CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD SECURITY, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS
Prnewswire | May 04, 2023
The FinOps Foundation, part of The Linux Foundation's non-profit technology consortium, which aims to advance the people and practice of cloud financial management, today announced the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS), a technical project to build and maintain an open specification for the presentation of cloud cost, usage, and billing data. Google and Microsoft are founding members and will be on the FOCUS steering committee.
Businesses increasingly need a single view of spend associated with delivering applications and services in the cloud. FOCUS outlines a consistent structure for the presentation of cloud cost data, which will enable companies to expedite cloud adoption. The consistent presentation increases trust in the data and the ability to map costs back to their business.
By making billing data easier to understand and more consistently reportable between multiple vendors, FOCUS will remove complexity and overhead from processes such as allocation, chargeback, budgeting, forecasting, and the other FinOps capabilities to maximize business value in the cloud. The specification initially targets spending from Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers and will expand to SaaS, PaaS, and on-premise costs to allow unified cost reporting across more types of spending.
"FOCUS will solve problems that organizations maturing their cloud adoption now face," said Udam Dewaraja, who recently left Citi as Head of Global Cloud Financial Management. As part of the FinOps Foundation now, he will chair the initial FOCUS working group. "Today, there's no clear way to unify cost and usage data sets across different vendors. Having previously faced this challenge as a practitioner, I am convinced that a vendor-neutral, open-source specification with a common schema and terminology will drive the FinOps discipline forward in a major way."
FOCUS will enable collaboration between major cloud providers, FinOps tool vendors, major SaaS providers, and the most advanced FinOps enterprises, many of whom struggle to handle disparate terminology, pricing and billing concepts across billing sources. It will also enable a common FinOps-serviceable format for cloud billing data instead of the variety of FinOps tools and platforms currently in use—which also have their own particular ways of summarizing, normalizing, or reporting such data.
"Google Cloud is committed to being an open platform that maximizes business value from the cloud. We are committed to supporting open billing standards for consistency and financial accountability, not only among cloud providers, but also across SaaS, vendor, and service providers," said Mich Razon, VP & GM, Head of Commerce Platforms at Google Cloud.
"Our approach with the Microsoft Cloud is to meet customers where they are, providing flexibility that drives innovation with cloud computing. FOCUS aligns with this vision by streamlining cost monitoring efforts and helping organizations maximize their business value with the cloud. We are committed to working with the FinOps Foundation to bring together the knowledge and involvement of all major players in cloud billing to benefit all," said Fred Delombaerde, Vice President of Core Commerce at Microsoft.
"FOCUS will enable companies to get a better grasp on managing public cloud spend. They will have increased understanding and trust in billing data, enhanced accountability for spending, and reduced training requirements to adopt additional cloud services," said Mike Fuller, FinOps Foundation CTO, formerly head of FinOps for Atlassian.
"The efforts of the FinOps Foundation have centered upon enabling best practices for the daily work of practitioners. These efforts have been complicated by underlying complexity and inconsistency in how cloud spend data is presented between providers. FOCUS addresses this problem by creating a common language for cloud spend, which reduces the effort required for organizations to allocate, understand, and show the value of their cloud spending," said J.R. Storment, FinOps Foundation Executive Director.
FOCUS will develop iteratively with each step enabling common FinOps capabilities and extending the specification to handle new types of cost and usage data sets and vendors. The initial release is expected in June at the FinOps X conference, and will primarily address foundational FinOps cost reporting use cases for the presentation of Cloud Service Provider (CSP) cost and usage data sets. Future versions will evolve to:
Extend the specification for the presentation of non-cloud data sets e.g., SaaS, internal, licensing, and other consumption-based products costs, etc.
Document FinOps capabilities enabled by each version of the specification, including generic data set examples and queries.
Include open-source data converter implementations and data validators to accelerate adoption.
Include vendor scorecards to help track progress towards compliance / compatibility
Harmonize terminology and nomenclature between FOCUS and tangential standards such as OpenCost, OpenTelemetry, and others.
Enable the creation of a common repository for data being ingested from multiple sources.
Enable changes to the output formats of billing data providers as they adapt to the specification.
Add a repository of code enabling users to query their own vendor APIs or cloud billing data.
The FOCUS specification will be available for licensed use by anyone who creates billing data, those who ingest or analyze cost or usage data, or by organizations who wish to standardize the billing data they receive. The specification, reference implementations, software and data sets will be available for no cost via an open source license.
For more information and details on how to join the FOCUS Project, please visit focus.finops.org
About the FinOps Foundation
The FinOps Foundation (F2) is a project of The Linux Foundation. The F2 community includes 10,000 FinOps practitioners from around the world including 88% of the Fortune 50. Its mission is to advance every individual who manages the value of cloud through enriching connections, career and skill advancement, and best practices for building a FinOps practice.
FinOps is a portmanteau of "Finance" and "DevOps," stressing the communications and collaboration between business, finance, and engineering teams. It is a synonym for the practice of cloud financial management, a growing discipline designed to ensure organizations can make informed decisions to achieve the most value from every dollar they spend on cloud.
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CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS, CLOUD COMPLIANCE AND AUDIT
Businesswire | March 23, 2023
Kion, a leading cloud enablement solution provider, announced today that it has been accepted into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Accelerate Program, a co-sell program for AWS Partners who provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS. The program will empower Kion to further enhance customer outcomes and assure mutual commitment from AWS and partners.
“We are thrilled to join the AWS ISV Accelerate Program and continue to cultivate our relationship with AWS. We have an extensive history supporting AWS customers back to our inception in 2018, and the Kion solution has proven it helps these customers accelerate cloud adoption. We have provided public and private sector organizations with easy to configure automation to streamline cloud provisioning and operations. This gets cloud accounts in the hands of engineers at record speed and has been a key driver of innovation and digital transformation efforts,” said Brian Price, CEO and Co-Founder at Kion. “Within just a year of using our platform, some of our customers have more than 15x the number of AWS accounts in use by their organization all while ensuring cloud spending and security is controlled. Beyond those strategic benefits, now that Kion is a part of the AWS ISV Accelerate program, we can further scale our business by incentivizing AWS Sales teams along with passing savings onto customers who choose to buy our solution in AWS Marketplace.”
Kion combines cloud governance and management to offer a unique all-in-one cloud enablement solution, empowering users to easily achieve the benefits of the cloud. Kion focuses on three core pillars: Automation and Orchestration, Financial Management, and Continuous Compliance. Customers use Kion to gain greater visibility, control, and confidence in their security, budget, and decision-making abilities while still enjoying the native experiences that the cloud providers offer. Through the AWS ISV Accelerate Program, Kion receives focused co-selling support from AWS, access to further sales enablement resources, reduced AWS Marketplace listing fees, and incentives for AWS Sales teams. The program provides participating ISVs with access to millions of active AWS customers globally.
This announcement comes less than a year after Kion achieved AWS Security Competency status. This recognition acknowledges that Kion has demonstrated proven technology that helps customers achieve their cloud security goals. It also reaffirms Kion’s ability to provide specialized cloud enablement services that empower users to gain control and accelerate compliance within the cloud. Kion also holds the AWS Cloud Operations Software Competency and the AWS Government Competency designations. Kion is an AWS Public Sector Partner and a member of the Authority to Operate (ATO) on AWS Program. Lastly, Kion is an Amazon Linux Ready Product and AWS Control Tower Ready solution.
AWS ISV Accelerate Program members are held to the industry’s highest standards and must undergo a comprehensive evaluation to gain acceptance into the program. Kion participated in a thorough architectural and security review to ensure the quality and design of our solution. Proof of customer excellence was also reviewed to validate the successes Kion customers have achieved across industry verticals.
About Kion
Kion is a cloud enablement solution designed to help organizations simplify management and governance activities to realize the full benefits of the cloud. The platform delivers visibility and control across all cloud environments, empowering customers to confidently provision accounts, maintain financial control, and ensure compliance with security regulations. Wherever they are on their cloud journey, Kion empowers organizations to go farther, faster.
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CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT, CLOUD APP MANAGEMENT, CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS
Globenewswire | March 30, 2023
GreenPages, a nationally recognized leader in cloud and cybersecurity services, today introduced a new turnkey managed solution designed to help organizations maximize their IT budgets, gain greater insights into their technology and telecom capital expenditures (CapEx), and enhance their information security posture.
The new FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization solution combines GreenPages proprietary FinOps software, Cloud Lighthouse, business VoIP tools from industry-leading telecom providers, and technology expense management (TEM) solutions into an "as a service" solution. CloudLighthouse is a cloud cost optimization tool that enables deep visibility into multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. Exclusively available from GreenPages, CloudLighthouse monitors Amazon, Microsoft, and hundreds of other IaaS and SaaS providers to deliver real-time usage reporting visualizations.
“Arguably every business today, regardless of size or industry, is seeking greater visibility into, and control over, their IT expenditures,” said Jay Pasteris, CIO and CISO, GreenPages. “GreenPages’ new FinOps and Cloud Cost Optimization bundle helps customers prioritize budget allocation on revenue-generating initiatives and consolidate cloud and telecom spending, while empowering IT, finance, and operations teams to utilize highly accurate and real-time spending data to make strategic business decisions. It also delivers greater visibility into shadow IT activities, which increase the chance that vulnerabilities go undetected by already overworked security teams.”
The new bundle enables organizations to reallocate and consolidate IT vendors to maximize budgets, visualize cloud, telecom, and other business expenses to prioritize spending and accelerate business growth. This bundled solution is backed by GreenPages’ comprehensive professional services which continuously assess customers’ IT infrastructure and operational processes, ensuring the delivery of positive business outcomes mapped to their specific requirements.
According to data from Enterprise Technology Research (ETR), CIOs and other IT decision-makers originally expected 8 percent budget growth going into 2022. However, ETR’s most recent Macro Survey of more than 1,500 IT decision-makers revealed that expected IT budgets for 2023 will grow at 4.6%. In this current cautious spending environment, GreenPages’ new bundles meet pent-up demand for solutions that will optimize cloud spending, and identify and eliminate vendor and solution redundancies.
The new FinOps and Cloud Optimization bundles are offered in two different tiered options to match customers’ specific requirements and budgets, and support on-premise or remote environments. They include:
Standard – For mid-market customers needing automated monitoring of their multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments and enterprise toll-free voice solutions for reliable and cost-effective customer and supplier communications, GreenPages is bundling Cloud Lighthouse with Enterprise Toll-Free solutions from top telecom providers. GreenPages will integrate these numbers into business phone and contact centers to support communication across world-class voice networks.
Premium – For mid-market and large enterprises, this option includes all features from the Standard bundle along with automated Technology Expense Management Solutions.
By bundling these three solutions, GreenPages is providing visibility and control over the ordering, auditing, and invoicing for customers’ IT and telecom assets—everything from the cloud servers and laptops to the mobile carriers that employee-owned devices connect to when traveling for business.
About GreenPages
GreenPages is an innovative, digital-first IT and cybersecurity firm that plans, implements, and manages secure, high-performance digital operating environments for leading companies nationwide. It is uniquely positioned with extensive technology expertise in security and cloud to deliver complete infrastructure solutions that enable companies to drive business outcomes and compete in the digitally-driven economy.
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