Gain FinOps skills to unlock cloud value, on Microsoft Learn

The cloud offers unparalleled scalability, agility, and potential for innovation. But without a well-defined strategy, cloud costs can spiral out of control, hindering your organization’s ability to take full advantage. That’s where FinOps on Azure comes in. We recently launched two comprehensive learning curricula to help customers learn how to operationalize FinOps on Azure. Microsoft Learn Platform. we This module was debuted I look forward to sharing more at the FinOps X conference in San Diego this year. FinOps X Europe In Barcelona.

What is FinOps on Azure and why is it important?

FinOps is a cultural practice and operational framework that brings together technology, finance, and business teams to drive financial accountability and maximize the value of cloud investments. It is a practice that balances many factors and is not simply about reducing costs. It is about making informed decisions that align with business objectives, optimizing resource utilization, and ensuring the resiliency of cloud infrastructure.

By facilitating collaboration across siloed teams, FinOps bridges the knowledge gap and enables intelligent trade-offs between cloud cost, speed, and quality. This in turn instills financial transparency and accountability into the technical value stream of cloud assets in a number of ways.

• Cost Optimization: FinOps helps you identify areas of waste, right-size resources, and implement cost-saving measures so you only pay for what you need.
• Increase visibility: A clear understanding of your cloud spending patterns allows you to make data-driven decisions and allocate resources more effectively.
• Improved Agility: FinOps provides tools and processes to quickly scale resources up or down, enabling teams to respond quickly to changing business needs.
• Enhanced Accountability: FinOps fosters a culture of accountability and collaboration across the organization by establishing shared responsibility for cloud costs.
• Risk Mitigation: FinOps helps you proactively mitigate risks that could disrupt your cloud infrastructure operations, preventing costly downtime and associated revenue loss.

What FinOps learning resources does Microsoft offer?

To help customers operationalize FinOps, Microsoft has created a comprehensive learning curriculum on the Microsoft Learn platform.

Get started with FinOps: This brief yet comprehensive introduction begins by defining the FinOps operating model and its key principles, including domains, capabilities, stages, and maturity models.

We then explore the responsibilities of various FinOps personas and roles, such as leadership, finance, product, engineering, procurement, etc. This module emphasizes the importance of collaboration and shared responsibility between these groups.

Next, the module explores the FinOps lifecycle, which consists of three phases: Inform, Optimize, and Operate. The Inform phase involves understanding cloud costs and usage, the Optimize phase focuses on identifying and implementing cost optimization opportunities, and the Operate phase ensures ongoing governance and accountability.

This module also highlights the importance of elements that drive a FinOps culture, such as executive support, incentive models, and communication strategies.

By lunchtime, you can complete the “Getting Started with FinOps” module to build a solid foundation in the FinOps framework and prepare for further learning.

Adopting FinOps in Azure: This intermediate learning path dives deeper into operationalizing FinOps best practices in Azure. It starts with exploring cloud cost allocation and chargeback models, which are important for establishing accountability and incentives across different teams and business units, and covers different allocation methodologies.

Next, we will look at how to define your Azure organizational structure using management groups and subscriptions. Learners will gain insight into best practices for logically organizing Azure resources to meet business needs, enabling effective cost tracking and governance.

The module focuses on Azure native policy and resource tagging strategies. It explains how to use them. Azure Policy And we use resource tags to enforce governance standards and enable accurate cost allocation and reporting.

Implementing Azure Advisor, budgetand other monitoring tools. Learners will learn how to configure these tools to proactively identify optimization opportunities, set spending limits, and receive alerts when usage deviates from baseline.

Under construction Microsoft Cost Management Spend visibility is another key topic. This module shows you how to leverage Microsoft Cost Management capabilities to gain comprehensive insight into cloud consumption and costs across your organization.

Throughout the module, we demonstrate how to apply FinOps practices through real-world examples to centralize governance and accountability in a distributed Azure environment.

Overall, the Adopt FinOps on Azure module provides learners with the practical skills and knowledge required to implement FinOps best practices on Azure. It covers critical areas such as cost allocation, organizational structure, governance policies, monitoring, cost visibility, and resource optimization, all of which are essential to maximizing the return on your Azure investment.

Azure had an interesting time at this year’s FinOps X conference.

FinOps X is the premier global conference hosted by the FinOps Foundation, where professionals can delve deep into the world of cloud financial management through expert-led sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities. At this year’s event, attendees networked with industry leaders, shared best practices, and learned the latest strategies to optimize cloud spend and drive business value.

If you plan to attend Future FinOps X EventsStop by our booth to learn how Microsoft FinOps on Azure can help your team implement seamless cloud adoption and leverage AI to improve FinOps best practices.

Leveraging FinOps Best Practices for Sustainable Business Value

FinOps is not just a buzzword. It is a strategic approach for organizations to maximize cloud business value by improving efficiency and business-driven decision making. By embracing FinOps principles and leveraging available resources, Microsoft LearningUnleash the potential of your cloud investments, drive innovation, and realize sustainable business value.

Start your journey with us Get started with FinOps After using the learning module, you can dig deeper. Adopting FinOps in Azure We have practical skills and knowledge to help you implement FinOps best practices in Azure.