José Manuel López

In the classic Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa and one of the most influential films in the history of cinema, a village of farmers threatened by bandits decides to seek specialist help. The villagers know the land, their crops and their community, but they are not skilled in the art of defence. The samurai, on the other hand, know how to assess risks, devise a strategy and take action when danger comes. (British Film Institute) The lesson remains relevant beyond the world of cinema. A company does not need to turn all its professionals into experts in technology operations to make the most of the Cloud. It needs to know what it wants to achieve, what it needs to protect and which services are critical. It can rely on specialists to manage them. The Cloud does not manage itself Hyperscalers, large public Cloud providers capable of delivering resources on demand and scaling rapidly, have transformed the way applications are deployed, data is stored and new capabilities are accessed. Elasticity and self-service are essential characteristics of Cloud Computing. (National Institute of Standards and Technology) But ease of procurement does not mean ease of operation. Each platform comes with numerous services, configurations, cost models and update cycles. Add to this private Clouds, on-premises infrastructure and, increasingly, hybrid environments and environments spanning multiple Clouds, also known as multicloud. The challenge is no longer simply to “move to the Cloud”. It is to keep that ecosystem available, secure, efficient and aligned with the business every day. Delegating Cloud management does not mean giving up control Kurosawa's farmers do not hand over the village and disappear. They explain the terrain, help with the preparations and remain the people who best understand what needs to be protected. Something similar happens when organisations use managed public Cloud services. Delegating operations does not mean delegating business responsibility. The organisation continues to define priorities, data policies, risk levels and service objectives. The specialist team brings methodology, tools and experience. It also helps interpret the shared responsibility model: the hyperscaler protects certain layers of the platform, while the specialist team retains responsibilities that vary depending on the service, particularly around data, identities, access and configurations. The leading public Cloud providers describe this division of responsibilities in their respective shared responsibility models. A good managed service makes these boundaries clear, assigns responsibilities and ensures that important tasks do not fall between the cracks. Delegating Cloud operations does not mean losing control. It means relying on specialists to make better decisions. Seven areas for mature Cloud management Following the film's premise, we can summarise the work that turns infrastructure into a reliable service across seven areas: Visibility. Monitoring applications, systems and dependencies to understand the actual state of the service. Prevention. Reviewing configurations, access, versions and alerts before an issue develops into an incident. Response. Classifying and resolving issues through clear procedures, effective communication and escalation to the appropriate teams. Resilience. Preparing backup, recovery and continuity measures, and verifying that they work when needed. Efficiency. Aligning capacity and consumption with the value they deliver. This is where Cloud financial management (FinOps) comes in, a discipline that brings technology, finance and business together to make better decisions about Cloud spend. Automation. Replacing repetitive manual tasks with traceable, consistent processes to reduce errors. Continuous improvement. Learning from incidents and adapting the architecture to new requirements and capabilities. ■ The key is not to perform these activities in isolation, but to coordinate them around the services that support the business. One team across multiple Clouds In the film, bringing together seven skilled warriors is not enough. They need to share a plan and coordinate with the villagers. The same applies in a technology environment. When an organisation uses multiple hyperscalers, a private Cloud and its own systems, it does not need more isolated teams and processes. It needs a common operating model: prioritisation criteria, change processes, metrics, responsibilities and comparable governance mechanisms. This does not mean treating every platform as if it were identical. Each has its own strengths and services that should be put to good use. Multicloud management needs to combine that specialisation with a unified view of service, risk and cost. ■ At Telefónica, we are an MSP (Managed Services Provider) for the leading public Cloud providers. As a specialist team, we provide capabilities to integrate and manage hybrid and multicloud environments, together with specialist services covering operating systems, databases, middleware (components that enable integration between applications), architecture and Cloud financial management. Our aim is to provide operational consistency without limiting each organisation's freedom of choice. Mature multicloud management does not treat every platform in the same way: it combines technical specialisation with a common view of service, risk and cost. Freeing up time to focus on the business The value of delegating goes beyond resolving incidents. It is also about allowing internal teams to focus on what matters most. When skilled professionals spend much of their working day reviewing alerts, carrying out repetitive tasks or reconciling information across different platforms, they have less time to modernise applications, improve products or address new requirements. Managed services specialists bring together experience, procedures and automation developed across multiple environments. This experience helps identify patterns, reduce reliance on improvisation and turn day-to-day operations into a discipline of continuous improvement. Choosing the right “samurai” Before selecting a managed service, it is worth asking: does the provider understand the criticality of your business? Does it clearly define who does what? Does it provide meaningful metrics? Does it automate securely? Does it provide transparency over consumption and costs? Can it work across different Clouds? Does it facilitate knowledge sharing? The relationship should be based on trust and evidence. The right provider does not create dependency through opacity; it documents, reports, recommends improvements and keeps the customer in control of decision-making. Let everyone focus on what they do best The lesson of Seven Samurai is not that the village is weak. It is that it can better protect its future when it combines its own knowledge with the expertise of those who are prepared to deal with specific threats. Businesses know their business; at Telefónica, we know how to operate complex environments consistently. When both work as one team, the Cloud stops being a collection of resources and becomes a reliable platform for moving forward. ■ At Telefónica, we help make that collaboration work: we manage technological complexity so that our customers can focus on their business and on the things that only they can do. When businesses and specialists work as one team, the Cloud stops being infrastructure and becomes a platform for moving forward. 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