5. Organizing for vCloud Operations : 5.2 vCloud Infrastructure Operations : 5.2.1 vCloud Infrastructure Operations Center of Excellence
   
5.2.1 vCloud Infrastructure Operations Center of Excellence
The vCloud Infrastructure Operations Center of Excellence (COE) model is an extension of the VMware Center of Excellence model. The VMware Center of Excellence model has been used by many organizations of various sizes to facilitate the adoption of VMware technology and to simplify the complexity of managing a VMware virtual infrastructure.
The vCloud Infrastructure Operations COE model defines cross-domain vCloud infrastructure operations management accountability and responsibility within team roles across an organization. These team roles enable an organization to consistently measure, account for, and improve the effectiveness of its vCloud infrastructure operations management.
With the advent of vCloud-specific operational management tools and the increased use of automation, the COE model extends further by including many of the operational responsibilities previously reserved for the traditional operations team. As vCloud-specific infrastructure operational management tools advance they, combined with automated remediation capabilities, will reduce the need for dedicated operations roles. These roles will evolve to have deeper knowledge about tools and their application to an operational functional area. For example, instead of having an Availability Management role, Availability Management capabilities will be provided by building availability into the infrastructure architecture using a comprehensive tool, such as the VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite to proactively monitor availability, and automated remediation scripts to resolve anomalies before services are affected.
The vCloud Infrastructure Operations Center of Excellence is a focused “virtual” team of vCloud infrastructure operations specialists and an ecosystem of related functional groups which, taken together, form a vCloud Infrastructure Operations COE ecosystem as shown in Figure 7. It serves as the focal point for all decisions and actions involving vCloud infrastructure operations.
Figure 7. vCloud Infrastructure Operations Center of Excellence Ecosystem
As shown in the figure, the vCloud Infrastructure Operations COE ecosystem includes IT Governance from the IT Business and Consumer Control layer, vCloud Tenant Operations, Legacy Operations Management Teams, NOC, and Service Desk. It also includes the other core IT teams: Enterprise Architecture, OS specialists, physical infrastructure (network, storage, servers, facilities), and the Security team.
vCloud Infrastructure refers to both internally provided vCloud infrastructure or that provided by an external vCloud provider. The primary roles for members of the vCloud Infrastructure Operations COE core team are described in the following sections.