enterprise-cloud-architect

name

enterprise-cloud-architect

description

Guides enterprise-scale cloud architecture—multi-BU landing zones and federation, cloud Center of Excellence governance, enterprise agreement and commit strategy, org-wide FinOps and chargeback, regulated-workload patterns (residency, segmentation), hybrid integration with identity and ERP, and architecture review board standards for large organizations. Use when designing cloud at hundreds of accounts, steering CCoE policy, EA/MACC optimization, sovereign or regulated cloud placement, or executive cloud governance—not for single-product cloud designs (cloud-architect), hands-on service config (cloud-engineer), SOC 2 evidence automation (compliance-engineer), general cross-domain ADRs (senior-system-architecture), or enterprise AI copilot architecture (applied-ai-architect-commercial-enterprise), or VP-level cloud program portfolio and board narratives (vp-of-cloud).

Enterprise Cloud Architect

When to Use

• Design multi-BU landing zone programs — OUs, account vending, inherited guardrails
• Stand up or refresh Cloud Center of Excellence — standards, ARB, exception process
• Plan enterprise agreement strategy — commits, true-ups, multi-year cloud economics
• Define org-wide FinOps — allocation, showback/chargeback, EA utilization
• Place regulated workloads — residency, encryption, logging, isolation patterns
• Architect hybrid at scale — identity federation, DC portfolio, carrier diversity
• Harmonize multi-cloud posture — primary vs secondary, exit and portability
• Prepare steering and board materials — risk, cost, migration portfolio
• Publish enterprise reference architectures and mandatory controls catalog

When NOT to Use

• Single application or single-account target architecture → cloud-architect
• Configure RDS, IAM errors, autoscaling tuning → cloud-engineer
• Terraform module factory → infrastructure-engineer
• CI/CD and GitOps delivery → devops
• SOC 2 / ISO control evidence packs → compliance-engineer
• Cloud-specific attestations, residency proof, CSPM evidence → cloud-compliance-specialist
• IdP/KMS/SIEM program ownership → information-security-engineer
• IAM entitlement design, access reviews, federation, SoD → iam-specialist
• Non-cloud integration ADRs → senior-system-architecture
• DC facility design → data-center-design-execution-lead
• Multi-site DC capex portfolio → data-center-portfolio-planning-execution-lead
• LLM/RAG enterprise copilot design → applied-ai-architect-commercial-enterprise
• Strategy issue trees without cloud delivery → business-consultant
• Program RAID for mixed software programs → technical-program-manager
• Infrastructure org strategy, capex envelope, executive narratives → vp-of-infrastructure
• Cloud program strategy, migration portfolio funding, cloud SteerCo → vp-of-cloud
• Customer RFP, partner solution design, PoC scoping → solutions-architect

Related skills

Need	Skill
VP cloud program and executive cloud narrative	vp-of-cloud
Product/line-of-business cloud design	cloud-architect
Cloud resource implementation	cloud-engineer
IaC modules and pipelines	infrastructure-engineer, devops
Enterprise system architecture	senior-system-architecture
Compliance evidence	compliance-engineer
Cloud framework evidence and assessor packages	cloud-compliance-specialist
Security architecture	information-security-engineer, cybersecurity
Identity governance, federation, PAM, cloud IAM standards	iam-specialist
DC portfolio and hybrid capacity	data-center-portfolio-planning-execution-lead
FinOps analysis and optimization	finops-analyst
EA/commit economic modeling and NPV	cloud-economist
Compute accounting and invoices	compute-accounting-manager
Customer deal solution and RFP technical design	solutions-architect
Enterprise AI on cloud	applied-ai-architect-commercial-enterprise
AI governance	ai-risk-governance
Large transformation program	technical-program-manager
VP infrastructure leadership	vp-of-infrastructure

Core Workflows

1. Enterprise governance and CCoE

Standards, ARB, federation model.

See references/enterprise_cloud_governance.md.

2. Landing zone at scale

Multi-account hierarchy and vending.

See references/landing_zone_at_scale.md.

3. Enterprise agreements and FinOps

EA, commits, allocation.

See references/enterprise_agreements_finops.md.

4. Regulated enterprise patterns

Residency, controls, isolation.

See references/regulated_enterprise_patterns.md.

5. Hybrid and enterprise integration

Identity, ERP, DC linkage.

See references/hybrid_enterprise_integration.md.

6. Executive deliverables

Steering packs, standards catalog.

See references/enterprise_architecture_deliverables.md.

Outputs

• Enterprise cloud strategy — principles, scope, multi-year themes
• Landing zone blueprint — OU map, guardrails, shared services
• Standards catalog — mandatory, recommended, deprecated patterns
• ARB decision log — exceptions with expiry and owners
• FinOps model — allocation keys, EA coverage plan
• Migration portfolio — waves, dependencies, risk tier

Principles

• Federation over central bottlenecks — standards with self-service account vending
• Policy as code — guardrails enforced; exceptions time-boxed
• One financial truth — billing, tags, and GL alignment with finance
• Regulatory fit by design — not retrofit after launch
• Prefer cloud-architect for team-level designs inside the enterprise frame