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Essential Tools and Resources for Effective FinOps

In our previous blog posts in this series about FinOps, we covered the fundamentals of FinOps, the maturity model, success stories, and how to get started. In this post, we will explore the essential tools and resources available to support your FinOps practices and help you achieve cost optimization.

Cloud Provider Native Tools

  • Azure Cost Management: Provides insights into cloud spending and usage, allowing you to analyze costs and identify trends. Azure Cost Management helps organizations gain visibility into their cloud costs and track their spending.
  • Azure Advisor: Offers recommendations for cost optimization, security, and performance improvements. Azure Advisor helps organizations identify cost-saving opportunities and optimize their cloud resources.

Third-Party Tools

Various third-party tools are available for specific cost optimization and cost management needs, some are even workload specific such as Kubernetes cost management and Power BI dashboards for reporting. There are too many tools to mention in this post, and we are not advocating for one tool over another, but if the native tools are lacking the capabilities you require then maybe it’s worth looking at third party options. These tools can help organizations gain deeper insights into their cloud costs and optimize their resources.

FinOps Foundation

The FinOps Foundation offers resources, training, and a community for FinOps practitioners. Their website provides valuable information and tools to support your FinOps journey. The foundation’s mission is to advance the discipline of FinOps through education, standards, and collaboration. Be sure to consider leveraging the free resources available from the foundation as another tool available to you.

Quick Wins for Cost Optimization

You don’t have to go all the way in on developing a fully fledged FinOps practice, you can start by achieving some quick wins to see results right away. These include:

  • Optimize Virtual Machines: Optimizing virtual machines is one of the easiest and most impactful ways to achieve cost savings. Organizations can save 50-80% on their virtual machines by leveraging cost-saving programs like reservations and savings plans.
  • Clean Up Orphan Objects: Cleaning up orphan objects helps organizations reduce unnecessary costs and improve efficiency. Tools like Azure Advisor can help identify unattached disks and other orphan objects.
  • Leverage Cost-Saving Programs: Various cost-saving programs are available for different Azure services, such as reservations for app services, Cosmos DB, and managed SQL. Organizations should research and leverage these programs to achieve cost savings.
  • Stay Updated with New Services: Microsoft regularly releases new Azure services that are more cost-effective and efficient. Organizations should stay updated with these releases and consider upgrading to newer versions to achieve cost savings for existing workloads.

Key Considerations

  • Understand Your Needs: Before implementing any tools, organizations should understand their specific needs and requirements. This helps ensure that the tools selected are aligned with their FinOps goals.
  • Evaluate Tool Costs: Some third-party tools can be expensive, so organizations should evaluate the costs and benefits before making a decision. Free tools and resources are also available and can be a good starting point.
  • Training and Education: Provide training and education to FinOps practitioners to ensure that they have the skills and knowledge needed to use the tools effectively.

Utilizing the right tools and resources can significantly enhance your FinOps practices and help you achieve cost optimization. By leveraging built-in tools like Azure Cost Management and Azure Advisor, exploring third-party tools, and utilizing resources from the FinOps Foundation, organizations can manage their cloud costs more effectively.

For years now, Invero has made its mission to help clients maximize the value of their investments in cloud because we are firm believers in the benefits that the cloud can bring to organizations of all sizes. FinOps is core to achieving this mission because without proper governance around cloud spend and tying that back to the business value that each dollar spent is driving, then there is a high risk of wasting money or not achieving optimal return on investment.

Many organizations that we work with struggle to know where to start, which is why we developed FinOps Ready™. This is our solution to help you develop a roadmap for maturing your FinOps practice based on your unique needs, it’s not a one-size fits all or cookie cutter plan. Learn more and get started for FREE on your own today, or contact us to get help from our experts.

Image Credit: State of FinOps 2024 by FinOps Foundation, shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License