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FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification 1.0-preview Released to Demystify Cloud Billing Data

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The FinOps Foundation, a part of The Linux Foundation’s non-profit technology consortium, focused on advancing the people and practice of FinOps, announced the launch of FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) version 1.0-preview, the first major release. AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud join large cloud spenders like CapitalOne, Walmart, Workday, Goldman Sachs, and others as formal contributor aligning to this universal cloud billing specification. The 1.0-preview is available on November 16 on focus.finops.org.

FOCUS is a foundational project for the FinOps discipline to create an open specification for the presentation of cost and usage data, aimed at demystifying cloud spend and making it easier to show and report value. The goal of the FOCUS project is to normalize schema and terminology for cost and usage data, helping organizations to achieve consistency and simplicity of understanding cost and usage across cloud, SaaS, and other relevant providers and data sets.

“We are establishing FOCUS as the cornerstone lexicon of FinOps by providing an open-source, vendor-agnostic specification featuring a unified schema and language,” said Mike Fuller CTO at the FinOps Foundation. “With this release, we are paving the way for FOCUS to foster collaboration among major cloud providers, FinOps vendors, leading SaaS providers, and forward-thinking FinOps enterprises to establish a unified, serviceable framework for cloud billing data, increasing trust in the data and making it easier to understand the value of cloud spend.”

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“We’re thrilled to see FOCUS gathering momentum,” said Tim O’Brien, Walmart Senior Director of Engineering. “Having a vendor-neutral view of all cloud resources will enable us to better engage with cloud partners and better serve our customers and shareholders.”

A blog post by Lee Sustar of Forrester Research predicts that the FOCUS standard “will take off to normalize cloud billing,” in 2024. With a “vendor-neutral, multi-cloud view of resources,” even “non-IT stakeholders, such as the CFO’s office and vendor management, (will) better engage with cloud operations teams”.

“The basics of good decision-making and execution require clarity of information. FOCUS goes a long way to making that possible and we look forward to even greater innovation in the years ahead,” said Anne Johnston, VP of Engineering Cloud Costs at Capital One.

SOURCE: PRNewswire