FinOps Foundations · Module 01

FinOps Fundamentals

What FinOps is and why it is a team sport: the six principles, who is involved, the Inform–Optimize–Operate lifecycle with Crawl–Walk–Run maturity, and how cloud providers actually charge for what you use.

Practice interactively →

What you will learn

• Explain the FinOps definition and the six FinOps principles in your own words
• Name the core personas and what each one needs from FinOps
• Describe the Inform, Optimize and Operate phases, maturity levels and scopes
• Compare on-demand, commitment-based and spot pricing and read the main cost drivers on a cloud bill

Lessons

1. What FinOps Is (and Is Not)

   FinOps is an operational framework and cultural practice that maximises the business value of technology through timely, data-driven decisions and shared financial accountability between engineering, finance and business teams.

2. Personas: Who Does FinOps

   FinOps is shared by core personas — FinOps practitioner, engineering, finance, product, procurement and leadership — and allied ones such as ITAM, security and sustainability; each needs different data at a different cadence.

3. The FinOps Lifecycle, Maturity and Scopes

   FinOps runs as a loop of Inform, Optimize and Operate; each capability matures from Crawl to Walk to Run, and scopes define which kinds of technology spend the practice covers.

4. How Cloud Pricing Works

   Cloud bills combine usage × rate across compute, storage, data transfer and managed services; rates depend on the purchase option — on-demand, commitments such as Savings Plans and reservations, or spot.