FinOps and the fine art of managing cloud spend: Six questions answered

Most of our customers agree that the rise of the public cloud over the past decade has been an undisputed game-changer. Recently, another key message has also been coming through loud and clear: help us track and manage our spend in the public cloud. Enter FinOps – the latest and greatest methodology to bring financial rigour to cloud technology.

At Macquarie Cloud Services, a dedicated FinOps team comes as standard with our Managed Azure Cloud Services. There are six questions we commonly hear our customers ask about FinOps. Let’s dive into them now.

1. What is FinOps?

Short for financial operations, FinOps is an evolving discipline and cultural practice that brings financial accountability to the “pay as you go” spending model of cloud. As cloud usage grows – the latest research from Statista concludes that the market for public cloud services is expected to reach somewhere north of AU$2.5 trillion by the end of this decade – effective cost management of cloud resources is becoming an increasingly critical agenda item for CIOs and CFOs.

A recent ADAPT Cloud and Infrastructure Edge survey discovered that optimising costs is the second top priority for tech leaders in 2024; second only to modernisation and simplification. FinOps helps meet that challenge.

2. Why do we need FinOps?

Let me start by saying that the public cloud offers many, many benefits when it comes to cost efficiency. Our Managed Azure customers love the fact that they only pay for the resources they use, without having to make significant upfront investments in hardware. You’ve probably seen the research from Accenture that moving to the public cloud can slash the total cost of ownership of your technology infrastructure by as much as 40%.

However, tracking expenditure in public cloud environments can be particularly challenging, simply because the environment is so dynamic and scalable. Things can change on a daily (if not hourly) basis. In fact, some cloud usage bills have so many different line items that it can almost be a full-time job to make sense of it!

We offer you a dedicated FinOps team that is attached to your Managed Azure service to cut through all this noise and complexity, providing you with greater visibility of what’s going on in your environment in a single dashboard. You’ll also benefit from recommendations and insights to help optimise your environment – which goes a long way to avoiding the dreaded monthly “bill shock”.

3. Is FinOps just about saving money?

Definitely not. While cost efficiency is one of the core principles of FinOps, it’s also been designed to help you make trade-offs between cost, speed and quality. The key here is value rather than cost minimisation.

At Macquarie Cloud Services, for example, our team delivers recommendations aligned to the Azure Well-Architected Framework. This means we also provide you with proactive recommendations that consider reliability, security, operational excellence and performance efficiency.

So while we monitor your environment to detect usage and storage spikes and provide you with real-time recommendations to manage them, we also look at overall user behaviour, e.g.:

• What’s consistently costing you more money than it should, and how can we save some of those costs?
• What can we consolidate?
• How can we maximise performance from a particular service?

4. So how does it all work?

I like to think of FinOps as being part science, part art form. We use some amazing technology and tools to monitor our Managed Azure customer environments and gather insights, however the work doesn’t stop there. Our analysts apply their expertise to make recommendations based on those insights. They then work with our exceptional team of Service Delivery Managers to hone it further, based on the customer context.

It’s truly a team effort. If you love football (like me), think of it a bit like this: the technology is your defence, FinOps is your midfield and your Service Delivery Manager is the striker who brings it all home.

5. Sounds good, but does FinOps deliver actual cost savings?

It certainly does. Just ask our customer who recently shaved around $25,000 in recurring expenditure from their monthly cloud bill. Get in touch and I’ll talk you through how they did it.

6. Is FinOps just for the public cloud?

Absolutely not. FinOps strategies apply equally to private and hybrid cloud environments too, particularly since Microsoft Azure Stack HCI has emerged as a viable platform alternative that’s still linked to an Azure-led strategy.

Want to know more about that? Find out how Macquarie Flex is enabling true, simplified hybrid cloud capabilities; as well as managing cloud spend and meeting compliance and sovereign requirements.

How we can help.

If you’re already on Azure and want to manage your cost, you’re in the right place. The first step is to evaluate your current setup. Check out Macquarie Lens – our tool to help you unlock invaluable insights into your Azure environment, courtesy of one of our principal consultants.

Best of all, it’s a free service for new clients. Normally valued at $2500, Macquarie Lens is our gift to you as you embark on the quest to manage your Azure costs.

When it comes to mastering Microsoft Azure, Macquarie Cloud Services is the industry leader. We set the benchmark for skills and capability in Microsoft Azure. We’re proud to be an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider – a distinction we’ve earned through rigorous independent assessments.

Let’s get to work.

Are you ready to optimise your Microsoft Azure environment? We’re excited to embark on this journey with you. Reach out to us today at 1800 004 943 or drop us an email at enquiries@macquariecloudservices.com to explore how we can help you manage Azure cost. Let’s make your Azure experience not only cost-effective, but also seamless and productive.