As organizations accelerate their cloud adoption, the need for a structured approach to governance, innovation, and operational excellence becomes critical. A Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) serves as the strategic backbone for driving cloud transformation, ensuring alignment between technology initiatives and business objectives.
This session will explore the purpose and value of a CCoE, highlighting its role in enabling agility, cost optimization, security, and modernization across the enterprise. We’ll break down the core pillars and organizational structure of a successful CCoE, and examine how it integrates with key practices such as DevOps, Platform Engineering, FinOps, Security, Application Modernization, and Modern Analytics.
Attendees will gain insights into:
- Strategic drivers and business value behind CCoE adoption.
- Team composition and key roles essential for success.
- A phased approach to building and scaling a CCoE: Foundation → Scale → Optimize.
- Maturity assessment and success criteria to measure impact.
Whether you’re starting your cloud journey or optimizing an existing program, this session provides actionable guidance and next steps to establish a CCoE that delivers measurable outcomes and accelerates digital transformation.
Michael Agarwal is Practice Leader for Cloud & Infrastructure at Apex Systems. He has 25+ years of experience in IT including more than 12 years in cloud. He has skills and experience in AWS, Azure, GCP, DevOps, Platform Engineering, Security, Networking, Observability, Application Modernization, Databases, Analytics and AI. Early in his career he was a software developer, database administrator/DBA manager, and API developer. Michael later transitioned into more strategic roles of Enterprise Architect at Hertz where he led the business transformation using cloud adoption, Cloud Architect at AWS where he advised customers about AWS services and Chief Information Officer at Prevention Genetics LLC where he led IT strategy. Prior to joining Apex Systems, Michael was a Global Practice Leader at Datavail where he led global team of consultants, practice growth, client engagements and solution architecture. Michael is a frequent speaker at events & webinars such as Innotech, DBTA, Brighttalk, Data Summit etc.