What is FinOps?

FinOps is a discipline that combines financial management principles with cloud engineering and operations to provide organizations with a better understanding of their cloud spending. It also helps them make informed decisions on how to allocate and manage their cloud costs. The goal of FinOps isn't to save money, but to maximize revenue or business value through the cloud. It helps to enable organizations to control cloud spending while maintaining the level of performance, reliability, and security needed to support their business operations.

FinOps typically involves using cloud cost management tools, like Microsoft Cost Management, and best practices to:

Analyze and track cloud spending
Identify cost-saving opportunities
Allocate costs to specific teams, projects, or products.

FinOps involves collaboration across finance, technology, and business teams to establish and enforce policies and processes that enable teams to track, analyze, and optimize cloud costs. FinOps seeks to align cloud spending with business objectives and strike a balance between cost optimization and performance so organizations can achieve their business goals without overspending on cloud resources.

The word FinOps is a blend of Finance and DevOps and is sometimes referred to as cloud cost management or cloud financial management. The main difference between FinOps and these terms is the cultural impact that expands throughout the organization. While one individual or team can "manage cost" or "optimize resources," the FinOps culture refers to a set of values, principles, and practices that permeate organizations. It helps enable them to achieve maximum business value with their cloud investment.

The FinOps Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on FinOps, offers a great video description: