What Is CCoE?

Enterprise cloud transformation is a complex and systematic project. A Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) is required to lead, coordinate, and promote an entire cloud transformation project. CCoE is a centralized team established by an enterprise for cloud transformation. It is responsible for the entire cloud transformation journey, including strategy development, top-level planning, survey and evaluation, solution design, adoption and implementation, and O&M governance. It aims to help enterprises maximize the benefits of cloud computing and ensure the successful implementation of cloud transformation projects by providing best practices, guidance, and resources. CCoE has the following main responsibilities:

• Cloud strategy development: Develop a cloud strategy that aligns with the enterprise's business objectives, assess the maturity of cloud transformation, specify the cloud transformation objectives and expected benefits, and plan the specific implementation roadmap.
• Top-level planning for cloud transformation: Plan and design the cloud transformation projects at the top level, including the optimization of the application cloud transformation process, landing zone design, platform engineering design, and cloud operating model design.
• Cloud governance framework setup: Develop the governance framework, governance policies, security standards, and compliance requirements for the cloud platform to ensure the security, stability, and compliance of cloud infrastructure and application systems.
• Cloud technical support: Provide training, consulting, and support on cloud technologies for enterprises to help departments better understand and use cloud technologies.
• Cloud platform and resource management: Manage the routine operations of the cloud platform, including resource allocation, cost control, and performance monitoring.
• Cloud best practices promotion: Promote cloud best practices, such as Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and Well-Architected Framework (WAF), to help enterprises build efficient, reliable, and secure cloud infrastructure and application systems.
• Supplier management: Evaluate and manage cloud service providers, and select the most appropriate cloud service provider and its advantageous services based on service requirements to maximize the value of cloud computing.
• Cross-department collaboration promotion: As coordination center across departments, facilitate communication and collaboration between business departments, IT departments, and other related departments to ensure smooth progress of cloud transformation projects.
• Continuous improvement and optimization: Continuously track the progress of cloud transformation. Adjust and refine the projects as needed to ensure that the cloud transformation objectives are achieved.

To maximize the effectiveness of CCoE, the CCoE members must include the stakeholders of the enterprise, including professionals from the business, IT, finance, and HR departments, to set up a cross-functional team. This not only ensures that cloud transformation is closely aligned with business objectives, but also effectively solves various problems during transformation. The CIO should directly lead the CCoE organization. This can effectively improve the reporting and decision-making efficiency during cloud transformation. Huawei has its own proven success in cloud transformation. It has also accumulated extensive experience by assisting numerous customers in their cloud transformation journeys. Based on this expertise, we recommend the following CCoE organization structure and key roles. You can tailor and refine the CCoE organization structure based on your IT organization, employee skill levels, and cloud transformation objectives to design the most suitable CCoE organization structure for your enterprise.

Figure 1 CCoE organization structure

The following sections describe the responsibilities and skill requirements of the teams and roles in the CCoE organization structure. We also provide suggestions on obtaining suitable workforces. An employee can assume one or more roles, depending on their skills and the enterprise's workforce budget.