Financial Governance for Data Processing in the Cloud

Executive Summary

Companies of all sizes are riding a wave of democratization of data, fueled in part by the need for data-driven decision making and access to cutting edge cloud-native data-processing platforms with no need for upfront investment or physical infrastructure. Think targeted promotions, optimized marketing spend, A/B testing for R&D, and decision support for executives. Cloud platforms are increasingly used to facilitate data democratization, not only to minimize costs, but also to provide traceability and predictability.

However, the flexible and dynamic nature of the cloud combined with its usage-based billing policies means that it can lead to unexpected and unpredictable bills, if left unchecked. Effective financial governance, therefore, is essential.

A good financial governance plan does three things:

Understands

It tracks usage over time, both short and long term, as well as forecasts future usage. In addition, it quantifies the types of use cases enabled by the platform and their corresponding business impact.

Controls

It puts in place access controls to restrict the usage of the platform. Such controls are either proactive to prevent an action from occurring or reactive to alert when thresholds are reached.

Optimizes

It uses the power of cloud-native platforms to automate activities that optimize the costs of your platform.

There are three ways to achieve financial governance for data processing:

Use tools provided by cloud service providers