Cloud FinOps, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. What Is FinOps?

In the simplest terms, FinOps brings financial accountability to the variable spend model of cloud. But that description merely hints at the outcome. The cultural change of running in the cloud moves ownership of technology and financial decision making out to the edges of the organization, from procurement to engineering, architecture, and product teams. It empowers technology, finance, and business professionals to work together in more efficient ways.

Organizations around the world are moving aggressively to cloud, whether they are ready or not. Like the transition from mainframes to client/server, to the web, or to mobile, the shift to cloud (and from projects to products) brings with it massive changes to the way traditional business functions need to account for, request, and manage technology costs.

FinOps demands you acknowledge that the old ways of managing infrastructure aren’t just ineffective; they create situations where runaway cloud costs can threaten the business. While traditional infrastructure management methodologies will still be needed for owned infrastructure in the future, no level of adherence to these methodologies—which don’t handle the variable consumption model of cloud well—will allow organizations to manage cloud effectively without the introduction of FinOps.

Defining the Term “FinOps”

As of early 2023, the FinOps Foundation defines it as such:

FinOps is an evolving cloud financial management discipline and cultural ...