GigaOm Key Criteria for Evaluating Cloud FinOps Solutionsv3.0

An Evaluation Guide for Technology Decision-Makers

Table of Contents

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Cloud FinOps Sector Brief
  3. Decision Criteria Analysis
  4. Analyst’s Outlook
  5. About Dana Hernandez

1. Executive Summary

The cloud has become the go-to hosting platform for enterprises, with multicloud and hybrid cloud infrastructures now the norm. However, managing cloud costs due to unmonitored growth and unanticipated spend has emerged as a significant challenge.

Cloud FinOps encompasses cloud financial management, an approach centered on bringing finance, business, engineering, and IT teams into closer alignment on cloud spend—the term “FinOps” in this case is viewed as a blend of “finance” and “DevOps” rather than traditional “financial operations.” FinOps enables finance, development, and operations teams to work together to achieve faster product delivery while managing and predicting cloud costs. In addition, it allows teams to make informed decisions on tradeoffs for speed, quality, and cost. Without a strong FinOps strategy, a company may pay for services, resources, and licenses it does not use or need.

A solid FinOps solution can improve financial performance by optimizing and reducing cloud costs. It can also provide detailed information for more informed decisions and increase transparency across IT organizations and the overall business. However, it is important to understand that FinOps approaches differ from the traditional IT procurement capitalization model in which finance identifies and signs off on costs allocated by product teams. Instead, a cross-functional FinOps team pulls together technology, business, and finance to optimize cloud vendor management, service rates, and discounting. It should also be noted that leading FinOps tools can process both CapEx and OpEx expenses.

More than a buzzword, FinOps is supported by the FinOps Foundation, a formal organization operating as a project within the global Linux Foundation, which ensures the industry delivers clear solutions and consistent definitions to establish financial accountability in cloud spending.

Business Imperative|
In modern IT environments, hybrid and multicloud infrastructures have become commonplace. However, many DevOps efforts have run into challenges with runaway costs due to unmonitored growth and unbudgeted spending. FinOps solutions provide formal tools and processes that enable IT, finance, and business organizations to collaborate on getting the maximum business value from the cloud by focusing on data-driven spending decisions. Top solutions provide near real-time data to make continuous decisions to help run the business in a cost-effective manner.

Sector Adoption Score
To help executives and decision-makers assess the potential impact and value of a cloud FinOps solution deployment to the business, this GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a structured assessment of the sector across five factors: benefit, maturity, urgency, impact, and effort. By scoring each factor based on how strongly it compels or deters adoption of a cloud FinOps solution, we provide an overall Sector Adoption Score (Figure 1) of 4.6 out of 5, with 5 indicating the strongest possible recommendation to adopt. This indicates that a cloud FinOps solution is a credible candidate for deployment and worthy of thoughtful consideration.

The factors contributing to the Sector Adoption Score for cloud FinOps are explained in more detail in the Sector Brief section that follows.

Key Criteria for Evaluating Cloud FinOps Solutions

Sector Adoption Score

1.0

Deters
Adoption

Discourages
Adoption

Merits
Consideration

Encourages
Adoption

Compels
Adoption

Figure 1. Sector Adoption Score for Cloud FinOps

This is the third year that GigaOm has reported on the cloud FinOps space in the context of our Key Criteria and Radar reports. This report builds on our previous analysis and considers how the market has evolved over the last year.

This GigaOm Key Criteria report highlights the capabilities (table stakes, key features, and emerging features) and nonfunctional requirements (business criteria) for selecting an effective cloud FinOps solution. The companion GigaOm Radar report identifies vendors and products that excel in those decision criteria. Together, these reports provide an overview of the market, identify leading cloud FinOps solution offerings, and help decision-makers evaluate these solutions so they can make a more informed investment decision.

GIGAOM KEY CRITERIA AND RADAR REPORTS

The GigaOm Key Criteria report provides a detailed decision framework for IT and executive leadership assessing enterprise technologies. Each report defines relevant functional and nonfunctional aspects of solutions in a sector. The Key Criteria report informs the GigaOm Radar report, which provides a forward-looking assessment of vendor solutions in the sector.

Full content available to GigaOm Subscribers.

Sign Up For Free