Podcasts about cloud finops

Joshua Garverink, co-author of the Azure Integration Guide for Business, discusses journey into the tech industry, his experiences with Azure, and the importance of cloud integration for IT leaders.The conversation covers various themes including the benefits of moving to Azure, the cultural shifts required for cloud adoption, architectural considerations for cloud migration, the significance of network design, and the financial implications of cloud services through FinOps.In this conversation, Jetro and Josh discuss the critical aspects of cloud operations, focusing on Cloud FinOps, automation, cybersecurity, and the Azure ecosystem.They emphasize the importance of investing in skills for IT operations, the role of automation in enhancing security, and best practices for OLTP systems in Azure.The discussion also covers the significance of governance and security in cloud operations, the reality of serverless computing, and the future of Azure with technological innovations.CHAPTERS(00:00:00) INTRO (00:00:42) Introduction to Azure Integration and Author Background (00:05:33) Unlocking Opportunities with Azure for IT Leaders (00:10:09) Cultural Shifts in Cloud Adoption (00:12:04) Architectural Considerations for Cloud Migration (00:16:39) The Importance of Network Design in Azure (00:21:50) Understanding Cloud Costs and FinOps (00:25:12) Understanding Cloud FinOps and Cost Management (00:25:45) The Importance of Automation in Cloud Operations (00:30:33) Investing in Skills for IT Operations (00:31:38) The Role of Automation in Cybersecurity (00:32:09) Best Practices for OLTP Systems in Azure (00:35:07) Exploring the Azure Ecosystem for Data Analytics (00:37:33) Serverless Computing: Hype or Reality? (00:43:28) Governance and Security in Cloud Operations (00:45:47) The Future of Azure and Technological Innovations

For shownotes, head to the episode website postThis week has been a big one for messaging privacy. The news broke on Monday that the Editor-in-Chief for The Atlantic magazine was accidentally added to a Signal group where members of the US government were talking about highly classified military actions. The report kicked off a firestorm of Congressional hearings about the nature of data sharing and privacy for not only government officials but members of the defense and intelligence community. This has also raised questions about the way that those same officials will often circumvent policy to facilitate communications. While the nature of the group and their discussion topic is highly political in nature let's focus on the communications aspect. Why did they use Signal? How can we be sure it's safe? And what does this mean for government agencies that still want to create backdoors into secure protocols? This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown. Time Stamps: 1:13 - Employers target engineers with LLM skills4:09 - Google Acquires Wiz for $32 Billion after Previous Offer Falls Through8:33 - AI Applications are putting cloud workloads at risk12:09 - SoftBank to Acquire Ampere16:47 - Cloud FinOps is driving application repatriation23:27 - Dynamo is the NVIDIA operating system for your AI Factory 27:16 - Just How Secure Is Signal?Follow our hosts ⁠Tom Hollingsworth⁠, ⁠Alastair Cooke⁠, and ⁠Stephen Foskett⁠. Follow Tech Field Day ⁠on LinkedIn⁠, on ⁠X/Twitter⁠, on ⁠Bluesky⁠, and on ⁠Mastodon⁠. #Rundown, #cybersecurity, #AI, @TechFieldDay, @NetworkingNerd, @DemitasseNZ, @NVIDIA, @Softbank, @Google, @AmpereComputing, @Wiz_io,

Send us a textIn this chat, Frank, Stephen, and Anthony share their thoughts on how cloud computing and AI have evolved from 2024 to 2025. They discuss the growth in the GPU market and how views on cloud versus on-premises solutions have changed. They also talk about the quality and performance of AI models and consider the environmental impact of AI. The group highlights the need for specialized AI models and the efficiency of the hardware used in AI applications. They wrap up with some insights into future trends in cloud instances and pricing.In their chat, the speakers look at how AMD and Intel processors perform. They also discuss the future of ARM and Graviton technologies. Finally, they touch on the shifting world of cloud computing. They examine the competition among major cloud providers, such as AWS and Microsoft. They also highlight how important it is to be transparent in cloud operations, especially when comparing European and American providers. Here are the key takeaways.The GPU market saw a significant increase in providers in 2024.Many organisations are reconsidering their cloud strategies due to pricing and privacy concerns over AI.AI adoption is still in its early stages for many companies.Quality of AI models has plateaued, with a few major players dominating the market.Training models in the cloud may not be the best solution for everyone.Specialised AI models are becoming increasingly important.The environmental impact of AI and cloud computing is a growing concern.Efficiency in hardware usage is crucial for AI applications.Transparency in cloud provider operations varies significantly between vendors.The cloud market is stabilizing, with slower growth rates observed.Energy consumption and cost are critical factors.Benchmarking is essential for understanding cloud performance.The competitive landscape among cloud providers is shifting, with pricing diverging.

Send us a textIn this episode, Frank and SteveO celebrate four years of their podcast while discussing the latest advancements in Cloud FinOps, including Amazon's new EC2 Graviton instances, Azure's confidential VMs, and cost management innovations. They explore dynamic scaling in cloud services, AWS Healthomics, and the importance of sustainability in computing. The conversation also touches on SMS innovations, SageMaker customization, application rationalization, and automated complaint rate recommendations in SES, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of the current cloud landscape.The podcast celebrates its four-year anniversary, highlighting its growth and listener engagement.everything else is noise :D

Send us a textIn this episode, Frank and Steve discuss the latest news in Cloud FinOps, including AWS G4DN Workspaces, AWS Parallel Computing Service, Google Compute Engine C3 and X4 instances, Azure C4 VMs, Amazon Open Search Service, AlloyDB free trial, Azure NetApp file storage, and more. They also touch on topics like cost optimization, carbon emissions, and the AWS Console mobile app.takeawaysAWS announces G4DN Workspaces, Parallel Computing Service, and support for Graviton 3 in Open Search ServiceGoogle introduces C3 and X4 instances in Compute EngineAzure releases C4 VMs and NetApp file storage with cool accessAmazon S3 no longer charges for certain HTTP error codesAWS introduces enhanced rate-based rules for lower rate limitsAzure offers Carbon Optimization and Spanner GraphDelegated administrator for cost optimization hub in AWSAlloyDB offers a free trial and Azure updates pricing and calculators

In this episode of What's New in Cloud FinOps, we (Frank and Stephen) discuss the latest news and updates in cloud computing impacting your wallet.We cover topics such as right-sizing recommendations for Amazon RDS, data exports for cost optimization, and improved billing and cost management. We also highlight talks from FinOps X in San Diego and share their favourite sessions. Overall, the conversation provides valuable insights into the latest developments in cloud FinOps, including a rant from Stephen on the hardship that is finding good content for Azure. 

In this episode of ArrowSphere onAir, James Woods is joined by Josie Atkins and Frans Wilbrink to discuss trends in the IT channel, particularly around FinOps and cloud consumption management. They delve into the complexities of cloud forecasting, cost optimisation, and the importance of right-sizing. The discussion also highlights new features in the ArrowSphere platform, including the upcoming AI-driven ArrowSphere Assistant…

SummaryIn this episode of What's New in Cloud FinOps, Frank and Stephen discuss a wide range of cloud-related news and updates. They cover topics such as Azure VM hibernation, Azure Compute Fleet, Google Cloud TPU, Amazon EC2 C7i Flex, DynamoDB, AWS Marketplace, Cloud Run, and more. The conversation also delves into the complexities of cloud pricing, energy progress, and the impact of cloud technology on businesses.

SummaryIn this episode, Frank and Steve discuss the latest news from Google, Azure, and AWS.They cover topics such as new instance types, ARM-based CPUs, storage options, cost optimization, and Kubernetes cost allocation. The conversation also touches on the challenges of reducing storage and the importance of billing cost data in Cloud FinOps. In this conversation, Steve and Frank discuss various updates and announcements from different cloud providers. They cover topics such as multiple cloud vendors providing a focused view, cost anomaly detection with AI, maximizing committed use discounts, per-second billing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux instances, migration vs modernization for data workloads, license portability in Amazon WorkSpaces, and Google's investment in digital connectivity to Japan. They also mention the upcoming episode on the free tier game in Azure and their attendance at FinOps  X.

Join Jon Myer in an enlightening discussion with Dao Jensen, CEO of Oak Rocket, and Jesus Alvarado, Alliance Director at ProsperOps, on the latest episode of the Jon Meyer Podcast. Discover how Oak Rocket is revolutionizing Cloud Financial Operations (FinOps) and collaborating with ProsperOps to optimize cloud costs and efficiency. Learn about the significance of FinOps in the cloud environment and how these industry leaders are shaping the future of cloud finance. Key Takeaways:

Join Jon Myer in an enlightening discussion with Dao Jensen, CEO of Oak Rocket, and Jesus Alvarado, Alliance Director at ProsperOps, on the latest episode of the Jon Meyer Podcast. Discover how Oak Rocket is revolutionizing Cloud Financial Operations (FinOps) and collaborating with ProsperOps to optimize cloud costs and efficiency. Learn about the significance of FinOps in the cloud environment and how these industry leaders are shaping the future of cloud finance. Key Takeaways:

В новом выпуске подкаста DevOps Kitchen Talks Виктор и Илья раскрывают тайны FinOps - краеугольного камня управления затратами на облачные технологии. Илья, бывший сотрудник Electronic Arts и Lyft, делится уникальными историями о 'spend panic' и решениях, найденных благодаря FinOps. Откуда взялся термин FinOps и почему он стал неотъемлемой частью перехода в облака? Узнайте об основных концепциях, включая rate и usage optimization, и обсудите с нами фреймворк FinOps. Будущее FinOps выглядит обещающим, а спрос на специалистов растет. Мы поделимся ресурсами и советами для тех, кто хочет освоить эту перспективную область.  ⏰Taйминг⏰ 00:00:00 - Start 00:01:34 - Что такое FinOps 00:02:18 - История гостя 00:03:16 - История появление FinOps 00:05:12 - Electronic Arts - и как появился у них FinOps 00:06:59 - Чем занимаются сотрудники финансового отдела 00:09:52 - Как случился spend panic в EA 00:14:31 - Rate optimization and Usage Optimization 00:18:49 - Как планировать затраты на 3 года 00:26:27 - Что лучше spot-ы брать или делать предоплату? 00:29:58 - Из чего состоит FinOps 00:35:33 - Переговоры Lyft and AWS 00:41:30 - Результаты переговоров Lyft and AWS 00:46:00 - С чего начать внедрение FinOps 00:52:42 - Святой грааль стадии inform в FinOps 00:56:32 - Важность тегов 01:02:29 - Usage фаза 01:13:13 - Что будет в фазе Continuous Improvement 01:18:45 - Насколько будет востребован FinOps Engineer 01:29:42 - Ресурсы по изучению FinOps

AWS Morning Brief for the week of November 6, 2023, with Corey Quinn. Links Amazon Athena announces one hour reservations for Provisioned Capacity AWS Neuron adds support for Llama-2 70b model and PyTorch 2.0  Filter and Stream Logs from Amazon S3 Logging Buckets into Splunk Using AWS Lambda Announcing Amazon EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML to reserve GPU capacity for your machine learning workloads GoDaddy benchmarking results in up to 24% better price-performance for their Spark workloads with AWS Graviton2 on Amazon EMR Serverless How contact center leaders can evaluate using generative AI for customer experience  Detect and fix low cardinality indexes in Amazon DocumentDB How power utilities analyze and detect harmonics issues using power quality and customer usage data with Amazon Timestream: Part 2  Techniques to improve the state-of-the-art in Cloud FinOps using Amazon Neptune Mark your calendars for AWS Mainframe Modernization sessions @ re: Invent 2023 Ready for Flight: Announcing Finch 1.0 GA! Aggregating, searching, and visualizing log data from distributed sources with Amazon Athena and Amazon QuickSight How to monitor Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) storage costs Fullstack generative AI sample app for Amazon Bedrock

Frank and Stephen remember some fun facts from the last three years of podcasting about FinOps. 

Join us on the latest episode of the Jon Myer Podcast, powered by ProsperOps, as we delve into the world of FinOps with our special guest, Matt Mazer, a seasoned FinOps manager at a Fortune 100 company. In this engaging discussion, Matt shares his 20+ years of IT experience and how he manages various aspects of #cloudfinancialmanagement From managing cloud spend, contract negotiations, data integrity, and the continuous pursuit of optimization, Matt offers valuable insights into the complexities and challenges of FinOps in a large organization.Discover how Matt's team navigates the intricate balance between different cloud providers, the importance of tagging governance, and the critical role of data integrity in building trust among stakeholders. Learn about the daily, weekly, and monthly responsibilities of a FinOps manager, and gain valuable advice for both newcomers and seasoned practitioners in the FinOps community.Don't miss this enlightening conversation as we explore the future of #FinOps, the impact of automation and AI, and the key individuals influencing the #FinOps landscape. If you're interested in cloud financial management and optimizing your organization's cloud spend, this episode is a must-listen!

Join us on the latest episode of the Jon Myer Podcast, powered by ProsperOps, as we delve into the world of FinOps with our special guest, Matt Mazer, a seasoned FinOps manager at a Fortune 100 company. In this engaging discussion, Matt shares his 20+ years of IT experience and how he manages various aspects of #cloudfinancialmanagement From managing cloud spend, contract negotiations, data integrity, and the continuous pursuit of optimization, Matt offers valuable insights into the complexities and challenges of FinOps in a large organization.Discover how Matt's team navigates the intricate balance between different cloud providers, the importance of tagging governance, and the critical role of data integrity in building trust among stakeholders. Learn about the daily, weekly, and monthly responsibilities of a FinOps manager, and gain valuable advice for both newcomers and seasoned practitioners in the FinOps community.Don't miss this enlightening conversation as we explore the future of #FinOps, the impact of automation and AI, and the key individuals influencing the #FinOps landscape. If you're interested in cloud financial management and optimizing your organization's cloud spend, this episode is a must-listen!

In this episode of the podcast, Grizz sits down with Varsha Sundar, VP of Cloud FinOps at Chubb Insurance to talk about her OSFF talk: "Cloud Financial Management Strategy". We talk about her journey, what FInOps is, and why it's important. She will be speaking at the Open Source in Finance Forum on November 1st in New York: https://sched.co/1Q2n3 ⁠ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varsha-sundar-b751b326/ FinOps Foundation: https://www.finops.org/ All Links on Current Newsletter Here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.finos.org/newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ - more show notes to come NYC November 1 - Open Source in Finance Forum: ⁠⁠⁠https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-new-york/⁠⁠⁠ 2022 State of Open Source in Financial Services Download: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.finos.org/state-of-open-source-in-financial-services-2022⁠⁠⁠ A huge thank you to all our sponsors for Open Source in Finance Forum New York ⁠⁠https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-new-york/⁠⁠that will take place this November 1st at the New York Marriott Marquis This event wouldn't be possible without our sponsors. A special thank you to our Leader sponsor: Databricks, where you can unify all your data, analytics, and AI on one platform. And our Contributor and Community sponsors: Adaptive/Aeron, Discover, FinOps Foundation, instaclustr, mend.io, Open Mainframe Project, OpenJS Foundation, OpenLogic by Perforce, Orkes, Red Hat, Sonatype, and Tidelift. If you would like to sponsor or learn more about this event, please send an email to ⁠⁠sponsorships@linuxfoundation.org⁠⁠. Grizz's Info | ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarongriswold/⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠grizz@finos.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ ►► ⁠⁠⁠⁠Visit FINOS www.finos.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ ►► ⁠⁠⁠⁠Get In Touch: info@finos.org

#awscloud #cloudcost #costoptimization In this episode of the Jon Myer podcast, host Jon welcomes Jeff Blume, a Senior Optimization Solutions Architect on the AWS Optics Team, to discuss the topic of estimating cloud costs using Cloud #FinOps. Jeff explains that estimating cloud costs is an important aspect of cloud financial management and outlines a four-step process for cost estimation: describing the technical solution, mapping and identifying the appropriate AWS services, selecting resources, and building a high-level cost estimate. He highlights the differences in estimating net new workloads versus on-prem workloads and emphasizes the need for collaboration between technical teams and finance during the estimation process. Jeff and Jon also delve into the various tools available for cost estimation on AWS, including the AWS service pages, the AWS pricing calculator, the price list APIs, and notifications for price changes. They discuss the challenges of accurately estimating costs and suggest strategies such as leveraging existing applications and workloads for insights, staying updated with the #finops community for best practices, and starting with simple metrics and reporting to track costs effectively. The conversation concludes with a mention of an upcoming podcast episode on budgeting and forecasting.

#awscloud #cloudcost #costoptimization In this episode of the Jon Myer podcast, host Jon welcomes Jeff Blume, a Senior Optimization Solutions Architect on the AWS Optics Team, to discuss the topic of estimating cloud costs using Cloud #FinOps. Jeff explains that estimating cloud costs is an important aspect of cloud financial management and outlines a four-step process for cost estimation: describing the technical solution, mapping and identifying the appropriate AWS services, selecting resources, and building a high-level cost estimate. He highlights the differences in estimating net new workloads versus on-prem workloads and emphasizes the need for collaboration between technical teams and finance during the estimation process. Jeff and Jon also delve into the various tools available for cost estimation on AWS, including the AWS service pages, the AWS pricing calculator, the price list APIs, and notifications for price changes. They discuss the challenges of accurately estimating costs and suggest strategies such as leveraging existing applications and workloads for insights, staying updated with the #finops community for best practices, and starting with simple metrics and reporting to track costs effectively. The conversation concludes with a mention of an upcoming podcast episode on budgeting and forecasting.

Welcome to the Jon Myer Podcast, where we bring you the latest insights and trends in the dynamic world of cloud technology and finance. Today, we have two extraordinary guests joining us, J.R. Storment, the Executive Director of the FinOps Foundation, and Mike Fuller, the CTO of the FinOps Foundation. These remarkable individuals are not only authors of the groundbreaking book, "Cloud FinOps," but also pioneers in reshaping how organizations optimize their cloud resources and drive maximum value. In the past few years, FinOps has experienced a seismic shift driven by the COVID cloud acceleration and economic concerns. Astonishingly, 90% of Fortune 50 companies, with 45 out of 50 participating, are actively engaged in FinOps programs. We're eager to explore the journey of FinOps, from its cultural discipline to the emergence of new tools and platforms, its integration into cloud provider offerings, and the industry's recognition and certification. But first, let's address the burning question on everyone's mind: Is FinOps really fun?

Welcome to the Jon Myer Podcast, where we bring you the latest insights and trends in the dynamic world of cloud technology and finance. Today, we have two extraordinary guests joining us, J.R. Storment, the Executive Director of the FinOps Foundation, and Mike Fuller, the CTO of the FinOps Foundation. These remarkable individuals are not only authors of the groundbreaking book, "Cloud FinOps," but also pioneers in reshaping how organizations optimize their cloud resources and drive maximum value. In the past few years, FinOps has experienced a seismic shift driven by the COVID cloud acceleration and economic concerns. Astonishingly, 90% of Fortune 50 companies, with 45 out of 50 participating, are actively engaged in FinOps programs. We're eager to explore the journey of FinOps, from its cultural discipline to the emergence of new tools and platforms, its integration into cloud provider offerings, and the industry's recognition and certification. But first, let's address the burning question on everyone's mind: Is FinOps really fun?

State of the Cloud 2023: Top Five Predictions:#1: Efficient GrowthAdopt new solutions to gain control of their Cloud and SaaS spend, including the infrastructure cost to deliver SaaS Solutions. Tools include Cloud FinOps tools, SaaS Spend Solutions, and engineering productivity tools to improve R&D processes.One of the areas of focus is on Cloud Spend as a way to manage the Cost of Goods Sold and thus increase Gross Margin which sets the ceiling for Saas profitability. Public SaaS companies with Gross Margins under 50% have a hard time driving Free Cash Flow of 20% or greater which is critical to enterprise value multiples.Some examples of tools to gain control of Cloud Spend are included in the Bessemer Ventures technical playbook of 40 tactics to drive profitable growth - this playbook can be found on Atlas on the BVP.com website - the report is called the "CEOs tactical guide to drive profitable growth".#2: Climate Software will drive the Green Energy TransitionWith the increase in consumer activism and government regulation, the green energy revolution is here. To support this green economy, cloud software that is tailored made to power the transition to green energy will explode. Examples are software dedicated to solar, infrastructure, sustainable design, and fossil fuel infrastructure transition.#3: Initial value of AI will be to the userThe AI and Large Language Model business ecosystems are evolving quickly. Bessemer believes the ultimate winner is the user to increase individual productivity at work and in their personal lives. AI research is now democratized so end users can have access to and build upon the latest AI capabilities.One example is ChatGPT being released to the general public and acquiring over 100 million users in the first three months - the faster-growing internet site ever!!!Bessemer calls the current AI revolution a B2C2B motion. This highlights the consumer excitement about the benefits of AI, which will in return bring these tools and techniques to the corporate workplace.#4: The application layer is where the most impact from AI will happen firstDue to the democratization of access to AI, the power of AI will be available to any company, that can embed AI without their own AI team. This will make horizontal B2B SaaS companies to provide AI driven workflows and processes without the need for a large internal AI development team.With the number of transactions in many SaaS platforms, the opportunity to accelerate the insights to enhance business process efficiency.#5: AI companies will grow twice as fast as traditional B2B Cloud companiesBessemer predicts the time the best AI companies will require to grow from $100M to $1B will be 50% faster than the historic fastest growers like Canva, Zoom, and Twilio. That is truly impressive as these companies scaled from $100M to $1B in four years or less!If you are a student of the Cloud industry or just SaaS-curious about where the industry is heading - the Bessemer Venture Partners "State of the Cloud 2023" is a great read and this podcast discussing the top five predictions is a must-listen!

In this episode of What's Next, Thabiso Hlatshwayo – Senior Solution Consulting Manager at OpenText Africa – discusses the relevance of Cloud FinOps, a topic he will be presenting at the Cloud & Security Conference 2023. Hlatshwayo leads a team of highly-experienced solution consultants who are responsible for the design of multifaceted technology solutions for clients across Africa. Born a digital native, he describes himself as a proud and passionate African who believes in the potential of people. He holds a BSc Honours degree in business and technology and has over a decade of experience in high-tech industries. In this interview, Hlatshwayo discusses Cloud FinOps – including why it is relevant and why businesses should care about it. To find out more about the 2023 Cloud & Security Conference visit the conference website: https://cloudconference.co.za/

In this episode of Tech Trek, the host interviews AJ Wasserman, Portfolio Product Owner of Cloud FinOps & Tech Data Insights at Liberty Mutual Insurance, about the financial aspects of cloud computing. She discusses the challenges and cost considerations that come with cloud migration and the importance of monitoring and optimizing cloud usage to maximize cost savings. She provides valuable insights for businesses considering or currently utilizing cloud computing. Highlights: [00:02:34] Cloud financial operations. [00:03:26] Cloud cost management. [00:08:50] Cloud adoption challenges. [00:11:29] Automation for optimization. [00:13:03] Cloud cost optimization strategies. [00:17:50] FinOps and DevOps integration. [00:19:15] Cloud cost optimization advice. [00:23:23] Pace of change in the cloud. Guest: Angela “AJ” Wasserman, Portfolio Product Owner of Cloud FinOps & Tech Data Insights, Liberty Mutual Insurance AJ has over 20 years of experience in both financial management and data analytics. In her current role, she is responsible for the development and execution of strategic global priorities within the Cloud FinOps and Tech Data Insight spaces, with a focus on leveraging data to improve the developer experience and to optimize technology investments. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-aj-wasserman-0871146/ --- Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Tech Trek, and we would appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate and review us on your favorite podcast player. Want to learn more about us? Head over at https://www.elevano.com Have questions or want to cover specific topics with our future guests? Please message me at  https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand)

Episode 21 J.R. Storment & Mike Fuller: Cloud FinOps Book, Second Edition J.R. Storment & Mike Fuller, authors of Cloud FinOps - Collaborative, Real-Time Cloud Value Decision Making, visit to discuss what updates were included in the expansive Second Edition.Cloud FinOps: Collaborative, Real-Time Cloud Value Decision MakingMike Fuller | LinkedInJ.R. Storment | LinkedInFinOps X - June 27-30, 2023 San Diego, California

Welcome to the Jon Myer Podcast! Today's episode features Marit Hughes, a specialist master with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of Cloud FinOps. Marit has spent over a decade working with AWS billing and account management, both in the public sector and commercial industries. She is now bringing her expertise to Deloitte to help governments implement FinOps strategies.

Welcome to the Jon Myer Podcast! Today's episode features Marit Hughes, a specialist master with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of Cloud FinOps. Marit has spent over a decade working with AWS billing and account management, both in the public sector and commercial industries. She is now bringing her expertise to Deloitte to help governments implement FinOps strategies.

Jon Myer said about his work and answered some of my questions, he is from Pennsylvania, United States of America. more info- https://www.SmartCherrysThoughts.com

J.R. Storment and Mike Fuller discuss cloud financial operations (FinOps) with host Akshay Manchale. They consider the importance of a financial operations strategy for cloud-based infrastructure. J.R. and Mike discuss the differences between operating your own data center and running in the cloud, as well as the problems that doing so creates in understanding and forecasting cloud spend. Mike details the Cloud FinOps lifecycle by first attributing organizational cloud spend through showbacks and chargebacks to individual teams and products. JR describes the two levers available for optimization once an organization understands where they're spending their cloud budget. They discuss complexities that arise from virtualized infrastructure and techniques to attribute cloud usage to the correct owners, and close with some recommendations for engineering leaders who are getting started on cloud FinOps strategy.

Cloud Financial Management needs to be an iterative process. It isn't once and done but a continuous process of small improvements made over time. Understanding your business's current needs and priorities should drive your Cloud FinOps practice. If you're looking for the one "right" answer, you won't find it because what works for you might not work for others.

Cloud Financial Management needs to be an iterative process. It isn't once and done but a continuous process of small improvements made over time. Understanding your business's current needs and priorities should drive your Cloud FinOps practice. If you're looking for the one "right" answer, you won't find it because what works for you might not work for others.

A discussion of Cloud Financial Management or Cloud FinOps, and how best practices and financial governance can help companies achieve the most cost-efficient business outcomes for their cloud applications. With Principal Mike Fuller, Director Prem Purushothamraj and Director Todd Musgrove. A complete list of show notes is available here for download.

Target has been one of the leading innovators in the retail industry and not surprisingly is also one of the early adopters of cloud FinOps discipline through its Efficiency Engineering team. As such, Target has been in the forefront on tackling the cloud financials management topics and here with us today is Kim Wier, Director of Engineering, will be sharing her journey in driving cloud FinOps discipline within her Efficiency Engineering team and the key lessons learned through the past few years.

Steve and Frank discuss the Cloud FinOps updates that were released in July/August 2022. In this episode, they highlight some recent Cloud FinOps trends, with a focus on recent AWS news. To find out more about Cloud FinOps, visit our website here.

Steve and Frank discuss the Cloud FinOps updates that were released in June 2022. In this episode they highlight some recent Cloud FinOps news and trends, with a focus on recent AWS announcements. To find out more about Cloud FinOps, visit out website here.

Steve and Frank discuss the Cloud FinOps updates that were released in May 2022. In this episode they highlight some recent Cloud FinOps news and trends, with a focus on recent AWS security announcements. To find out more about Cloud FinOps, visit out website here.

In this episode, Steve and Frank sit down and talk to the founder of Kubecost, Web Brown to discuss cloud FinOps. Webb explains how Kubecost provides real-time cost visibility and insights for teams using Kubernetes, helping you continuously reduce your cloud costs. Webb answers all of Steve and Frank's questions on how Kubecost's solution could be beneficial for our listeners.To find out more about Cloud FinOps, visit our website here.

On the podcast this week, guest Joe Daly tells Stephanie Wong, Mark “Money” Mirchandani, and our listeners all about FinOps principles and how they're helping companies take advantage of the cloud while saving their bottom lines. He describes FinOps as financial DevOps, making financial decisions in an effective and optimized way. With his experience in finance and tax accounting, Joe has developed a special knack for navigating the sometimes confusing world of cloud finance policies, and his contributions to the FinOps Foundation have been many. For starters, collaboration with various business departments is important for developing a plan that leverages the benefits of the cloud but keeps the company using resources wisely, Joe explains. He talks about the FinOps Foundation and their focus on creating community for knowledge sharing. By fostering collaboration among different company roles and promoting financial education, companies are better able to determine financial goals while making sure each facet of the company reaps all the benefits of cloud participation. Following the FinOps cycle is the easiest way for community members to get started. The three steps, Joe tells us, are inform, optimize, and operate. The inform phase involves clarity in spending so teams understand how much money is being spent. In the optimize phase, benefits of spending are matched with expenditures to ensure resources are being used to their full potential. Finally, in the operate phase, engineers and finance managers come together to understand why solutions were chosen and understand if these tools are offering the right answers for the company. Every company is different but the sooner it's possible to start the FinOps journey the easier it will be to maintain in the future. Joe gives us examples of how companies are using the principles for successful strategies and the challenges that some of them have faced. The Foundation has monthly summits that offer perspectives from these companies as well as partner presentations. The FinOpsX conference is coming up soon as well. To wrap up, Joe offers other resources from the FinOps Foundation, including his podcast. Joe Daly Joe set up two FinOps teams at Fortune 100 companies. He joined the FinOps Foundation and has been setting up the ambassador program, supporting meetup groups, and producing FinOpsPod. Cool things of the week AlloyDB for PostgreSQL under the hood: Columnar engine blog GCP Podcast Episode 304: AlloyDB with Sandy Ghai and Gurmeet “GG” Goindi podcast How Google Cloud is helping more startups build, grow, and scale their businesses blog Automate identity document processing with Document AI blog Interview FinOps Foundation site FinOpsX site FinOpsPod podcast Cloud FinOps: The Secret To Unlocking The Economic Potential Of Public Cloud whitepaper Maximize Business Value with Cloud FinOps whitepaper Unlocking the value of cloud FinOps with a new operating model whitepaper Hosts Stephanie Wong and Mark Mirchandani

We discuss the Cloud FinOps updates that were released in March 2022. We also highlight some recent Cloud FinOps trends.Click here to learn more about Cloud FinOps

We discuss the Cloud FinOps updates that were released in February 2022. We also highlight some recent Cloud FinOps articles and pull out some key industry trends. Click here to learn more about Cloud FinOps

Stephen Old and Frank Contrepois are back to discuss the latest Cloud FinOps news in their first podcast of 2022! They highlight the newest releases from the major cloud providers, share tips and tricks on how to save more money on cloud and discuss how the definition of FinOps has changed over time.  Click here to learn more about cloud FinOps. 

He's all about data, he's passionate about helping customers with cloud financial management, and he loves to tinker around the house! All that and more in the latest episode of the SWOfiles with your hosts Levi & Abbie. Music, Mixing & Editing by fellow SWOmie: Brandon Avinger

Cloud FinOps is an operational framework and cultural shift that brings technology, finance, and business together to drive financial accountability and accelerate business value realization. Today, Chris Hood is joined by Eric Lam, Bruce Warner and Pathik Sharma to discuss an actionable set of steps that will help your organization implement FinOps and maximize your cloud investment on Google Cloud.

Dans ce troisième épisode, Thomas Sarrazin, Chief Architect au sein du Centre d'Excellence Cloud chez Capgemini en France aborde le sujet FinOps : - méthodologie de la démarche FinOps - adaptation de FinOps au secteur et au type d'organisation - valeur business au-delà de la valeur financière Découvrez toutes les clés d'une transformation cloud réussie dans notre guide : bit.ly/2ZtiqOE

About this podcastSteve and Frank are back with the latest cloud FinOps news for October! This episode covers the following topics:AWS Fault Injection Simulator now injects Spot Instance InterruptionsAWS Pricing Calculator now supports Amazon CloudFrontIntroducing Amazon EC2 C6i instancesAWS Marketplace announces Purchase Order Management for SaaS contractsAmazon EC2 announces attribute-based instance type selection for Auto Scaling groups, EC2 Fleet, and Spot FleetIntroducing GKE image streaming for fast application startup and autoscalingRun your fault-tolerant workloads cost-effectively with Google Cloud Spot VMsN2D VMs with latest AMD EPYC CPUs enable on average over 30% better price-performanceFind your GKE cost optimization opportunities right in the consoleGoogle Cloud billing tutorials: Because surprises are for home makeover shows, not your walletFind out more about Cloud FinOps by visiting our website.

Steve and Frank are back with the latest cloud FinOps news for November! This episode covers the following topics:Achieve up to 30% better performance with Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) using new Graviton2 instancesSheet Change Performance Optimizations is now generally available for Amazon QuickSightAnnouncing general availability of Amazon EC2 G5 instancesAWS Batch introduces fair-share schedulingAmazon EC2 Fleet and Spot Fleet now support automatic instance termination with Capacity RebalancingAmazon Athena adds cost details to query execution plansModernizing compliance: Introducing Risk and Compliance as CodeAnnouncing Spot Pods for GKE Autopilot—save on fault tolerant workloadsForrester: The Total Economic Impact™ Of Migrating Expensive Operating Systems and Traditional Software to Google CloudAutomatically clean up unneeded data with TTL for Cloud SpannerLive resize of Azure Disk Storage in public previewGeneral availability: Provisioned throughput increase for Azure Ultra Disk StorageTo find out more about cloud FinOps, click here to visit our website. 

Steve and Frank are back with the latest cloud FinOps news for September! This episode covers the following topics: Amazon Redshift extends Automatic Table Optimization to support Column Compression EncodingAWS Cost Categories introduces Split Charge rules for allocation of shared costsAmazon MSK adds metrics for increased visibility of capacityAmazon Textract Updates: Up to 32% Price Reduction in 8 AWS Regions and Up to 50% Reduction in Asynchronous Job Processing TimesAmazon Elastic File System introduces Intelligent-Tiering to automatically optimize storage costsAmazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering – Improved Cost Optimizations for Short-Lived and Small ObjectsGeneral availability: Azure Files supports storage capacity reservations for premium, hot, and cool tiersPublic preview: Scale-down mode in AKSGeneral availability: Lower capacity reservation tier for Azure Monitor dedicated clusters AWS CodeBuild now supports a small ARM machine type Amazon RDS now supports T4g instances for MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL databasesNow auto-terminate idle EMR clusters to lower costVisit our website to find out more about cloud FinOps.

In this episode we discuss the area of Cloud FinOps, why its important, what is the demand and salary.Join TechCommanders Sign up for courses  on TechCommanders. Welcome to TechieCastJax, where the top technology and business experts around discuss the latest trends in high tech."This podcast is hosted by Joe Holbrook who is an experienced technologist pundit in Jacksonville, Florida "www.techcommanders.com

In this episode we discuss the Top 10 areas in GCP Cloud FinOps. Cloud FinOps is an operational framework and cultural shift that brings technology, finance, and business together to drive financial accountability and accelerate business value realization. This whitepaper presents an actionable set of steps to help your organization implement FinOps and maximize your cloud investment on Google Cloud. Join TechCommanders Sign up for courses  on TechCommanders. Welcome to TechieCastJax, where the top technology and business experts around discuss the latest trends in high tech."This podcast is hosted by Joe Holbrook who is an experienced technologist pundit in Jacksonville, Florida "www.techcommanders.com

info@podcastone.

After a bit of a delay caused by holidays, covering holidays, surgeries and the day job, Frank and Stephen are back to talk you through the summer's news on Cloud FinOps.This month there's no main topic as there was so much interesting news and Frank and Stephen chatted far too much!Here's the topics they covered:azon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/07/aws-lowers-data-processing-charges-aws-privatelink/ https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioners/optimizing-your-google-cloud-spend-bigquery-and-looker https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/sustainability/pick-the-google-cloud-region-with-the-lowest-co2 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/deliver-scalable-costeffective-disk-storage-for-azure-vmware-solution/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/07/aws-allows-customers-pay-their-usage-in-advance/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/public-preview-of-azure-database-for-mysql-flexible-server-now-offers-reserved-instance-pricing/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/general-availability-azure-backup-now-supports-archive-tier-for-backups-of-sql-server-in-azure-vms/ https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/dcsv2-vms-pricing-reduction?WT.mc_id=acm-micflan https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-amazon-ec2-m6i-instances-powered-by-the-latest-generation-intel-xeon-scalable-processors AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon EBS io2 Block Express Volumes https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/general-availability-azure-spring-cloud-pricing-model-change/ https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2021/06/amazon-ec2-inf1-instances-new-features-improved-performance-and-lower-prices/ 

What's new in Cloud FinOps Episode 7 hosted by Stephen Old and Frank Contrepois.This month we go through what's new in Cloud FinOps from the last month and are joined by Strategic Blue's Financial Solution Architect, Jon Bryant, who explains our FinOps Framework.

Links: Cloud FinOps: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-FinOps-Collaborative-Real-Time-Management/dp/1492054623 FinOps Foundation: https://www.Finops.org/ AWS cost management blog: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws-cost-management/ Mastering AWS Cost Optimization: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-AWS-Cost-Optimization-operational/dp/965572803X TranscriptCorey: This episode is sponsored in part by LaunchDarkly. Take a look at what it takes to get your code into production. I’m going to just guess that it’s awful because it’s always awful. No one loves their deployment process. What if launching new features didn’t require you to do a full-on code and possibly infrastructure deploy? What if you could test on a small subset of users and then roll it back immediately if results aren’t what you expect? LaunchDarkly does exactly this. To learn more, visit launchdarkly.com and tell them Corey sent you, and watch for the wince.Pete: Hello, and welcome to the AWS Morning Brief: Fridays From the Field. I am Pete Cheslock.Jesse: I’m Jesse DeRose.Pete: Wow, we’re back again. And guess what? We have even more questions. I am… I am… I don’t even know. I have so many emotions right now that are conflicting between a pandemic and non-pandemic that I just—I’m just so happy. I’m just so happy that you listen, all of you out there, all you wonderful humans out there are listening. But more importantly, you are going into lastweekinaws.com/QA and you’re sending us some really great questions.Jesse: Yeah.Pete: And we’re going to answer some more questions today. We’re having so much fun with this, that we’re just going to keep the good times rolling. So, if you also want to keep these good times rolling, send us your questions, and we’ll just—yeah, we’ll just roll with it. Right, Jesse?Jesse: Absolutely. We’re happy to answer more questions on air, happy to let you pick our brains.Pete: All right. Well, we got a couple more questions. Let’s kick it off, Jesse.Jesse: Yeah. So, the first question today is from Barry. Thank you, Barry. “New friend of the pod here.” Always happy to have friends of the pod. Although I do feel like that starts to get, like, Children of the Corn, kind of. I think we started that, and I also am excited about it, and also upset with myself for starting that.Pete: That’s all right. Friend of the pod. Friend of the pod.Jesse: “New friend of the pod here. I work in strategic sourcing and procurement and I was curious if there are any ways that you recommend to get up to speed with managing cloud spend. This is usually closely monitored by finance or different groups in product, but I can see a significant potential value for a sourcing professional to help, also.” And that’s from Barry, thank you, Barry.Pete: Well, I’m struggling not to laugh. “This is usually closely monitored by finance or different groups in product.”Jesse: Yeah…Pete: But I mean, let’s be honest, it’s not monitored by anyone. It’s just running up a meter in a taxi going 100 miles an hour.Jesse: Yeah, that’s the hardest part. I want everybody to be involved in the cloud cost management practice, but there’s that same idea of if it’s everyone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility. And so this usually ends up at a point where you’ve got the CFO walking over to the head of engineering saying, “Why did the spend go up?” And that’s never a good conversation to have.Pete: No, never a good one. Well, Barry because you’re a friend of the pod, we will answer this question for you. And honestly, I think it’s a great question, which is, we actually have been working with a lot of larger enterprises and these enterprises still have their classic sourcing and procurement teams. That’s not an expertise that is going away anytime soon, but like most teams within the company that are adopting cloud, it’s obviously going to evolve as people are moving away from, kind of, capital intensive purchases and into, honestly, more complex, multi-year OpEx style purchases, with cloud services and all the different vendors that come with it. It’s going to just get a lot harder.I mean, it’s probably already a lot harder for those types of teams. And so there’s a bunch of places I think that you can go that can help level up your skills around cloud spend. And I would say the first place that I personally got to dive in a little bit more—I mean, my history has been using Amazon cloud and being a person who cared about how much my company spent on it, but when you—joining Duckbill, you need to dive into other areas around the FinOps world. And the book, the O’Reilly book, Cloud FinOps is actually a really great resource.Yeah, I think it’s really well written and there’s a lot of great chapters within there that you can kind of pick and choose based on what you’re most interested in learning about. If you’re trying to learn more about unit economics, or you’re trying to learn more about how to monitor and track things like that, it’s a great book to dive into, and becomes a really great reference that you can leverage as you’re trying to level up this expertise within yourself or your team.Jesse: It’s a really, really great resource. The other thing to think about is any kind of collaborative social spaces where you can be with like-minded individuals who also care about cloud costs. Now, there’s a number of meetups that exist under the FinOps title that may be worth looking into. Obviously, we’re recording this during the pandemic so I don’t recommend doing those in person. But as you are able to, there may be opportunities for in-person meetups and smaller local groups focusing on cloud cost management strategies together. But also check out the FinOps Foundation. They have a Slack space that I would love to tell you more about, but unfortunately, we’re not allowed to join. So—Pete: Yep.Jesse: —I can’t really say more about it than that. I would hope that you’re allowed to join, but they have some strict guidelines. So, I mean, the worst that can happen is they say no; it’s definitely worth signing up.Pete: Yeah, and they have to us. [laugh].Jesse: Yeah.Pete: I think when you get into the FinOps Foundation, you should angrily say that we should have more FinOps experts in here like the great Jesse DeRose should be a member of this one because right now, he’s just framed his rejection notice from there, and—Jesse: Oh, yeah.Pete: —while it looks beautiful on the wall, while I’m on a Zoom with him, I want more for you, Jesse.Jesse: I want more for me, too. I’m not going to lie.Pete: So, I don’t know this might sound a little ridiculous that I’m going to say something nice about AWS, but they have a fantastic cost management blog. This is a really fantastic resource, really incredible resource, with a lot more content more recently. They seem to be doing some great work on the recruiting side and bringing on some real fantastic experts around cost management.I mean, just recently within the past few months they talk about unit economics: How to select a unit metric that might support your business, talking more about unit metrics in practice. They start at the basics, too. I mean, obviously, we deal a lot in unit economics and unit metrics; they will start you off with something very basic and say, “Well, what even is this thing?” And talk to you more about cost reporting using AWS organizations for some of this. It’s a really fantastic resource.It’s all free, too, which is—it’s weird to say that something from AWS is free. So, anytime that you can find a free resource from Amazon, I say, highly recommend it. But there are a lot of blogs on the AWS site, but again, the Cost Management Blog, great resource. I read it religiously; I think what they’re writing is some of, really, the best content on the blog in general.Jesse: There’s one other book that I want to recommend called Mastering AWS Cost Optimization and we’ll throw links to all these in the [show notes 00:07:30], but I, unfortunately, have not read this book yet, so I can’t give strong recommendations for it, but it is very similar in style and vein to the Cloud FinOps book that we just mentioned, so might be another great resource to pick up to give you some spot learning of different components of the cloud cost management workflow and style.Pete: Awesome. Yeah, definitely agree. I’d love to see, again, more content out here. There’s a lot of stuff that exists. And even A Cloud Guru has come up with cost management training sessions.Again, we’d like to see more and more of this. I’d love to see more of this come from Amazon. I’d love to see—you know, they have a certification path in all these different areas; I’d love to see more of that in the cost management world because I think it’s going to become more complex, and having that knowledge, there is so much knowledge, it’s spread so far across AWS, helping more people get up to speed on it will be just critical for businesses who want to better understand what their spend is doing. So, really great question, Barry, friend of the pod. We should get some pins for that, right? Friend of the pod pins?Jesse: Oh, yeah.Pete: And yeah, really great question. Really appreciate you sending it and hopefully that helps you. And if not, guess what? You can go to lastweekinaws.com/QA, and just ask us a follow-up question, Barry. Because you’re a friend of the pod. So, we’ll hopefully hear from you again soon.Jesse: Thanks, Barry.Pete: Thanks.Announcer: If your mean time to WTF for a security alert is more than a minute, it’s time to look at Lacework. Lacework will help you get your security act together for everything from compliance service configurations to container app relationships, all without the need for PhDs in AWS to write the rules. If you’re building a secure business on AWS with compliance requirements, you don’t really have time to choose between antivirus or firewall companies to help you secure your stack. That’s why Lacework is built from the ground up for the cloud: Low effort, high visibility, and detection. To learn more, visit lacework.com.Pete: All right, we have one more question. Jesse, what is it?Jesse: “All right, most tech execs I speak with have already chosen a destination hyperscaler of choice. They ask me to take them there. I can either print out a map they can follow, procedural style, or I can be their Uber driver. I could be declarative. I prefer the latter for flexibility reasons, but having said that, where does one actually start?Do you start with Infrastructure as a Service and some RDS to rid them of that pesky expensive Oracle bill? Do we start with a greenfield? I mean, having a massive legacy footprint, it takes a while to move things over, and integrating becomes a costly affair. There’s definitely a chicken and egg scenario here. How do I ultimately find the best path forward?” That question is from Marsellus Wallace? Thank you, Marsellus.Pete: Great question. And I’m not just saying that. I guess I have a question. Or at least, maybe we have different answers based on what this really looks like. Is this a legacy data center migration?The solution here is basically lift-and-shift. Do it quickly. And most importantly, don’t forget to refactor and clean up after you shut down your old data center. Don’t leave old technical debt behind. And, yeah, you’re going to spend a lot, you’re going to look at your bill and go, “Holy hell, what just happened here?”But it’s not going to stay that way. That’s probably—if you do it right—the highest your bill is going to be because lift-and-shift means basically just moving compute from one location to another. And if you’re—as we spoken about probably a million times, Jesse and I, if you just run everything on EC2 like a data center, it’s the most expensive way to do the cloud stuff. So, you’re going to then refactor and bring in ephemerality and tiering of data and all those fun things that we talk about. Now, is this a hybrid cloud world?That’s a little bit different because that means you’re not technically going to get rid of, maybe, physical locations or physical data centers, so where do you start? It’s my personal opinion—and Jesse has his own opinion, too, and guess what it’s our podcast and we’re going to tell it like it is.Jesse: [laugh].Pete: [laugh]. You know, my belief is, starting with storage is honestly a great way to get into cloud. Specifically S3. Maybe even your corporate file systems, using a tool like FSX. It’s honestly why many businesses start their cloud journey, by moving corporate email and file systems into the cloud.I mean, as a former Microsoft Exchange administrator, I am thoroughly happy that you don’t have to manage that, really, anymore and you can push that in the cloud. So, I think storage is honestly a great way to get started within there: Get S3 going, move your file systems in there, move your email in there if you haven’t yet. That’s a really great way to do it. Now, the next one that I would move probably just as aggressively into and, Marsellus, you mentioned it: RDS, right? “Should we move into RDS, get rid of expensive Oracle bills?”Yeah, anytime you can pay ol’ Uncle Larry less money is better in my mindset. Databases are, again, another really great way of getting into AWS. They work so well, RDS is just such a great service, but don’t forget about DMS, the database migration service. This is the most underrated cloud service that Amazon has in there, it will help you migrate your workloads into RDS, into Amazon Aurora. But one thing I do want to call out before you start migrating data in there, talk to your account manager—you have one even if you don’t think you have one—before starting anything, and have them help you identify if there are any current programs that exist to help you migrate that data in.Again, Amazon will incentivize you to do it, they will provide you credits, like map credits or other investment credits, maybe even professional services that can help you migrate this data from an on-premise Oracle into AWS, I think you will be very pleasantly surprised with how aggressive that they can be to help you get into there. The last thing that I would say is another great thing to move in our data projects. So, let’s say you want to do a greenfield one, greenfield type of project into Amazon, data projects are a really great way to move in there. I’m talking things like EMR, Databricks, Qubole, you get to take advantage of Spot Fleets with EMR, but also Databricks and Qubole can manage Spot infrastructure and really take advantage of cloud ephemerality. So if, like I said, you started by pushing all your data into S3, you’re already halfway there on a really solid data engineering project, and now you get to leverage a lot of these other ancillary services like Glue, Glue DataBrew, Athena, Redshift.I mean, once the data is in S3, you have a lot of flexibility. So, that’s my personal opinion on where to get started there. But Jesse, I know you always have a different take on these, so where do you think that they should start?Jesse: Yeah, I think all of the recommendations you just made are really, really great options. I always like to look at this from the perspective of the theory side or the strategy side. What ultimately do these tech execs want to accomplish? Is it getting out of data centers? Is it better cost visibility?Is it optimizing spend? Is it better opportunity to move fast, get new R&D things that you can’t get in a data center? What do these tech execs ultimately want to accomplish? And ask them. Start by asking them.Prioritize the work that they want to accomplish first, and work with teams to change their behaviors to accomplish their goals. One of the biggest themes that we see in the space moving from data centers into cloud providers or even just growing within a given cloud provider is cost visibility. Do teams know why their spend is what it is? Do they know why it went up or down month-over-month? Can they tell you the influences and the drivers that cause their spend to go up or down?Can they specifically call out which teams or product usage increased or decreased, and what ultimately led to your spending changing? Make sure that every team has an architecture diagram and they can explain how they use AWS, how data moves from one service to another, both within their product and to other products. Because there’s definitely going to be sharp edges with data transfer between accounts. We’ve seen this happen to a number of clients before; I’ve gotten bit by this bullet. So, talk to your teams, or talk to your tech executives and have those tech executives talk to their teams to understand what do they ultimately want to accomplish?Can they tie all of what they’re trying to accomplish back to business metrics? Maybe a spike in user logins generated more usage? If you’re a photo storage company, did a world event prompt a lot of users to upload photos prompting higher storage costs? Are you able to pull out these specific insights? That’s ultimately the big question here. Can you boil it down to a business KPI that changed, that ultimately impacted your AWS spend?Pete: I think this is a scenario of where you get started. Why not both? Just maybe do both of these things that we’re saying.Jesse: Yeah.Pete: And honestly, I think you’ll end up in a pretty great place. So, let us know how that works out, Marsellus, and thank you for the question. Again, you also can send us your questions, and we will maybe answer these on a future episode; lastweekinaws.com/QA, drop a question in there, put your name, or not or a fake name, or even a joke. That’s fine, too. I don’t know what the text limit is on the name, Jesse. Can you put a joke there? I don’t know. You know what? Test that out for us. It’s not slash QA for nothing. So, give that a little QA, or a question and answer and [unintelligible 00:17:29]. All right. Well, thanks, Jesse, for helping me out answering more questions.Jesse: Thanks, everybody for the awesome questions.Pete: If you enjoyed this podcast, please go to lastweekinaws.com/review, give it a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you hated this podcast, please go to lastweekinaws.com/review and give it a five-star rating on your podcast platform of choice and tell us, what would be the last thing that you would move to AWS? It’s QuickSight, isn’t it?Jesse: [laugh].Pete: Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Ben Simonds is Head of Analytics at Contino, with responsibility for internal analytics and reporting as well as consulting with clients on BI, Analytics, and Cloud FinOps engagements. Contino is a leading transformation consultancy that helps large, heavily-regulated enterprises to become fast, agile and competitive. Ben has an incredibly interesting career path, starting out his journey by setting up his own successful 3D animation studio (Gecko Animation) and then moving into the world of Analytics. During the podcast episode, Ben discusses the correlation between data analytics and 3D animation, as well as the often overlooked hard and soft skills required to be successful in data.