FinOps for Cloud
FinOps is an operational framework and cultural practice. It can maximise the business value of cloud, enables timely data-driven decision making, and creates financial accountability through collaboration between engineering, finance, and business teams.
What is FinOps?
The Cenitex FinOps team is a dedicated group of Finance and Engineering experts focused on cloud savings opportunities for the Victorian government.
Our Cloud Centre of Excellence, backed by the latest technology and tools, supports the FinOps team to reduce government operational expenses. They do this by optimising cloud expenditure and reducing instances of paying for more than you need. FinOps has delivered substantial benefit by aligning organisations’ initial cloud expectations and providing the value they originally anticipated.
At Cenitex, FinOps is a cultural practice where our team can take the lead on identifying cloud cost savings for supported organisations. Advice is provided by a central group of experts within the Cloud Centre of Excellence. From here the team collaborate to boost product delivery speed and enhance financial control and predictability.
Why use FinOps?
With the move to cloud, costs can easily escalate. There are complex billing systems to navigate that can create confusion across multiple teams which results in higher overall spending. This can be caused by:
- Confusing billing structures or difficult to manage contracts from vendors
- Teams could overlook cost management, leading to unnecessary expenses
- Services still being billed when they may no longer be required
- Inadequate cloud architecture skills could result in technical debts and higher long-term costs
- A lack of spending visibility may lead to budget surprises
- Many organisations prioritise tools over a comprehensive cultural shift
How does FinOps work?
It combines financial and operational principles to optimise spending in cloud environments, such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Here’s how FinOps works:
- Visibility and tracking: Monitor and track cloud expenses across services and providers
- Cost allocation and budgeting: Assign costs within organisations or projects, set budgets and forecast future spending
- Resource optimisation: Optimise cloud resources to reduce costs, including rightsizing and utilising reserved instances
- Cost attribution and accountability: Link costs to specific activities or projects for informed decision-making
- Automation and continuous improvement: Use automation for cost control, and continuously review and adapt cost management strategies
Talk to our team
If you want to learn more about how Cenitex can help you optimise your
cloud spend please reach out to our team to book a call.