure transition by providing the consistency at each layer for your organizations people, processes, and tools. There are five steps in the journey that we have seen organizations adopt successfully.

1. Multi-cloud infrastructure provisioning with Terraform.
2. Multi-cloud security with Vault.
3. Multi-cloud service networking with Consul.
4. Multi-cloud application delivery with Nomad.
5. Industrialized application delivery process.

HashiCorp Well-Architected Framework

HashiCorp's well-architected framework extends the cloud operating model and provides step-by-step guidance for implementing the HashiStack.

The goal of our framework is to enable enterprises to migrate their workloads to a multi-cloud architecture that is secure, reliable, high-performing, resilient, with automated and dynamic infrastructure. It will provide practitioners with a set of best practices that align with the cloud operating model based on a set of pillars.

Continue to the next document to understand how to implement HashiCorp Well-Architected Framework at your organization.