Isn’t FinOps just a new buzzword?

Isn’t it just a new buzzword?

While FinOps may just sound like a buzzword that repackaged Cost Optimization concepts, it does go well beyond that. It includes assigning ownership and responsibility (usually within a CCOE). It tries to pull all stakeholders under a single umbrella to ultimately provide better cost management and better operational cloud insights.

This typically involves re-working the entire procurement and cloud cost management lifecycle, with the help of a certified FinOps professional.

Isn’t FinOps just Financial Operations?

It used to be just Cloud Financial Operations, but that term is falling out of favor due to its ambiguity.

So FinOps is about gaining visibility into cloud costs?

As a first step, yes.

This step is called the ‘Inform’ step in FinOps. From here, you actually optimize by addressing some of your larger resource spends. And then, you continue to optimize as part of your operations management.

That’s it in a nutshell. Inform → Optimize → Operate.

Now, you are a FinOps expert as well!

What are some aspects of Cloud FinOps?

FinOps consists of a set of Principles, Personas and Phases.

The SIX FinOps Principles

1. Collaboration
2. Accessible Reports
3. Shared Responsibility
4. Centralized FinOps Center
5. Business Value driven spend decisions
6. Leverage the Variable Cost Model of the Cloud

Each of these is self explanatory, and is practiced in most cloud environments INDEPENDENTLY. FinOps tries to pull these under a single umbrella — under the Cloud Center of Excellence.