During
the
height
of
the
pandemic,
the
push
to
the
cloud
gained
pace
–
and
with
good
reason.
The
value
of
having
an
agile
platform
for
business
was
suddenly
more
apparent,
and
many
organisations
sought
to
rapidly
modernise
their
applications
and
platforms
to
become
true
“cloud-first
operations”.
Budgets
were
approved
and
many
CFOs
saw
some
appealing
cost
savings
on
the
horizon,
stemming
from
outsourced
infrastructure,
reduced
capital
expenditure
and
maintenance,
energy
savings,
eliminating
redundancies
(with
cloud
providers
offering
replication
of
your
data
across
multiple
data
centres,
replacing
the
need
for
additional
investment
in
back-up
hardware),
a
smaller
in-house
IT
team,
and
consumption-based
pricing
models
where
you
only
pay
for
what
you
use.
But
not
all
these
savings
have
eventuated.
So
with
businesses
squaring
up
to
face
tough
economic
headwinds
in
2023,
now
is
the
time
to
understand
why
your
cloud
costs
might
be
stacking
up
on
the
wrong
side
of
the
ledger
and
how
to
bring
them
under
control.
One
of
the
issues
is
the
idea
of
a
consumption-based
pricing
model
versus
the
reality.
It
sounds
great
because
you
“only
pay
for
what
you
use”,
but
–
in
the
same
way,
it
is
easy
to
rack
up
monthly
power
and
data
costs
for
your
household
–
unless
your
organisation
is
scrutinising
its
monthly
resource
needs,
optimising
usage,
and
taking
advantage
of
the
scale
and
flexibility
offered
by
the
cloud,
it
is
easy
to
end
up
paying
much
more
than
anticipated.
To
wrestle
back
control
of
cloud
costs,
businesses
need
to
focus
on
FinOps
or
cloud
financial
operations:
an
approach
which
sees
your
IT
and
DevOps
experts
working
with
purchasing,
finance
and
other
teams
across
the
organisation
to
understand
and
manage
(and
take
shared
responsibility
for)
your
cloud
infrastructure
and
costs.
FinOps
let
you
gain
the
maximum
business
value
from
using
the
cloud
by
making
data-driven
spending
decisions.
At
Datacom,
FinOps
are
becoming
central
to
how
we
help
our
customers
use
our
private
cloud
platform,
as
well
as
the
big
three
public
cloud
providers
–
AWS,
Google
Cloud
Platform
and
Microsoft
Azure.
At
the
core
of
this
approach
is
application
lifecycle
management,
a
series
of
tools
and
processes
that
ensure
you
are
accessing
the
most
appropriate
software
licences,
service
plans
and
warranties.
It
considers
things
like
virtual
machine
utilisation,
data
storage
levels,
and
even
individual
transaction
costs
to
allow
for
ongoing
optimisation.
Initial
enthusiasm
for
the
economic
case
for
all
things
cloud
has
waned
in
many
cases
as
organisations
start
to
more
closely
evaluate
the
medium
to
long-term
business
value
being
delivered,
but
rather
than
executing
a
hasty
retreat
CFOs
should
look
to
FinOps
for
hard
data
on
where
cloud
spending
is
delivering
value.
You
can
also
evaluate
opportunities
for
the
cloud
to
deliver
more
value
through
smarter
data
analytics,
machine
learning
and
business
process
automation.
There
is
no
question
that
establishing
cloud-first
operations
can
yield
significant
gains
and
create
a
truly
agile
business,
but
the
critical
misconception
that
took
hold
in
the
rush
towards
the
cloud
is
that
after
making
the
move,
organisations
can
simply
set
and
forget
and
still
cut
costs,
secure
their
data
and
realise
value.
Simply
migrating
to
the
cloud
is
not
the
magic
bullet.
Using
FinOps,
you
can
drill
down
into
where
the
cloud
is
delivering
value
and
where
things
need
to
change.
The
perfect
solution
for
your
organisation
could
end
up
being
a
mix
of
public
and
private
cloud,
or
it
could
require
better,
more
proactive
management
of
your
data
and
apps.
Or
both.
To
find
the
right
answer,
you
and
your
team
will
have
to
dig
into
the
data.
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