Hey there, cloud enthusiasts! 🚀 Let’s chat about this new kid on the block - FinOps. It’s like DevOps got a finance degree. You’ve probably seen it popping up everywhere, right next to buzzwords like DevSecOps and SecOps. But why is it suddenly so important? And why are companies rushing to hire full-time FinOps engineers?

Well, let’s break it down. Over the past few years, tons of companies have been moving their data centers to the cloud. But here’s the thing - managing resources on the cloud is a whole different ball game compared to on-premises data centers. It’s like leaving your car engine running while it’s parked. You only start your car when you’re ready to drive, right? And once you’ve reached your destination, you turn off the engine. The same logic applies to cloud resources. If you’re not using them, switch 'em off! It’s a win-win - you save money and do your bit for the environment by conserving energy.

But wait, is FinOps just about saving money? Nope, not at all! FinOps is all about squeezing the most value out of the cloud to fuel your organization’s growth. Sure, cloud spend can drive more revenue and speed up product and feature releases. But remember, growing costs isn’t always a bad thing. FinOps isn’t just about cost-cutting. It’s about:

• Taking ownership of cloud usage by following industry best practices.

• Spotting underutilized or overutilized resources.

• Understanding overall resource usage through systematic cloud practices.

The FinOps journey is a three-step dance: Inform, Optimize, and Operate.

Inform - This is where you set your budget, forecast trends, and map your spend to business value. This helps leaders understand the correlation and true potential of the cloud journey. There are various techniques to identify business usage by structuring subscription, tenant, and identity. For smaller businesses, tags and resource groups can be used to generate business mapping reports. This also requires building the right policy to ensure all new developments follow this structure.

Optimize - Once you’re armed with data-driven reports from the Inform phase, you can identify opportunities to improve cloud efficiency. This could involve identifying underutilized cloud resources, automating or shutting down resources when possible, and rearchitecting your design to take advantage of modern architectures and cloud resources. You should also work with your cloud provider to explore discount pricing models such as Reserved Instances, Saving Plans, and Resource Commitment plans.

Operate - This is where the rubber meets the road. The strategies and workflows developed in the Inform and Optimize phases are put into action. The goal of this phase is to develop strategies and refine workflows on a recurring basis, making incremental improvements and maturing the process.

Initially, it might be beneficial to follow the phases of Inform, Optimize, and Operate sequentially. But once you’re in the journey, it’s up to the organization, and they can work in different phases either sequentially or in parallel. FinOps practitioners should always be looking at the organization’s cloud use, identifying ways it could be improved, and creating documentation to empower the individuals responsible for enacting changes that will drive the most value. Quick action on a regular cadence can help teams avoid analysis paralysis and can reinforce the good practice of starting small and growing the size and scope of the team’s actions as it matures through experience and momentum.

So there you have it, folks! That’s FinOps in a nutshell. It’s not just a buzzword - it’s a game-changer for cloud management. So, are you ready to hop on the FinOps train? 🚂