Government is Launching its FinOps Team

In partnership with

What happened this week:

• A Government Department to create a FinOps Team

• New F2 Playbook

• +2 News in Size based on your feedback

• Mention of Honour to Serverless & Cost

• Job Offers

• Professional Spotlight with a Post of Community Favourites

Stuff is back after summer. We survived. Enjoy yourself:

Collaborate with FinOps Weekly

AWS
The UK Home Office Department creates a FinOps Team

The Home Office is setting up a new team to manage public cloud spending better. Here are the highlights:

Creating an Internal FinOps Team

• The Home Office will build its own FinOps team.

• This team will manage cloud spending more effectively.

Current Cloud Challenges

• Existing cloud management is scattered and inconsistent.

• Improved visibility and optimization of usage are priorities.

Partnership for Expertise

• A £475,000 contract with Mobilise Cloud Services has been signed.

• They will help establish the FinOps team.

• Lucky them ;D

Focus on Skill Development

• The Home Office wants to grow its own capabilities.

• They want to avoid becoming dependent on external aid.

• Coming from a government organism, in Spain, it would stay that way. And of course, wasting a lot while leveraging subcontractors.

Great to see that some governments are conscious about their cloud spend and are taking action.

I’d love to know how the US is doing, based on the amount of GovCloud that must be in place. And I think US taxpayers should as well.

In summary, the Home Office is taking steps to manage cloud resources more efficiently and independently. Let's see how it ends up!

In partnership with Turbo360
Optimize Azure costs and Simplify Management

FinOps Foundation
Anomaly Cost Avoidance: Maximize Savings with FinOps Playbook

Anomaly-Detected Cost Avoidance Playbook

• Helps find and fix costly cloud spending anomalies.

• Useful for FinOps practitioners and finance teams.

• Requires cloud usage and spending data access.

Steps to Calculate Cost Avoidance

Prep Time

• Estimate what might have been spent undetected.

• Use a time range coefficient based on check frequency.

• Align with teams on frequency for accuracy.

Calculation

• Find the cost difference due to anomalies.

• Subtract normal spending from actual spending for the anomaly.

• Multiply by the time range for final cost avoidance.

Success Indicators

• Regularly report cost savings to the FinOps team.

• Use findings to improve cloud service management.

• Automate for daily anomaly checks if possible.

Preventing cloud cost surprises keeps you and your budget healthy!

GreenOps
Google's Ireland data center blocked for Greenwashing

Google's plan for a data center in Ireland hit a roadblock.

Here's what happened:

• NGOs accused Google of greenwashing its energy claims.

• Google wanted a new data center in South Dublin.

• The site would cover 72,000+ square meters.

• The local council rejected Google's application.

• The council cited insufficient electricity network capacity.

• Google claimed its energy is 100% renewable globally.

• Critics say Google's green claims have loopholes.

• Taisce opposed Google for lacking onsite renewables.

• Waste heat reuse plans were also criticized.

• Google must revise plans to try again in the future.

• Ireland’s data centers will soon consume more power than homes.

Licensing
AT&T sues Broadcom over VMware contract disputes

AT&T has a big problem with Broadcom over VMware contracts. Here’s what's happening:

AT&T's Lawsuit

• AT&T is suing Broadcom.

• They claim Broadcom might not support their software.

• This could affect emergency services and security.

The Dispute

• Broadcom changed VMware deals after buying it.

• They want AT&T to pay for new software bundles.

• AT&T wants to keep their old contract terms.

Consequences

• If support stops, AT&T’s services might fail.

• This affects services for first responders and the government.

• Finding new software solutions would take years.

Court Involvement

• The court told Broadcom to reply soon.

• Broadcom denies the claims and is confident they’ll win.

• AT&T wants court help to keep the contracts as they are.

Price changes in VMware licensing is not going that well for the large vendor!

Hybrid Cloud
MongoDB spends $25M to buy IPv4 Addresses

Many companies are finding creative ways to cut their cloud costs, and here's how MongoDB is doing it.

1. MongoDB spent $25 million on IPv4 addresses: This purchase will lower their cloud infrastructure costs. It helps avoid buying addresses randomly later.

2. AWS charges for IPv4 use since February 2024: Costs are $0.005 per IP per hour. This affects several cloud services like EC2 and VPN.

3. Buying IPv4 addresses protects MongoDB from fluctuating prices: This move ensures a steady supply for their customers. It avoids dependency on cloud providers.

4. AWS is working on better IPv6 service support: Full IPv6 adoption faces many challenges. Many AWS services still lack IPv6 compatibility.

MongoDB’s strategy highlights that hybrid cloud combinations can be key for FinOps. Not everything has to be complete repatriation.

Expensive Lines of Code
Single Terraform line saves $1,500/month

Discover how a simple Terraform adjustment can lead to big savings!

1. AWS costs suddenly increased by over $1,500 monthly.

2. CloudWatch metrics unintentionally caused the extra expense.

3. These metrics were not needed, as Datadog was used.

4. One Terraform line disabled expensive metrics.

5. This resulted in saving about $50 daily.

6. Saving $18,000 annually from just one change!

7. Always double-check the features enabled in your AWS setup.

Small changes can make a big impact!

AI
AI makes insecure Cloud setups Faster!

Provisioning cloud infrastructure can be tricky. Using AI tools might make it even worse. Here’s an experiment trying to generate TF code using AI.

I can confirm that IaC with AI is still long to be ready for complex scenarios.

• Wrong Code: AI tools provide insecure infrastructure code. They use common, hard-coded passwords.

• Fake "Random" Passwords: AI tools suggest non-random passwords. They're not safe to use at all.

• Password Generation Flaws: Python's random module isn't secure for passwords. Always use the secrets module instead.

• What Needs to Change: Cloud providers should detect and block bad patterns. LLM vendors need to reduce risky AI outputs.

Be cautious and secure when using AI for your IaC!

Mention of Honour presented by Oneleet

Deserved for recent discoveries that are inspiring for the FinOps community.

Want SOC 2 compliance without the Security Theater?

Question 🤔 does your SOC 2 program feel like Security Theater? Just checking pointless boxes, not actually building security?

In an industry filled with security theater vendors, Oneleet is the only security-first compliance platform that provides an “all in one” solution for SOC 2.

We’ll build you a real-world Security Program, perform the Penetration Test, integrate with a 3rd Party Auditor, and provide the Compliance Software … all within one platform.

Schedule a demo for pricing!

🎖️ Mention of Honour
Rethink Serverless with TCO

Serverless is one controversial topic of the cloud, especially regarding cost efficiency.

In a great post, Serverless expert Yan Cui discusses how the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) can be reduced using this approach.

Focus on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

• Consider more than just AWS Lambda costs.

• People's costs often exceed service costs.

Do more with fewer people

• Serverless reduces the need for large DevOps teams.

• Developers focus on creating value, not managing infrastructure.

Think about opportunity costs

• Faster iterations can lead to quicker market results.

• Less overhead means more focus on product development.

I'd definitely consider his website for those who are hesitant or beginners of the Serverless approach as it contains all you need to learn about it.

👩‍🏭 FinOps Job offers

I'll find both Permanent links (i.e. FinOps Job site) and Offers on the internet.

Professional Spotlight
Mike Bradbury

The FinOps Ninja

One of the most experienced FinOps out there. He’s doing an amazing job, along with others running the FinOps Connect Community, a great space for FinOps to share and learn. And he’s also a Ninja 😁 

🏆 Quick Wins

Announcements

FinOpsXE adds new sessions in Europe! Check the list

New Updates for the Azure Cost Optimization Workbook

Azure Advisor Well-Architected Assessment in Public Preview

AWS Cloud Intelligence Dashboards Framework Release

AWS Karpenter Blueprints now using Karpenter v1

Amazon ECS now supports AWS Graviton-based Spot compute with AWS Fargate

Articles & Podcasts

What’s New In Cloud FinOps August Edition

Great edition of Azure FinOps Essentials: Optimize Azure Storage Costs with smart strategies!

How Figma migrated to Kubernetes in <12 Months.

BeeHero slashes cloud costs by 20%.

Interesting thoughts from Tim about The Role of Education and AI in Recruitment

Master cloud pricing to save costs efficiently

Tools

Deploy cost-effective fck-nat on AWS to save money on NAT Gateways.

Community Spotlight
Simple AWS by Guille Ojeda

The Newsletter to learn about AWS & Cloud Architect Solutions, run by the one and only Guille Ojeda. Enjoy his jokes on LinkedIn and check his newsletter to learn how to become a Cloud Architect

🗳️ Poll of the Week

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