FinOps FOCUS: Basics, Benefits, and How To Get Started

The volume of data generated in cloud environments is immense, with billions of rows created every hour. For companies using multiple cloud services, managing this data becomes more complicated due to different data/report formats from each provider. Amazon Web Services (AWS), for example, delivers billing data through Cost and Usage Reports, whereas Microsoft Azure uses Cost Management APIs. This discrepancy makes it challenging for FinOps professionals to standardize and analyze data effectively.

To address these issues, the FinOps Foundation has introduced FinOps FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification), a specification to standardize cost and usage datasets across cloud platforms. This approach helps professionals standardize data, enhance financial clarity, and optimize cloud spending. In this blog, we'll cover what FinOps FOCUS involves, its benefits, and how to get started with it in your organization.

Table of Contents

1. What is FinOps FOCUS?
2. What are The Benefits of FinOps FOCUS?
3. Who Can Use FinOps FOCUS?
4. How to Get Started with FinOps FOCUS?
5. Community Engagement in FinOps FOCUS
6. How Can Finout Help You With FinOps?

What is FinOps FOCUS?

FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) is an open-source standard developed to streamline the way cloud billing data is formatted and handled across multiple cloud platforms. As a technical specification, FOCUS mandates a unified format for cloud bills, which is aimed at simplifying the complexities involved in data normalization, thereby making FinOps practices more efficient. This specification sets clear requirements for cloud vendors to adhere to a single billing file format, significantly reducing the time FinOps practitioners spend on data ingestion and normalization.

Image Source: FinOps FOCUS

The introduction of FOCUS tackles a significant challenge for FinOps practitioners: the intensive task of gathering, standardizing, and analyzing cloud billing data from multiple sources. Each cloud vendor uses its own unique terminology, taxonomy, and metrics, leading to inconsistent billing files. This lack of uniformity complicates the initial stages of financial analysis, requiring substantial effort to transform this diverse data into a standardized format suitable for organizational needs. By promoting a unified billing standard, FOCUS streamlines these early processes, allowing businesses to shift their focus toward strategic initiatives that enhance the returns on their cloud investments.

Currently, FOCUS is gaining traction among major cloud providers. This adoption is crucial as it supports a more standardized approach to managing cloud costs, which is especially important given the increasing reliance on cloud solutions and the projected rise in cloud waste. Its ongoing development and expected extensions to include SaaS providers and on-premises datasets indicate its potential to become an essential tool in the arsenal of every FinOps team.

What are The Benefits of FinOps FOCUS?

FinOps FOCUS offers a range of practical benefits designed to streamline and enhance cloud cost management. Below, we explore these advantages, highlighting specific problems they address and the solutions provided.

Standardization of Billing Data

Each cloud provider typically uses different formats for billing and usage data, complicating the aggregation and analysis processes. As a solution, FOCUS mandates a uniform billing format across cloud providers, significantly easing the data ingestion process. This eliminates the need for varied normalization techniques, enabling quicker preparation and analysis of financial data, which is essential for timely decision-making in dynamic cloud environments.

Enhanced Data Accuracy

Inconsistent data entries and formats from different CSPs used to lead to errors in reporting and analysis, affecting financial decisions. With a standardized approach, FOCUS reduces the likelihood of errors in data capture and interpretation. This level of accuracy is critical for organizations as it ensures reliability in financial assessments and fosters confidence among stakeholders in making data-driven decisions.

Reduced Operational Overhead

By standardizing billing data, FOCUS decreases the need for extensive manual data handling. This reduction in operational tasks frees up FinOps teams to focus on more strategic initiatives like identifying cost-saving opportunities and optimizing cloud resource usage.

Faster Time-to-Insight

The streamlined processes enabled by FOCUS lead to faster data consolidation and analysis. This acceleration in turning data into insights allows organizations to more quickly respond to market changes and internal demands, enhancing agility in financial operations.

Improved Cost Optimization

With a clearer and unified view of cloud expenses provided by FOCUS, organizations can better identify trends, anomalies, and opportunities for cost reduction. This visibility is crucial for effectively managing cloud budgets and ensuring financial efficiency across services.

Ease in Multi-Cloud Management

Managing costs in multi-cloud environments is often complex due to differing pricing models and billing structures. A standardized data format eases the comparison and management of costs across multiple providers, supporting more effective multi-cloud strategies.

Scalability and Future-Proofing

The extensibility of FOCUS to include SaaS and future cloud services ensures that it remains applicable as new technologies emerge. This adaptability makes it a sustainable solution for growing organizations that anticipate expansions in their cloud infrastructure.

Who Can Use FinOps FOCUS?

FinOps FOCUS divides its users into three primary categories, each with distinct roles and responsibilities concerning cloud billing data. These categories include FinOps practitioners, cloud vendors, and FinOps vendors. Here's a detailed look at each:

FinOps Practitioners

FinOps practitioners are the direct end-users of FOCUS datasets within organizations. They typically engage in the operational management of cloud costs and resources, applying FinOps practices to optimize spending and efficiency. These professionals use FOCUS to streamline their work by relying on standardized billing data, which reduces the need for extensive data cleaning and preparation. 

With FOCUS, they can quickly access and interpret billing information, which enhances their ability to make strategic decisions regarding cloud resource utilization. This group benefits immensely from predefined queries and educational programs that further simplify the analysis and reporting processes, ensuring that practitioners can focus on cost-saving strategies and performance improvements rather than data management complexities.

Cloud Vendors

This group includes Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Cloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Providers, and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who generate and send billing data to their customers. For these vendors, adherence to the FOCUS specification is crucial as it dictates the data format and content of billing files. This ensures that the data they generate is easily ingestible by customers using FOCUS-compliant tools and systems. 

Significantly, four of the largest cloud service providers have already pledged their support for the FOCUS specification, recognizing its potential to simplify cloud billing for their customers. These include:

• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

Cloud vendors must consider not only the technical specifications of FOCUS but also the delivery mechanisms such as APIs or direct data feeds, which must be reliable and timely to meet customer needs for up-to-date financial analysis and reporting.

FinOps Vendors

FinOps vendors are unique in that they both generate and consume cloud billing data. These include providers of FinOps tools and services, such as consultants, managed service providers (MSPs), and system integrators (SIs). These vendors develop tools that are capable of handling FOCUS-conformant data, which involves transforming non-conformant data into a standardized format and also generating their own FOCUS-compliant billing data for clients. 

Their role is critical as they bridge the gap between cloud billing data generation and consumption, providing a dual perspective that enhances their tool offerings and service delivery. Technical account managers, customer success service professionals, and professional services teams within these companies play a pivotal role in supporting customers through the complexities of cloud cost management using FOCUS-conformant tools and reports.

Each of these user groups contributes to the ecosystem of cloud billing management, utilizing FinOps FOCUS to fulfill their specific needs and roles within the broader FinOps community.

How to Get Started with FinOps FOCUS?

Getting started with FinOps FOCUS involves a clear, step-by-step approach that allows organizations to align their cloud billing data with the FOCUS specifications. Whether you're a cloud vendor, FinOps practitioner, or a company looking to streamline cloud cost management, following these steps can help you effectively implement FOCUS:

Training and Certification

The first step to effectively implementing FinOps FOCUS is to build a solid educational base. The FinOps Foundation offers a free course titled "Introduction to FOCUS," designed to familiarize individuals with the basics of FOCUS. This course covers what FOCUS is, and its significance for FinOps practitioners and vendors, and provides a foundational understanding of the specification. Upon completion, participants will be prepared to discuss FOCUS at an introductory level and know where to find further resources. 

Then you can solidify your credibility with FinOps Certified FOCUS Analyst certification. This certification involves more detailed training on the FOCUS specifications and broader FinOps capabilities, empowering participants to leverage FOCUS-conformed datasets effectively. Obtaining certification allows individuals to utilize FOCUS queries from the FinOps Use Case Library to address specific organizational needs. It also enables them to become the FOCUS expert within their organizations, helping others derive insights from cloud data to inform key performance indicators (KPIs) and tracking metrics. The certification is valid for 24 months after passing the exam.

Setup Data Exports in FOCUS Format

Configure your cloud billing data exports to align with FOCUS specifications. For AWS, this involves logging into the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console, navigating to "Data Exports," and creating an export in the "FOCUS 1.0 with AWS Columns (Preview)" format.

Similarly, engage with other CSPs like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to set up FOCUS-compliant data exports. This ensures that your data is received in a standardized format, and ready for analysis.

Data Handling and Integration

Establish robust ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes that are tailored to handle FOCUS-formatted data. This might include developing custom scripts or using third-party tools that facilitate the conversion of existing datasets into the FOCUS format.

Implement data validation practices to ensure the integrity and accuracy of the data once it is transformed to the FOCUS standard.

Continuous Improvement

Once FOCUS is implemented, continuously monitor its effectiveness and look for areas of improvement. Participate in FinOps community forums and working groups to stay updated on the latest developments and best practices. Provide feedback to the FOCUS community on your experiences and any challenges faced, contributing to the evolution and refinement of the FOCUS specifications.

Community Engagement in FinOps FOCUS

Community engagement is a crucial element in the successful adoption and implementation of FinOps FOCUS. Engaging with a community of like-minded professionals provides invaluable opportunities for learning, sharing, and evolving the practices around cloud cost management. Here are some specific ways you can expand your involvement within the FinOps community:

Participate in Forums and Discussion Groups

Join online forums and discussion groups dedicated to FinOps and FOCUS. These platforms are great for asking questions, sharing experiences, and gaining insights from peers who are also implementing or considering the adoption of FOCUS. Engaging in these discussions can help you understand common challenges, innovative solutions, and best practices.

Attend Workshops and Webinars

Regularly attend workshops, webinars, and other educational events hosted by the FinOps Foundation or community members. These events often cover new updates to the FOCUS specifications, showcase real-world case studies, and provide tutorials on specific features or use cases. They are also an excellent way to stay connected with the latest trends and developments in the field.

Contribute to Collaborative Projects

Get involved in collaborative projects that aim to refine and enhance the FOCUS specifications. Contributions can range from technical enhancements, documentation improvements, or even beta testing new features. This type of engagement not only helps improve the tool but also builds your reputation as a knowledgeable and active community member.

Mentorship and Networking

Engage in mentorship opportunities either as a mentor or a mentee. This can be especially valuable for new members who are just starting with FOCUS and can benefit from the guidance of experienced practitioners. Additionally, networking with other professionals can open up new opportunities for collaboration and professional growth. Share your learnings, insights, and resources such as custom queries, configuration tips, or analytical tools with the community. 

By actively participating in these community engagement activities, you can significantly enhance your understanding and application of FinOps FOCUS, while also contributing to the broader goal of advancing cloud financial management practices globally.

How Can Finout Help You With FinOps?

It's exciting to see how FOCUS is shaping up to streamline billing data across different platforms. However, it’s good to keep in mind that not all cloud services like Snowflake, MongoDB, Datadog, Cloudflare, and Fastly are on board with the FOCUS standard just yet. They haven’t committed to adopting it, which might pose a challenge if you're trying to get a complete view of your entire cloud infrastructure using FOCUS alone.

On the bright side, Finout’s MegaBill is here to fill that gap. The MegaBill streamlines cloud management by providing a unified view of all cloud services and providers. It offers dual tracking capabilities for cost monitoring and usage tracking, allowing a seamless switch between views to enhance operational efficiency. 

With the MegaBill, integration is straightforward - no code or additional software is needed, and setup takes just five minutes. This tool not only helps with visibility but also gives insights into resource utilization and spending patterns, identifying areas for cost reduction and operational optimization. MegaBill is ideal for managing and optimizing cloud costs across various platforms, enhancing visibility and control over cloud spending.