Data analysis and showback is the ability to leverage data, along with metadata on cloud resources and resource hierarchies, to create a near “real time” reporting mechanism for stakeholders which calls to attention: Total costs for the desired business entity, opportunities for cost avoidance, and KPIs for financial health (e.g. performance of rate reduction commitments, unit cost measures for key services, efficiency metrics aggregated by desired “team”, organizational unit, etc…).
In the context of FinOps, this work will typically focus on the cloud cost and usage data. This Capability relies heavily upon adequate data ingestion and data normalization capabilities. The results from the work for Data Analysis & Showback will typically be available for Chargeback & IT Finance Integration.
It is within the scope of this Capability to create the data repository of normalized, queryable data from which reporting, analysis, and visualization of cloud cost and usage will occur. Many of the optimization capabilities and alignment with other organizational processes and systems will likewise rely upon the data sources created by this Capability.
In many cases, organizations will rely upon the native cloud-provider tools to satisfy this capability. In other cases, third party tools will provide much of this functionality.
As cost showback is a fundamental aspect of FinOps, all FinOps domains should be considered and accounted for. Hence, reaching the highest maturity level should be considered a work in progress across the FinOps Domains.
Measures of success are represented in the context of cloud costs and may include one or more key performance indicators ( KPI ), describe objectives with key results ( OKR ), and declare thresholds defining outliers or acceptable variance from forecasted trends.
Video
Learn about Tableau’s cloud cost management journey, powered by publishing the AWS CUR as a Tableau Data Source. Jenna shared lessons learned and best practices in driving action with data from her 5+ years in FinOps.
Utility
A glossary of FinOps concepts and related terminology used by practitioners all over the world.
Video
Learn how Cigna enables a culture of cloud cost transparency, starting with mastering cloud cost complexity and mastering the variable component of pay-per-use of resources.
Video
Fidelity Investments joined us to share their journey to cloud cost optimization. We learned about the the value of strong KPI’s to support the cloud cost journey and key strategies that helped Fidelity start with the simple (Crawl), evolved as they learned (Walk) and are now looking into the more complex programs and cost optimization technology for the future (Run).
Video
This talk walked through what data is key for reporting success, how to collect this data efficiently, and how to best use this data to drive success in the cloud through improved cost visibility.
Get involved and contribute to the community by sharing your real world experiences related to this Capability in the form of a story or providing a playbook for how you have implemented best practices in your organization. Your real world experiences can be provided in the context of:
Join the conversation about this Capability in Slack . You can submit stories, how-tos and suggest improvements using one of the options for contributing here.