In a not altogether friendly economic environment, digital-native businesses are looking for as much control and predictability in the cloud as possible. Finding durable savings, building cost-efficient cloud infrastructure, and laying cultural foundations for long-term cloud sustainability have never been more core to business success.
The more we work with customers, the more we see a theme emerge: autonomy. Customers want to manage cloud costs how they want, when they want, using their own human power.
And it makes sense. While there are common principles you can apply to cloud cost management, there’s no one-size-fits-all method to spending sustainably in the cloud. Each business model is unique; each spend environment is nuanced; thus, each company needs its own cost management methodology.
That’s why CloudZero continues to make it easier for customers to manage cloud costs autonomously. From our brand-new Analytics functionality, which lets your users craft custom dashboards gauged to your business needs, to numerous enhancements of our Insights feature, we’re focused squarely on shipping features that make cloud cost management easier, more effective, and more business-relevant than ever.
This article covers all the updates we rolled out in May. Stay tuned for more product updates next month!
Analytics Beta
Introducing: Analytics lets you automate the delivery of cloud cost intelligence through dashboards, reports, and/or visualizations. This makes CloudZero’s billing data model, including all your custom Dimensions, available for more rapid and targeted analytics activities. This is a common user request for which CloudZero now has a live beta program.
You can use it to:
- Leverage our out-of-the-box Standard Dashboard Library for the most common analytical FinOps tasks (e.g., Tag Coverage, Reservation Coverage, etc.)
- Create custom dashboards to visualize your spend data just how your organization needs to see it
- Generate private dashboards, or share them across your entire organization
- Edit dashboards over time to ensure business relevance
- Schedule regular email updates about the data contained in your dashboards
Status: Beta. Do custom dashboards excite you as much as they excite us? If so, reach out to your FinOps Account Manager (FAM) to sign up for the beta. You’ll get early access to the dashboarding functionality, and your feedback will shape how we improve them over time.
Insights: New Filters, Usability Improvements
Introducing: Status filters, category filters, and usability enhancements for your Insights table!
You can use it to:
- More easily access, prioritize, and address savings opportunities through Insights
- Track the current status of the Insight: New, In Progress, On Hold, Addressed, Effort
- More easily group Insights by: Category and Source
- Sort all columns in the Insight table, including Title and Insight Category, to more quickly find the Insight(s) you’re looking for
- Navigate your Insights table more easily:
- See important details (like cost impact) front and center
- See “Created by” information to easily follow up with whoever created the Insight
- Right click on an insight to open in a new tab
- Enjoy the style makeover we gave the Insights table
Status: Live — have at it!
Insights Deep Linking
Introducing: Link sharing and bookmarking for your Insights!
You can use it to:
- Filter to a particular set of Insights most relevant for you/your team
- Share the filtered Insights via URL with anyone to whom that particular view is relevant
- Bookmark a particular Insights view after applying your filters to return to that filter set
Status: Live — go nuts!
Insights And Explorer Data Export
Introducing: Seamlessly export your Insights and Explorer data to a CSV file compatible with Excel and Numbers!
You can use it to:
- Turn CloudZero Insights and Explorer data into CSV files
- Upload CSV data to Excel or Numbers for additional analytics
- Export data from all Insights at once, or export data from one specific Insight at a time
- Fuel your love of spreadsheets with granular cost data
Status: Live — go wild (in Insights and Explorer)!
AnyCost™️ Connection Workflow Improvement
Introducing: Greater visibility into AnyCost™ connection status! After you request a new billing connection via AnyCost™, you’ll now have real-time visibility into the status of that connection.
You can use it to:
- Instantly see the status of a new cost source you’re connecting to CloudZero
- Get more detailed error information if a connect has an issue
Status: Live — go bananas!
The Cloud Cost Playbook
The step-by-step guide to cost maturity
