FinOps isn't dead – you're just doing it alone

A more collaborative approach to managing cloud costs is giving this discipline an evolutionary boost

Partner content In recent times, many have felt that FinOps has hit a plateau. Once bursting with revolutionary potential, the practice now seems to be treading water. Many practitioners believe they've done all the easy stuff. The reports on cloud costs don't show significant variation, yet inexplicably bills continue to creep upwards. This brings us to a critical juncture and forces us to ask whether FinOps itself is falling apart, or the teams are simply stretched too thin.

Doing FinOps alone was never the plan

FinOps was not designed as a solitary endeavor. It thrives in dynamic, ever-evolving environments but needs substantial support and collaboration. Today, internal teams are swamped by increasing complexity such as managing multi-cloud systems, grappling with AI workloads, or navigating ever-evolving billing models like EC2 Reserved Instances, savings plans, and spot usage. Finance, procurement, and engineering stakeholders all lay claim to parts of the FinOps process, yet alignment among them is uncommon.

Without throwing significant time and resources at these problems, managing tasks such as tagging, forecasting, and show-back is theoretically achievable but proves impractical on a large scale. It becomes clear that implementing FinOps solo was never going to suffice.

FinOps bottlenecks nobody talks about

• Time: There are rarely enough hours in the day for teams to engage continuously in optimizing processes.
• Tooling: An overload of tooling creates more dashboards but facilitates little to no real action.
• Data gaps: Additionally, not all usage translates directly into value. There's an imbalance where increased cost doesn't necessarily mean impactful expenditure.
• Culture clash: A persistent culture clash exacerbates these issues. Engineering teams crave freedom while finance departments demand control. A lack of clarity on ownership of costs within cloud breeds an us-vs-them mindset.

These discrepancies create bottlenecks that make FinOps less effective. This makes it hard to articulate the value of the public cloud, resulting in an ineffective justification for its costs.

Enter managed FinOps support

The conversation often misses a vital piece of the puzzle: managed public cloud services. Beyond infrastructure management, these services can include comprehensive FinOps expertise, characterized by automation and accountability. Offerings like real-time cost insights, proactive recommendations, regular audits, and adaptability concerning provider changes can transform the FinOps landscape.

Managed support extends internal teams balancing engineering innovation and fiscal prudence. It also brings additional skills that can be hard to keep with in-house teams. Partners move in step with the hyperscalers, and this close-knit collaboration trickles down into engineers and FinOps practitioners that are well-versed in the nuances of cost and commercial agreements. Taking advantage of programs and incentives from the hyperscalers to apply to specific projects and workloads to drive down costs is second nature to those within the channel.

The case for managed services: more than just saving money

Opting for managed FinOps support brings manifold benefits:

• Enhanced forecasting and budgeting: Use smarter strategies for financial planning.

• Rapid identification of cost overruns: Quick root cause analysis on unexpected cost spikes can prevent budgetary overflows.

• Consistent governance and hygiene: Regular checks ensure resource optimization, correct asset tagging, and maintenance of standards.

• Reinforced compliance and security: Assurance of adherence to regulatory standards without compromise.

This approach makes cost optimization a continuous and proactive process rather than a reactive one.

Finops isn't failing, it's growing up

FinOps is far from extinct. Instead, it's taking an evolutionary leap. Much like how DevOps and SecOps matured through strategic partnerships and advanced tooling, FinOps is walking the same path.

Businesses realizing substantial savings and efficiencies in their cloud management aren't going it alone. They are embracing smarter collaborations. Rather than declining, FinOps is simply maturing, calling for a shift from solitary to synergistic. Claranet's managed FinOps services exemplify how integrating external expertise can redefine your approach.

Embrace the transformation. Contact us to understand how you can align your FinOps strategy with progressive, collaborative support for optimal results.

Contributed by Claranet.