In partnership with
You read it correctly. Someone got a contract to handle Cloud & FinOps for that large amount. You guess who that is? See it below and check where you should start applying for a job.
What also happened this week:
Google Implements extensible Cloud Commitments
How Duolingo reduce their Cloud spend in 20%
UK Government investigates Cloud Market
Mention of Honour: FinOps Community Assitant (it’s Free)
Quick Wins with interesting articles from the community & updates from CSPs
Professional Spotlight with Mr. FinOps Video
Everyone is preparing for what’s going to come on FinOps XE.
Action Items: Read today’s newsletter, and please donate to Valencia Flood Help 🙏
Government
$1.6 Billion Contract to handle Cloud & FinOps for US Air-Force
Accenture Federal Services has secured a major $1.6 billion contract with the U.S. Air Force. The contract, which spans up to five years and three months, focuses on enhancing and scaling the Air Force's Cloud One multi-cloud environment.
This is the first of three follow-on contracts to the original Cloud One agreement.
Accenture will act as a managed services provider, offering cloud account services and enterprise-scale software support.
The contract also includes multi-cloud billing and account management services, emphasizing the growing complexity of cloud ecosystems in defense.
The numbers are just outstanding. I don’t have information regarding who was chasing this contract but my condolences. Hope you have a good US partner within Accenture, I’m sure you’ll get a piece.
In partnership with FinOut
From Manual Spreadsheets to Enterprise Financial Plans
Gearing up for your yearly budget? Dreading those long hours in Excel? Finout’s new Financial Planning & forecasting feature is here to help FinOps pros like you take control with less hassle.
Finout’s solution is built for enterprises needing accurate, streamlined cloud cost forecasting without the usual spreadsheet chaos. With Financial Plans, you can migrate your current budget hierarchies, scale to meet enterprise demands and generate forecasts to guide future allocations and govern your teams' spending easily.
Using real-time data and advanced virtual tags, Finout lets you plan forward, not just reflect on the past. Gain actionable insights and enforce accountability in cloud spending, so you’re ready for the future.
Check out Finout’s Financial Planning feature. FinOps deserves smarter tools than Excel, and honestly, it shouldn’t be that hard.
Learn more about Finout’s Financial Planning solution here.
GCP
Extendable Cloud Commitments for GCP
Google Cloud's Compute Engine now allows customers to extend the term length of their hardware resource commitments beyond the standard 1 and 3 year options.
Customers can now set custom end dates for both new and existing commitments. For 1-year commitments, terms can be extended up to just under 3 years. For 3-year commitments, terms can go up to just under 6 years. Some key points about term extensions:
Can be done for both new and existing active commitments
Doesn't change the discount percentage
Has a limited eligibility window after the commitment starts
Can be done multiple times within the eligibility window
Keeps the same commitment properties and attached reservations
Big Companies
How Duolingo Saved 20% in Cloud (Actionable)
Duolingo saved a lot of money on cloud costs. They cut their spending by 20% in just a few months. The team found that saving money often meant improving their code. This made their system better overall. Here's how they did it:
They looked closely at where their money was going. They used tools to see which services cost the most. They got rid of things they didn't need. This included old databases and entire microservices.
They cleaned up their data. They deleted old information and reduced how much they were logging.
They right-sized their services. Many were using more resources than needed.
They used AWS's built-in cost-saving features.
They reduced network traffic between services & fixed inefficient code and extended cache times.
Duolingo encourages all engineers to think about costs when designing systems. This helps save money and build better products. These pieces is what we need to make FinOps actionable for everyone.
Cloud Market
CMA Investigates UK Cloud Services Market
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK is looking into how public cloud services are provided.
The investigation started on October 5, 2023. The CMA wants to understand if anything is affecting fair competition in cloud services. They are talking to big companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google. The CMA is also asking for input from other businesses and people who use cloud services. They will finish their investigation by August 4, 2025. They are looking at things like:
How much it costs to move data between different cloud providers
How cloud companies make deals with customers
If there are technical reasons that make it hard to switch between cloud providers
The CMA wants to make sure the cloud market works well for everyone who uses it.
Together with Turbo360
Overcoming ACM Limitations: Smarter Cloud Cost Management (Whitepaper)
Managing cloud costs can be unpredictable, challenging, and expensive, making traditional methods fall short.
Azure Cost Management (ACM) offers tools like calculators and Azure Advisor but lacks the user-friendliness and flexibility needed for true cost optimization. Azure Cost Management (ACM) offers tools like calculators and Azure Advisor but lacks the user-friendliness and flexibility needed for true cost optimization.
But wait, this whitepaper has all the answers you need:
The limitations of ACM in managing cloud costs
Why a third-party solution is essential for better visibility
How Turbo360’s user-centric approach simplifies cost management
Key areas where Turbo360 drives the most value, empowering teams to reduce expenses effectively
🎖️ Mention of Honour
FinOps Chatbot for the Community
In our Telegram Community Channel, we’ve added a chatbot that can help solve you some of the doubts you can have within FinOps topics.
We are trying to solve the doubts of the community, yet we don’t have the time to create questions, answers, and content. We are leveraging the AI to generate answers for community questions, and we are amazed of the potential. It’s able to provide amazing, actionable pieces of code along with in-depth explanations.
Beware, it only speaks FinOps!
🏆 Quick Wins
Announcements
Microsoft's Cost Management team has released new updates for September 2024. The main focus is on managing costs for Azure OpenAI Service.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) released Cloud Advisor, a free tool that helps customers save money on their cloud usage.
Amazon DocumentDB now offers document compression to help save storage space and reduce costs.
Google has released new computer chips called Axion. Now available in virtual machines called C4A.
Articles & Podcasts
Over the past two months, Alfonso San Miguel Sánchez has been working on setting up a large Kubernetes cluster in Azure (AKS).
Master FinOps: Cut Cloud Costs, Boost Sustainability by Lee Wagner
The Future of FinOps with Google’s VP of Engineering
Shifting FinOps Left: the design phase by Jeremy Nancel
Professional Spotlight
Jon Myer
Pro FinOps Content
Jon was one of my inspirations to create content in the space. I’ve participated in his FinOps Nexus podcast. Was amazed by the professional way he does stuff.
That’s all for this week. See you next Sunday!
Before You Go …
🆘Aid to those affected by the flooding in Valencia 🆘
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Cáritas: Cáritas
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