Main takeaways from this article:
A cloud operating model defines how organizations manage cloud environments, emphasizing governance, security, and efficiency.
Security takes center stage with continuous monitoring and cross-functional collaboration to mitigate risks early.
Core components include real-time visibility, DevSecOps practices, and self-service tools to enforce consistent policies.
The right cloud operating model ensures agility, compliance, and scalability, aligning operations with business goals.
What is a cloud operating model?
A cloud operating model is a set of practices and procedures that organizations follow for effective management of their cloud resources. Covering aspects such as cloud governance, architecture design, security, cost management, performance optimization, and scalability, a cloud operating model is an essential means of enhancing cloud usage and mitigating security risks.
Cloud operating models are a broader concept than cloud governance, which focuses on ensuring that cloud resources are used in a compliant and secure manner. As a more comprehensive principle, cloud operating models include roles (e.g., development and security) assigned to teams and the procedures for accomplishing workflows.
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What makes a cloud operating model different from other models?
A cloud operating model differs from traditional IT models by emphasizing the use of cloud-native services, remote access, and automation to enhance flexibility and scalability, while often supporting hybrid and multi-cloud strategies for seamless integration with existing infrastructure.
Unlike on-premises setups, cloud operating models are designed to leverage cloud services and tools such as:
Virtual machines
Containers
Databases
Developer tools
Storage
Remote access is also a core feature, enabling teams to manage resources from anywhere, which supports distributed workforces and faster response times.
Additionally, automation is heavily emphasized, from infrastructure provisioning to security and compliance monitoring, reducing manual work, improving efficiency, and enabling rapid scaling to meet dynamic business needs.
Why use a cloud operating model?
A cloud operating model offers numerous advantages by optimizing cloud processes and aligning them with business goals.
Agility and scalability: By streamlining cloud platform processes like migration, development, and deployment, a cloud operating model enables rapid app deployment and scaling. This results in quicker time to market (TTM) and greater resilience to changing workload requirements. Democratizing responsibilities across teams ensures faster responses to operational needs and security challenges.
Resource and cost optimization: Cloud usage maximizes resource efficiency with features like pay-as-you-go pricing, auto-scaling, and load balancing. A well-implemented cloud operating model helps businesses rightsize storage instances, match capacity to workload demands, and optimize costs by leveraging reserved instances for long-term usage. Automation further reduces manual effort, freeing up resources for strategic tasks.
Security and compliance: A cloud operating model integrates security and compliance measures into every stage of operations. Features like access control, encryption, and unified policies ensure consistent security enforcement across systems. Comprehensive visibility into risks and automated compliance checks support adherence to industry regulations, helping organizations avoid penalties while strengthening their security posture.
Challenges of current cloud operating models
While current cloud operating models offer remarkable benefits, they do come with security and operational challenges:
| Challenge | Why |
|---|---|
| Bottlenecks | Centralizing security responsibilities within dedicated teams can create delays in time to market (TTM). DevOps teams often have to wait for vulnerabilities to be scanned and addressed at various stages, slowing the development process. |
| Security concerns | Siloed teams and unclear communication channels weaken an organization’s security posture. Current models struggle to adapt to the rapid evolution of cloud technologies and threats, leaving vulnerabilities unaddressed. |
| Suboptimal performance | Rigid security processes hinder the implementation of shift-left strategies, which aim to detect and address vulnerabilities early. This can result in undetected bugs and inefficiencies that impact application performance and increase exposure to risks. |
To address the challenges of current cloud operating models presented above, there’s a pressing need for a new collaborative cloud operating model that democratizes security responsibilities and makes proactive risk reduction a shared, attainable goal.
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What is the modern cloud operating model?
Unlike current models that prioritize workload, the modern cloud operating model adopts a shift-left approach to prioritize security. It integrates security into every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), empowering teams to detect and resolve vulnerabilities earlier. By prioritizing collaboration, automation, and flexibility, this model enables organizations to:
Respond quickly to security risks with comprehensive visibility and real-time threat detection
Standardize security policies across teams to maintain consistent enforcement
Reduce manual effort and operational costs through automation and self-service tools
Build a culture of accountability with cross-functional collaboration
Key components of the modern cloud operating model
1. Continuous monitoring for full-stack visibility
The modern cloud operating model emphasizes real-time monitoring that provides full-stack visibility and eliminates blind spots in a cloud environment. It involves leveraging security solutions with AI and ML capabilities for effective attack path analysis and security threat detection and response. Optimal solutions provide dashboards that enable security events and metrics correlation, alongside an alert system that prioritizes critical risks, abstracts unnecessary noise, and provides contextual notification.
2. Agile and cross-functional teams
Shifting from a DevOps approach to DevSecOps practices is a core part of the modern cloud operating model. DevSecOps establishes cross-team collaboration and implements iterative prevention-first software development by integrating security into the entire CI/CD pipeline. It also encourages accountability through site reliability engineering (SRE), where development, security, and operations teams take collective responsibility for the security and reliability of the systems they build and operate.
3. Automation and self-service security
In the modern cloud operating model, security processes and policies are automated, and infrastructure as code (IaC) is integrated with security-as-code practices throughout the SDLC. This not only improves efficiency but also helps to ensure consistent security measures across the organization.
Additionally, the democratized approach enables self-service security capabilities for your development teams, allowing them to apply security controls and implement best practices as part of their development workflows.
4. Workflow tooling and collaboration
The modern cloud operating model integrates various tools and functionalities into the workflow to streamline security operations for agility and flexibility. These include:
early and seamless real-time workflow monitoring and alerting during development—via agentless scanning tools—to proactively identify security risks,
flexible risk and incident remediation at all stages of the SDLC—via collaboration tools—to proactive fix potential security vulnerabilities, and
consistent compliance and governance policies across development and deployment phases—via integrated CNAPP solutions–to prevent non-compliance penalties.
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Building a successful cloud operating model: six best practices
Establishing a new cloud operating model just about ticking technical boxes—it’s about building something that aligns with your goals, empowers your teams, and grows with your business. Let’s break it down.
Define your cloud strategy and objectives: What’s your big-picture goal for the cloud? Are you chasing scalability, cutting costs, or ramping up agility? Be specific. Your cloud strategy should tie directly to your business priorities, ensuring your operating model supports both immediate needs and long-term aspirations.
Establish cloud governance and security frameworks: Rules matter, especially when you’re managing sprawling cloud environments. Create policies that cover data access, resource provisioning, and security configurations.
Create cross-functional teams: Got silos? Tear them down. Bring together development, operations, and security teams to collaborate, share accountability, and align on cloud goals. When everyone’s on the same page, execution gets faster, smoother, and way more effective.
Adopt automation and self-service: Nobody loves repetitive tasks. Automate provisioning, compliance checks, and security updates to save time and avoid mistakes. Then, go a step further—give teams self-service tools so they can spin up resources or secure applications without waiting for approvals.
Prioritize security and compliance: Security can’t be an afterthought. Bake it into every step of your cloud operations. Use tools that monitor for risks and ensure compliance with industry standards. Think of it as building a safety net for your organization’s most critical assets.
Implement continuous monitoring and optimization: The cloud isn’t set-it-and-forget-it. Use real-time monitoring tools to track how resources are performing, watch for security issues, and keep an eye on costs. Proactive tweaks and ongoing improvements can save you money and prevent headaches down the road.
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Modernize your cloud strategy with Wiz
As you promote a security-aware culture and train the necessary stakeholders, choosing a powerful security solution that pairs high-quality signals with a user-friendly platform is key. The right tool empowers your teams to fix security vulnerabilities on the go, whether they are cybersecurity team members or not.
At Wiz, we help our customers democratize cloud security by empowering developers with the skills and easy-to-use tools they need to swiftly fix security problems—while still achieving fast-paced workflows. To see how we implement the modern cloud operating model and learn why Wiz is the cloud security platform behind 40% of Fortune 100 enterprises, schedule a live demo today.
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