A Guide to Optimizing Cloud Costs with FINOPS
If you find yourself worried about the ever-increasing cloud costs, struggling with a lack of visibility over your accounts, or unsure where to begin with cloud cost optimization, this blog is tailored for you. We’ll explore how FINOPS can provide a solution to these common cloud-related challenges and help you regain control over your infrastructure expenses in the cloud.
Understanding FINOPS
So, what exactly is FINOPS? According to the FINOPS Foundation, it’s an evolving cloud financial management discipline and cultural practice that fosters collaboration among engineering, finance, technology, and business teams to make data-driven spending decisions. It’s a powerful approach that can help organizations maximize business value while effectively managing their cloud costs.
The Challenge of Cloud Cost Control
In the past, traditional on-premises servers provided finance teams with visibility and control over infrastructure costs. However, with the migration to cloud computing and the pay-as-you-go model, this visibility and control were lost as engineers began deploying resources independently. This is where FINOPS steps in – to give visibility back to management and optimize cloud computing costs.
The FINOPS Lifecycle
The FINOPS approach revolves around three key stages: Inform, Optimize, and Operate. Let’s take a closer look at each stage:
1. Inform: The initial phase focuses on empowering the organization by collecting and evaluating crucial data necessary for informed decision-making. It ensures that the enterprise has precise information and valuable insights to support resource allocation, performance benchmarking, budgeting, and forecasting. Accurate cost tracking and reporting are enabled by attributing cloud expenses through tags, account categorization, or business mappings.
2. Optimize: With accurate data and valuable insights in hand, organizations and teams can enhance the efficiency of their cloud resources. This involves negotiating improved agreements, adjusting instance sizes to the right fit, and automating the elimination of unnecessary resource consumption.
3. Operate: The final stage emphasizes operations and continuous improvement. Businesses establish a fundamental FINOPS strategy and continuously assess their performance, speed, quality, and expenditures. A FinOps culture is fostered, involving a Center of Excellence for Cloud Cost Management comprising key stakeholders from the business, financial, and operational realms. These stakeholders also define and establish effective governance policies and models.
In conclusion, this article highlights the challenges organizations face with escalating cloud costs and the loss of visibility and control over infrastructure expenses during the transition to cloud computing. It introduces FINOPS as a solution, described as an evolving financial management discipline and cultural practice that maximizes business value through collaboration. The FINOPS cycle is outlined, emphasizing the importance of data collection, optimization, and ongoing operations and improvement.
By implementing a structured approach and fostering a FINOPS culture, organizations can regain control over their cloud costs, make informed decisions, and optimize resource allocation. This comprehensive approach ensures that cloud enthusiasts can effectively manage their cloud spending and align it with their business objectives, ultimately leading to more efficient and cost-effective cloud operations.
