Welcome to the wasteland
It has been a while since I’ve typed a new blog. There is a good reason for that. I’ve been very busy on FinOps projects that used all my mental cycles. Which is a good thing as freelancer. Being super busy came with a truckload of new learnings or observations.
Completely Wasted
I agree it is a bit of a clickbait title but it hits multiple birds with one stone. Hear me out… For me waste has always been an issue in all customers. This has been broadcasted in the newest FinOps State of FinOps. This is also the reality in the field as far as I see inside my customers. Waste is everywhere and many cannot take action on this because what you cannot see is very difficult to take action on. Many of organisations I’ve been working with in recent months acknowledge there is a gigantic amount of waste however also acknowledge it is hard to motivate people to do something about it.
Onboarding Workloads
This brings me to an entry point where you bring in waste into your cloud. Many customers are migrating waste to the cloud in a lift and shift scenario with the ambition to gather the waste and clean it. Recently I started thinking on a way to explain this in a way that many of us understand this. Here is my analogy…
Recently I was visiting one of my international customers. While I was waiting in Brussels Airport to board the plane I started looking around. What did I do before I could sit down in the plane? Onboarding new or existing workloads is like boarding a plane and taking a seat in the plane. Hear me out…
Everyone has taken a plan before. You know it causes some stress to get through security and it takes some time before you can really board the plane. It might be a bit stressy however it is necessary to go through security. You need to apply the rules like not taking bottles of water with you through security, or not taking any knives with you or a big suitcase that will not fit the planes overhead compartments. The rules are to be followed otherwise you cannot and will not board the plane.
Now let’s take that back to workloads. The security is your process that helps understand the business value, technological stack, budget, … call it scrutinise the workload before anything gets deployed. If things are not 100% in line with the rules you should stop the workload from boarding the plane aka your cloud platform. This process is ofter neglected or just bypassed.
Once your workload passed the security check you can board it on your platform. Of course, if the seat belt sign is on or the toilets are closed or occupied we know we cannot run freely through the plane. That is something that happens to often in cloud. Your workloads get through the security check and nobody really cares about the workload anymore. Well you care about the technological working of the workload however finance wise the workload is operated. Uptime might be 100% but CPU usage might be 3% storage might be actually used for 15% however the machine runs so that is the most important thing… Well… rightsizing the workload might bring you closer to 100% of usage for both CPU and storage. which is also pushing your workload to keep on running but is also using 100% of the money burned to support the workload. Addressing waste is something many organisations don’t really look at.
Engineers need to be enabled
Recently I went on a family vacation while I was seated in the plane I started brainstorming how can we make an engineer take action. How can we make a big splash and include engineers in more. The week before I had a nice encounter on gamifying the operations engagement but how?
When I thought about it. We need to create visibility towards the engineers to show that there is a problem. Check that is step 1! Show saving potential. Show the problem! What you cannot see, you cannot act on. Create the radar.
Now the big splash! A report? A operations wide way to include engineers? What about a hackaton? A treasure hunt of some sort? That’s it! If you want to embed the searching, executing savings you should put the fun in FinOps… Now let’s start to bring this together. Do we need to reinvent the wheel? Or can we learn from others? I checked amazon.com and found a hackathon for FinOps book. Not to be recommended it is just a reiteration of the same point over and over again. At the last pages you get QR codes you need to pay some big money for so don’t go there you have enough braincells to think about this yourself.
I’ll write a blog about once it is done and give you some insight on how we organised one.
Conclusion
In wrapping up, our dive into the wasteland many clouds are, from the unavoidable cloud waste to the potential of gamifying engineer engagement, reveals a clear pathway. It's about seeing the unseen, turning inaction into fun, and making every byte count. Our journey through airport brainstorm and cloud platforms alike shows the importance of preparation and the business value cloud needs to bring. As I look forward to more adventures and less waste in the cloud, let's keep pushing for visibility, accountability, and innovation. The quest for a waste-free cloud is on, and every step we take is a step towards a more efficient and cost-effective future.