The end of the year is always a great time to reflect on the past and plan for the future with a big-picture view. This is as true in the realms of FinOps and cloud cost management as it is in any other area of life.
December’s cloud cost news is all over this trend, with Google, Microsoft, and the FinOps Foundation all taking action to help make your annual reflection and planning tasks easier.
Read on for details on these end-of-year developments.
Top Cloud Cost News From December 2023
Google introduced Cross Cloud Materialized Views for easier data analytics
Most SaaS companies use multiple cloud environments to build and host their services. Despite this fact, the major cloud providers have historically been slow to offer any sort of cross-cloud collaboration, preferring instead to limit data views and cost analytics tools to their own proprietary cloud environments.
In mid-December, however, Google took steps to widen the narrow view available for GCP users. Google introduced Cross Cloud Materialized Views, which will allow users to see and analyze data from other clouds in one summary.
While it appears the tool lacks the ability to automatically update data from across clouds and dive deeply into the numbers, this summary view should be helpful for anyone who simply wants to keep an eye on the bigger picture over time.
Microsoft published a Cost Management 2023 Year In Review report that sums up its recent efforts to make FinOps easier for users
From Microsoft’s point of view, 2023 has been a huge year for FinOps advancements, beginning with its brand new membership to the FinOps Foundation in February and including a partnership with OpenCost in April that brought cost visibility to Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS).
Throughout the year, Microsoft made a number of changes to aid users with cloud cost management. One example: It released Copilot for Azure, an AI-powered tool meant to help users effectively manage their infrastructure and services within Azure while keeping an eye on costs.
If your company uses Azure heavily, you might want to give the full report a thorough read to make sure you’re fully taking advantage of the new features Microsoft released this past year.
New 2024 FinOps conferences hit the official FinOps Foundation calendar
If you’re the type to plan your year in advance, you’ll be pleased to learn that the FinOps Foundation has updated its event calendar to include several upcoming conferences for 2024.
On February 22nd the FinOps community will get together for the February FinOps Summit: 2024 State of FinOps meeting, which will kick off the official summit gatherings for the rest of the year. These summits are a great way to stay up to date on industry changes and community survey results.
Then, on June 19th, FinOps X will take place in San Diego. This is a huge event you won’t want to miss if you relish the opportunity to network and brainstorm with heavy hitters in the FinOps world. They’re already accepting applications for attendance, so don’t wait too long to sign up if you’re interested in going.
A number of smaller roadshows and meetups will also take place in 2024 in various locations, so be sure to check the event calendar frequently for updates.
CloudZero Still Offers The Best Solution For Cloud Cost Reflection, Analysis, And Planning
Are you attuned to the latest cloud cost news within your own company? Do you know how your costs are changing and why?
With the CloudZero platform, you’ll have the features and data insights you need to not only reflect on past costs but also to plan your future budgets in detail and with confidence. The best time to start tracking your cloud costs in fine, granular detail was the day your company launched, but the second best time is right now.
Make a fresh start in the new year by scheduling a demo of CloudZero here.
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