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FinOps Certified Platform

FinOps Certified Platform

The FinOps Certified Platform certification is available to FinOps Foundation members that build, license and deliver a commercial software product, or are founding maintainers of an open source software FinOps tool project, with features that are aligned to the FinOps Framework Capabilities. A FinOps Platform enables FinOps Personas to perform activities and adopt FinOps best practices.  This certification extends beyond software functionality to take into consideration FinOps experience, FinOps community contributions, and FinOps community engagement.

Why get certified?

The FinOps community trusts the FinOps Foundation as a neutral party with no stake in positioning one tool or service provider over another. 

This certification signals to the community that…

  • Your tool’s features and functionality will meet practitioner needs when performing FinOps activities, and enable them to address their challenges and adopt FinOps best practices.
  • You have invested to increase the FinOps knowledge in your organization, which in-turn helps to deliver a better FinOps tool to the market.
  • Your organization is committed to contributing to the community and elevating the practice of FinOps for everyone.

The FinOps Certified Platform certification badge will be displayed on your FinOps Foundation Member Page, the FinOps Landscape, and on booths at the FinOps X conference.

 

Badge for FinOps Certified Platform

Certification Requirements

Membership Prerequisites
Validate Your FinOps Experience
Highlight Your FinOps Platform Capabilities
FOCUS Your FinOps Capabilities
Engage with the FinOps Community
Contribute to the FinOps Community
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Become a Member (Prerequisite)

Being a FinOps Foundation Member and Linux Foundation Member in good standing are prerequisites to becoming a FinOps Certified Platform.

 

Validate Your FinOps Experiences

Demonstrate your team’s knowledge and FinOps expertise through FinOps training and certifications.

The FinOps Certified Platform certification requires individuals in your organization to have achieved FinOps Certified Practitioner and FinOps Certified Professional certifications based on your organization’s size.

The following table outlines the number of certified individuals your organization requires for each type of certification. Note the different types of individual certifications outlined in the table are mutually exclusive. For example, one FinOps Certified Professional certification does not substitute for any FinOps Certified Practitioner certifications.

Table of FinOps Individual Certification Requirement Numbers by Organization SizeThe “Company Size” column in this table refers to the parent organization size that was used for defining your fee structure when you joined the Linux Foundation and counts are not based on the individual business unit. For example, a 100 person product team that is part of a 1,500 person organization would fall into the “500-4,999” individual certification requirement tier, and not the “100-499” individual certification requirement tier.

Highlight Your FinOps Platform Capabilities

The FinOps Framework provides the operating model for how to establish and excel in the practice of FinOps.

The FinOps Certified Platform certification requires publicly referenceable information about your product that highlights feature/functionality alignment to the Framework Capabilities and Supplemental Criteria outlined in the tables below, accompanied by a recorded demonstration of your product showcasing those FinOps capabilities.

Each Framework Capability is assigned a FinOps tool criteria value that is weighted in the context for how software functionality enables that FinOps Capability for FinOps Core Personas. The criteria value is not a reflection of the FinOps Framework Capability’s value in the practice of FinOps.

FinOps tool feature alignment is evaluated and counted as a single-point-value based on (i) publicly referenceable evidence, along with (ii) a single video recording of your product, demonstrating alignment with the corresponding FinOps Framework Capability. This means the FinOps tool feature/functionality is assessed as either meeting the Framework Capability criterion (full point-value) or not meeting it (zero point-value), with no intermediate point-value level. 

The FinOps Certified Platform certification requires a FinOps tool to reach a threshold of [75%] of the total possible criteria points from combining the (i) Capability Alignment Criteria and the (ii) Supplemental Criteria.

Capability Alignment Criteria
Understand Cloud Usage & Cost
How does your software enable the following FinOps Capabilities for FinOps Core Personas?

  • Data Ingestion [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to enable collection, transfer, store, and normalization of data from various sources, with a goal of creating a complete, contextual dataset of cloud usage and cost data available for analysis.
  • Allocation [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to assign and share cloud costs using accounts, tags, labels, and other metadata, creating accountability among teams and projects within an organization.
  • Reporting & Analytics [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to enable analysis of cloud data for creating reports to gain insights into usage and spend patterns, identify opportunities for improvement, and support informed decision-making about cloud resources.
  • Anomaly Management [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to detect, identify, alert and manage unexpected or unforecasted cloud cost and usage irregularities in a timely manner to lower risk in cost-effective cloud operations.
Quantify Business Value
How does your software enable the following FinOps Capabilities for FinOps Core Personas?

  • Planning & Estimating [tool criteria points: 3]
    • Capability to estimate and explore potential cost and value of workloads in an organization’s cloud environment for particular scenarios and models.
  • Forecasting [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to provide or create a model of the anticipated future cost and value of cloud systems leveraging statistical methods, historical spend patterns, planned changes, and related metrics.
  • Budgeting [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability for setting limits, monitoring, and managing cloud spending, aligned with business objectives, to ensure accountability and predictable financial outcomes for cloud-based systems.
  • Benchmarking [tool criteria points: 3]
    • Capability to evaluate cloud optimization and value between parts of the organization or against industry peers to inform decision-making and align FinOps with business objectives.
  • Unit Economics [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to develop and track metrics that provide an understanding of how an organization’s cloud use and cloud management practices impact the value of the organization’s products, services, or activities.
Optimize Cloud Usage & Cost
How does your software enable the following FinOps Capabilities for FinOps Core Personas?

  • Architecting for Cloud [tool criteria points: 1]
    • Capability to enable design and modernization of solutions with cost-awareness and efficiency to maximize business value while achieving performance, scalability, and operational objectives.
  • Workload Optimization [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to analyze and optimize cloud resources to match specific usage patterns while ensuring that workloads operate efficiently and generate sufficient business value for their cost.
  • Licensing & SaaS [tool criteria points: 3]
    • Capability to optimize the impact of software licenses and SaaS investments on an organization’s cloud cost and value structure by understanding vendor-specific licensing terms, use rights, and pricing options, planning for appropriate use aimed to minimize over-deployment (a compliance risk) or under-deployment (shelfware/waste).
  • Rate Optimization [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to enable and manage cloud rate efficiency through commitment discounts (RIs, Savings Plans, Committed Use Discounts), and other pricing mechanisms (Spot, interruptible VMs, cost aware region selection) to meet the organization’s operational and budgetary objectives.
  • Cloud Sustainability [tool criteria points: 3]
    • Capability of incorporating sustainability criteria and metrics into cloud optimization, to ensure environmental efficiency is balanced with FinOps practices.
Manage the FinOps Practice
How does your software enable the following FinOps Capabilities for FinOps Core Personas?

  • FinOps Practice Operations [tool criteria points: 1]
    • Capability of enabling a FinOps culture and empowering the FinOps practice through the implementation of FinOps strategy and processes.
  • FinOps Education & Enablement [tool criteria points: 1]
    • Capability of providing FinOps training, skill development, and practical activities that enable teams throughout the organization to adopt and deliver FinOps best practices.
  • Cloud Policy & Governance [tool criteria points: 3]
    • Capability to establish policies, controls and governance mechanisms to ensure that cloud use aligns with business objectives, complies with regulatory requirements, and optimizes cloud resources efficiently.
  • Invoicing & Chargeback [tool criteria points: 5]
    • Capability to enable cloud invoice reconciliation workflows and chargeback models to align cloud cost data and reporting to specific budgets and accounting requirements.
  • FinOps Assessment [tool criteria points: 1]
    • Capability to conduct repeatable, measurable analysis of the maturity of a FinOps practice in the context of the FinOps Framework for insights into strengths and areas for improvement of FinOps activities.
  • Onboarding Workloads [tool criteria points: 3]
    • Capability of orchestrating the migration of systems into, or between, cloud environments in a way that provides transparency to usage, impact and cost effectiveness.
  • Intersecting Disciplines [tool criteria points: 1]
    • Capability to enable coordination of activities between FinOps and interconnected disciplines and Allied Personas (such as, ITAM, ITFM, Sustainability, Security).

 

Supplemental Criteria
Technology Concentration, Cloud Providers, FinOps Scopes & Compliance 
Does your software have a specific technology concentration, preferred cloud provider compatibility, or achieved compliances?

  • FinOps Scopes [criteria points: 3 for each FinOps Scope]
    • This criteria is about enabling the practice of FinOps beyond public cloud.

 

  • Technology Concentration [criteria points: 10]
    • This criteria is for FinOps tools and professional service providers whose only software functionality or consulting services solely concentrate on a specific technology (like K8s, storage optimization for data lakehouses, automated provisioning/management of interruptible VMs, etc) while enabling FinOps capabilities for FinOps Core Personas.

 

  • Cloud Providers [criteria points: 3 for each cloud provider]
    • This criteria includes public CSPs (like Google, AWS, Azure, Oracle, etc) or private cloud infrastructure (like OpenStack, etc).

 

  • Compliances [criteria points: 3 for each compliance]
    • This criteria includes compliances like FedRAMP, GDPR, SOC (Type I or II), ISO 27001

FOCUS Your FinOps Capabilities

FOCUS is an open-source specification that normalizes cost and usage datasets across vendors and reduces complexity for FinOps Practitioners.

The FinOps Certified Platform certification requires publicly referenceable information indicating your FinOps tool supports FOCUS by having adopted a version of the FOCUS specification to enable functionality for producing and/or importing and/or exporting FOCUS datasets. This includes having a published FOCUS conformance gap report (see example conformance gap reports here and here).

And, individuals in your organization are required to have achieved the FinOps Certified FOCUS Analyst certification based on your organization’s size.

The following table outlines the number of certified individuals your organization requires for this certification. Note the different types of individual certifications outlined in the table are mutually exclusive. For example, a FinOps Certified FOCUS Analyst certification does not substitute for any FinOps Certified Practitioner certifications.

Table of FinOps Individual Certification Requirement Numbers by Organization SizeThe “Company Size” column in this table refers to the parent organization size that was used for defining your fee structure when you joined the Linux Foundation and counts are not based on the individual business unit. For example, a 100 person product team that is part of a 1,500 person organization would fall into the “500-4,999” individual certification requirement tier, and not the “100-499” individual certification requirement tier.

Engage with the FinOps Community

The FinOps Foundation is here to advance the people who do FinOps by creating and enriching community connections.  The FinOps Certified Platform certification requires member organizations to engage with the community as follows…

All of the following community engagement criteria
  • FinOps Foundation member profile page lists the key community participants from your organization
  • FinOps Foundation member profile page lists 3 publicly referenceable customer case studies
  • Publishing and maintaining an active company blog, or podcast or equivalent community engagement channel that shares FinOps best practices and/or thought leadership
Additional information about opportunities for engaging with the FinOps community can be found here.

 

Contribute to the FinOps Community

The FinOps Foundation is here to advance the people who do FinOps by providing opportunities for practitioners to contribute resources about learnings, how-tos and best practices in relation to the FinOps Framework to our Asset Library.  

The FinOps Certified Platform  certification requires member organizations to contribute [ 1 ] of the following resources to the FinOps Foundation’s Asset Library within the past 18 months related to a Framework Capability…

Contribute [ 1 ] of the following resources related to a Framework Capability within the past 18 months
Additional information about contributing content to the FinOps Foundation’s Asset Library can be found here.

Get Started on Your Certification

Please contact member-cert@finops.org to start the certification process for your FinOps tool or FinOps professional services offering.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why are the certification requirements for FinOps Platform and FinOps Service Providers being updated?

The practice of FinOps, and the landscape of FinOps tools & service providers, continues to evolve.  The certification requirements have been updated to align with the latest Framework update, the FOCUS Specification, the FinOps Landscape, FinOps Foundation learning materials and the FinOps related content and language being used by practitioners in the community.

 

What’s changed?

The FinOps Certified Platform certification has been simplified by consolidating the previous separate but overlapping certifications for “platform” and for “specialty solution”. Framework Capability requirements have been updated to recognize strengths and differences between software features and professional services offerings. Criteria has been updated to help you showcase and validate your FinOps capabilities. Additionally, criteria for the FOCUS specification has been introduced.

 

What are the certification types being introduced with this update?

The updated certification types are FinOps Certified Platform for software tools related to FinOps, and FinOps Certified Service Provider for professional services/consultant FinOps offerings.

 

Why were the Platform and the Specialty Solution certification types consolidated into a one certification?

The FinOps Certified Platform certification has been simplified by consolidating the previous separate but overlapping certification requirements for “platform” and for “specialty solution”. Also, feedback we received suggested there was confusion around terms like “Platform”,  “Solution”,  “Specialty”.

 

Do updated certification requirements make it harder for FinOps Platform and FinOps Service providers to become certified?

The level of effort to become a certified FinOps Platform or FinOps Service Provider remains relatively unchanged as the criteria still covers the same broad themes as past certification requirements.  However, the latest criteria does provide a clearer emphasis on community engagement and community contribution expectations, it introduces new FOCUS criteria along with updated FinOps Capability requirements that recognize strengths and differences between software features and professional services offerings.

 

Does a FinOps Certified Professional certification count towards any number of FinOps Certified Practitioner individual certifications an organization needs?

No. The different types of individual certifications are mutually exclusive. For example, one FinOps Certified Professional certification does not substitute for any FinOps Certified Practitioner certifications.

 

What does “Company Size”  mean for the number of individual FinOps certifications that are required?

The “Company Size” column refers to the parent organization size that was used for defining your fee structure when you joined the Linux Foundation and counts are not based on the individual business unit. For example, a 100 person product team that is part of a 1,500 person organization would fall into the “500-4,999” individual certification requirement tier, and not the “100-499” individual certification requirement tier.

 

Does a FinOps Certified FOCUS Analyst certification count as credit towards the required number of FinOps Certified Practitioner  certifications an organization needs?

No. The knowledge validated by the Certified FOCUS Analyst certification is supplementary and separate from the FinOps Certified Practitioner certification.  The FinOps Certified Practitioner aims to validate the knowledge related to the FinOps Framework and the practice of FinOps, while the FOCUS Analyst certification is specific to validating concepts, measures and datasets related to the FOCUS specification.

 

Does a FinOps Certified Engineer certification count towards the required number of FinOps Certified Practitioner  certifications an organization needs?

Yes. The FinOps Certified Engineer certification will be counted as 1:1 toward the required number of FinOps Certified Practitioner individual certifications based on company size. In other words 1 FinOps Certified Engineer certification is equivalent to 1 FinOps Certified Practitioner certification.

 

Why are more FinOps Certified FOCUS Analyst individual certifications required as a services provider versus a software provider?

The updated certification requirements aim to recognize the strengths and differences between building software features when compared to providing professional services offerings.  Validating the knowledge that consulting requires for understanding and supporting FOCUS initiatives is different than how software that supports producing, importing and/or exporting FOCUS conformant datasets is validated. 

 

Is my current FinOps software/services certification still valid?

Yes.  Current FinOps software and service provider certifications remain valid. We will contact members that are due to renew their certification(s).

 

Do we have to re-certify and go through the FinOps Platform/Service Provider certification review process?

Not right away.  Current FinOps tool and service provider certifications remain valid. We will contact members that are due to renew their certification(s).

 

What is a FinOps Platform?

FinOps Foundation members that build, license and deliver a commercial software product that helps FinOps practitioners successfully adopt FinOps capabilities aligned with the FinOps Framework and best practices. This extends to open-source tools for which FinOps Foundation members are founders/maintainers of an open-source project.

 

What is a FinOps Service Provider?

FinOps Foundation members that provide consulting/advisory FinOps services that help FinOps practitioners successfully adopt FinOps capabilities aligned with the FinOps Framework and best practices. They have a dedicated FinOps or cloud financial management offering listed publicly.  Professional services may include implementation of software and/or the deployment of technology solutions as part of their professional services offering.

 

Can open source FinOps tools be considered for the FinOps Certified Platform certification?

Yes. FinOps Foundation organization members that are founding maintainers of an open source software project that helps FinOps practitioners successfully adopt FinOps capabilities aligned with the FinOps Framework and best practices will be considered for the FinOps Certified Platform certification.

 

Do these certifications imply recommendations or endorsement of products and service offerings?

No. This is not a ranking or rating system. While we understand there is demand to rank FinOps tools and service providers, the FinOps Foundation aims to be a neutral space for the entire FinOps community. The FinOps Platform and FinOps Service Provider certifications are intended to inform the community about members that are engaged in FinOps best practices, aligned with the FinOps Framework, and actively contributing to the community.

 

Can our certification be transferred to or shared with my partners if they white-label my FinOps software or service offerings?

The certification is not shareable or inheritable by partners. The certification does not extend to partners that white-label your FinOps Platform or Service offerings.

 

What do the FinOps Framework criteria values mean?

Each Framework Capability is assigned a FinOps tool criteria value that is weighted in the context for how software functionality enables that FinOps Capability for FinOps Core Personas. The criteria value is not a reflection of the FinOps Framework Capability’s value in the practice of FinOps. The sum total of all the criteria values do not represent a score or ranking value of a FinOps tool itself.

 

What does FOCUS Adopter mean?

There is publicly referenceable information indicating your FinOps Platform supports FOCUS by having adopted a version of the FOCUS specification to enable functionality for producing and/or importing and/or exporting FOCUS datasets.

 

How Do I Get Started on My Certification?

Contact us at member-cert@finops.org to get started on your certification process.

 

Why get certified?

Prospective customers trust the FinOps Foundation as a neutral party with no stake in positioning one tool over another. This certification signals to the community that…

    • Your software will meet practitioner needs when performing FinOps activities, and enables them to adopt FinOps best practices.
    • You have invested to increase the FinOps knowledge in your organization, which in-turn helps to deliver a better FinOps tool to the market.
    • Your organization is committed to contributing to the community and elevating the practice of FinOps for everyone.

Additionally, certifications are displayed on your FinOps Foundation Member Page and also on the FinOps Landscape.

 

Have a question about the FinOps Platform and FinOps Service Provider certifications not answered by this FAQ?

Contact us at member-cert@finops.org

 

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