Stop “reverse engineering” your bills to match money spent to API calls triggered and use the right FinOps software. Read here how to choose the right software for your FinOps teams to maximize the business benefits of your cloud computing.
You are here, so you already know you have a challenge in managing your cloud cost.
Single cloud and multi cloud environments are a must for organizations to speed up their digital transformation.
Everybody knows that if something is big/has volume and you can just take it/use it, that it can get out of control. This is what happens with cloud computing. And the cloud cost reporting of the public cloud providers isn’t helping to gain control over your cloud costs.
Imagine that you have multiple situations like this in your multi cloud environment.
It can get a “mess”.
The FinOps cultural practice has been initiated to control and optimize the cost of cloud computing. Cloud computing in many companies is big, with or over 5-figures a month of cloud spend, and it involves the entire organization.
To be successful with cloud computing you need to manage your cloud spend. You want to maximize the business benefits of cloud computing by reducing cloud waste.
A more cost-conscious culture is needed to manage your cloud costs. Besides the culture, you want to facilitate your teams with the right tools and software, to take ownership of their cloud spend.
After reading this article your will know:
- Why you need FinOps Software?
- The FinOps needs for the software
- The best approach to choose your FinOps Software
Why you need software for your FinOps teams?
Hopefully you know and otherwise, you will know now, the problem of the current cloud cost management reporting of the cloud providers.
The cloud cost reporting of the cloud providers is IT based, not business focussed. So you read $x SQL database, $x API management, $X Cache etc.
It is hard to know which resource was used for which department/project/application, and if the resource is necessary and rightly scaled.
Every cloud provider has its own type of reporting in its own technical language.
So, the native cloud cost management solutions aren’t sufficient enough for your cost management.
Do you have a multi cloud environment?
The individual cloud providers don’t have an incentive to align their cost data over multiple cloud providers. So they are not going to solve your multi cloud, one view, data problem.
You need FinOps software to help you manage your cloud spend.
What are the needs for your FinOps software?
Of course, you need to determine your own needs for the right software for your FinOps teams. You can do this by checking the domains of FinOps and deciding on your business needs in this context.
Below you can read our vision and experience on the needs for your FinOps software.
You need software that gives you the insights, so you can make business decisions and start optimizing.
The faster you get the insights the faster you can act.
Speed is necessary in a competitive world like we are in right now.
The process for your FinOps Software is:
- Get insights
- Gain Control
- Start optimizing
FinOps uses; inform, optimize and operate.
With the FinOps principles in mind we see the below needs for your FinOps software:
Cost-efficient – You want to gain as much business value as possible in the shortest period of time. Because of this you want; a short implementation time, good UX and getting insights fast.
Multi cloud – In case you have a multi cloud environment you want to have one overview with the cost data of all your cloud providers.
Tagging – You want to know which resources are used for what, so your FinOps software needs to adopt the tagging that you have used in your cloud solution.
Allocation – Allocation of cloud costs should be possible to business entities like; departments, applications, projects, so you can manage your cloud spend from a business perspective. If needed you want to use shared allocation, by a percentage of the costs, for shared cost.
Reporting – At least you want reports of unassigned costs and you want to have the possibility to create your own reports to make the best business decisions.
Data analysis – You have all cloud data in one source. You want to analyze this data so you get insights that you can use for optimization.
Business focus – Allocation, reporting etc. needs to be based on business value. You are managing a business, so you don’t need the IT language for your cloud cost data.
Sharing – FinOps is about working together with multiple disciplines. They all need to have the same source of truth to take ownership of their cloud spend.
Licenses management – As with the other cloud consumption you want to make sure you only pay for the license that you really need.
User management – Like mentioned above, it is about collaboration. All relevant people need to have access to the cloud cost data.
Insights in cloud usage – Which resources are you using in relation to capacity. Are you overprovisioned?
Contract management – Do you use the most cost-effective solution for this business functionality or can you for instance make use of discounted “reserved” instances.
With all the above needs in mind, you need to choose the best approach for selecting your FinOps software.
The best approach to choose your FinOps software
There are a few things you should know.
There is no one provider which can deliver all the best functionalities for your business needs.
And if there would be one provider the question would be, if you want to use only one provider in relation to vendor lock-in and continuity.
Research shows that there is a shift of interest from broad general-purpose cloud management platforms to best-of-breed tools that have a focus on deeper functionality in a given area. There are also best-of-breed tools for your cloud cost optimization on the market.
Research shows that the major cloud providers offer native tools to manage costs, but with basic functionality. These tools are not sufficient to control your costs. Many companies don’t understand the cost reporting of the cloud vendors and lack the right insights. Research shows you need to have third-party cloud cost management software to really get the most benefits of your cloud.
With all the above it looks like the best approach would be to choose a best-of-breed approach and use multiple tools, which all are the best of their kind.
For instance, using the native cloud cost management tools that the public cloud providers provide in combination with another best-of-breed third-party solution is a good option.
C-Facts as part of your FinOps software stack
Want to know how C-Facts Management Control Center can help you with a multi-cloud FinOps software solution to get the most business value from your cloud spend?
C-Facts Management Control Center is specialized in Cloud Cost Management, has a business focus, is up-and-running in 2 days, and has excellent customer support. See how it works or request a demo.