3 strategies for enterprise cloud finops
What is Finops ?
Finops is a buzzword that has many meanings depending on whom you ask. There have been several definitions of it, ranging from “technology and tools” to “culture and communication” and even “business processes.” It’s bigger than any one of them—and sometimes includes all three.
What is the consensus on cloud computing?
Finops is a cloud financial management service. It combines best practices with technology and culture to help an enterprise optimize cloud costs using operating models and technologies. To maximize the value of cloud computing, IT, developers, finance, procurement, and other departments collaborate.
1. Changes in the organization.
It is often the case that enterprises fail to make the tough decisions about who should provide the centralized control that many finops plans mandate. Setting up a cloud business office is often the best way to get a finops program. Tracking spending is one thing, but using automated tools to set limits and control spending is another
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2. Automation.
Finops are often defined as cost monitoring, cost control, and cost optimization. We often rely on humans to carry out the processes we determine around these concepts. This system cannot scale.
To implement finops, you need to set up automated processes that gather cloud spending data, analyze it, and then take corrective actions. In addition, if public cloud spending is about to exceed the agreed-upon budget, email warnings may be sent out.
3. Accessibility to cloud provider agreements.
Most cloud providers require you to sign agreements that specify how they will bill you. Charges for hourly usage or data storage are straightforward. Others are confusing and are not fully visible to the finops processes and tools that monitor cloud spending.
It can be so confusing that those setting up finops processes oversimplify the terms of the agreement; this means your cloud bill will be much more than you expected and what the finops tools predicted. Costs tend to go up or down dramatically when you reach a limit or trigger another event. The terms of an agreement need to be entered carefully into your finops tool and models, including creative terms.
Automate as much as possible. Ensure that your provider agreements interpret in a language that the finops system can understand. Communicate finops goals and objectives to the people involved at the level they need to understand them.