Green Operations (GreenOps) is an approach to creating an eco-friendly cloud. The aim is to minimize energy waste, increase renewable resources, and decrease their carbon footprint on the planet. Several public cloud providers are aiming to become carbon-negative. By 2030, Google Cloud plans to operate on carbon-free energy around the clock. Microsoft Azure has committed to being carbon-negative by 2030, and AWS aims to run its operations on 100% renewable energy by 2025. This guide will cover GreenOps' key concepts and how to integrate them to cut costs and lessen environmental impact.   What is GreenOps, and how does it make a sustainable cloud?   GreenOps integrates eco-friendly practices into cloud and business operations to minimize the ecological impact of technology use. This approach helps businesses leverage the power of the cloud while reducing energy consumption, optimizing resource utilization, and supporting renewable energy initiatives. Adoption rates for GreenOps have been rising steadily. In 2024, the focus on cloud cost management, sustainability, and GreenOps is expected to increase by 35%, greatly impacting cloud resource use and energy efficiency. Let’s go over and see what these strategies look like.   Principles and Practices of GreenOps GreenOps involves implementing several sustainable practices: Energy Efficiency First, it's about optimizing data centers and IT infrastructure to consume less energy. This involves leveraging FinOps practices to identify cost-saving opportunities by reducing unnecessary cloud resource usage.  GreenOps principles guide energy efficiency enhancement, making your cloud setup leaner and greener. By doing so, you not only help the environment but also significantly cut down on energy bills. (It’s a win-win for both financial and environmental sustainability!) Resource Management Next, GreenOps emphasizes reducing waste and promoting recycling within the organization. Implementing FinOps strategies ensures that cloud resources are used efficiently, minimizing digital waste. Together, these practices support both cost-effectiveness and environmental responsibility. Sustainable Sourcing Finally,  all products and services must be sourced from environmentally friendly suppliers. Select cost-effective yet sustainable vendors who provide transparency in their operations and promote green practices.   [caption id="attachment_16062" align="alignnone" width="725"] Source: Greenpixie[/caption]   Combining FinOps and GreenOps   Blending FinOps and GreenOps strategies benefits organizations by optimizing the cloud's financial performance and environmental sustainability. Aligning financial management with sustainability goals helps control cloud spending and reduce the carbon footprint, ensuring resource efficiency, cost savings, and enhanced corporate responsibility.  So, what kind of benefits can be expected from this combo?  With over 30% of cloud use estimated to be wasted, the urgency for GreenOps is greater than ever. Benefits of Integration    Cost Savings Optimizing data centers and cloud infrastructure can help companies achieve significant energy savings. For instance, Google’s data centers utilize AI to reduce cooling energy use by up to 40%​.  Environmental Impact Implementing GreenOps can cut cloud data center energy use by 20-40%, bringing substantial environmental and cost advantages. This is done via resource optimization and energy-efficient infrastructure, lowering operational costs and enhancing sustainability. Operational Efficiency Right-sizing and auto-scaling cloud resources help companies use only what they need, boosting resource efficiency and cutting costs. Organizations that implement these practices can see an increase in resource utilization from 10-15% to 50-70%​​. Regulatory Compliance As many regions have already passed regulatory standards for environmental sustainability and others are considering future rules, you can keep pace with the game if you start implementing GreenOps policies now. Your compliance and legal teams will thank you for helping them dodge future penalties and other legal issues. We’ll go into more detail below about the new regulations entering the scene and how you can avoid potential legal fines—and help the environment!   Recent Environmental Regulations and GreenOps   Environmental regulations in Europe have been on the rise since the early 2010s. For example, EU regulatory reporting requirements like Germany's Energy Efficiency act which requires a 26.5% reduction in carbon emission levels from 2008 to 2030 is a big incentivizer for companies to adopt GreenOps solutions. But the most recent initiative you should be aware of is CSRD.  The EU’s CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) is driving major changes in GreenOps. The CSRD drives changes in company behavior to bring sustainability on part with mandated disclosure efforts, and went into full effect January 5, 2023. Approximately 50,000 companies in EU Member States had until July 2024 to incorporate these mandates. Penalties for non-compliance are determined by state and can result in fines.  The process of determining if a company is included in CSRD’s scope is complex. We recommend you consult your legal department to determine if your organization is included. There are a few general guidelines you can review to get an idea of if you should be worrying about CSRD or not:  Does your company have securities listed on an EU-regulated market? If your company has securities listed on certain EU stock exchanges like Euronext Dublin, then you may need to be CSRD-compliant.  Is your company considered a medium or small organization? If your company has less than €25 million in total assets, net turnover less than €50 million or less than an average of 250 employees, you might need to be CSRD-compliant.  Is your company the parent company of a group considered a large organization? If not, then you may need to be CSRD-compliant. Regulation Description Impact on Organizations How GreenOps Can Help CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) (EU, January 5, 2023) Requires large companies in the EU to disclose environmental impact alongside financial data. Increased reporting requirements and potential fines for non-compliance. Streamline data collection and reporting for environmental metrics. Optimize resource management to reduce environmental impact. Germany's Energy Efficiency Act (2015) Mandates a 26.5% reduction in carbon emission levels from 2008 to 2030. Incentivizes companies to adopt energy-efficient practices. Identify and implement energy-saving measures. Track & report energy consumption data. Future Regulations Anticipated environmental regulations at regional, national, and international levels. Potential compliance challenges and increased operating costs. Proactive adoption of GreenOps practices can help mitigate risks and costs.   If you do think you may need to be CSRD-compliant and haven’t yet started on the process, GreenOps is the way to help your FinOps organization… but that’s not to say that you can seamlessly start integrating FinOps and GreenOps at the drop of the hat.    Pain points with GreenOps and solutions     So far, integrating a GreenOps strategy into a FinOps framework for cloud services looks like a win, but like any new cultural shift, there are bound to be challenges.  So, be prepared for these potential roadblocks when introducing GreenOps to the cloud.  Overcoming Common Challenges Cultural Resistance Employees may resist changes to learn new skills and adapt to new processes, especially if they already have a rhythm in their cloud environment. Solution: Foster a culture of sustainability and financial accountability through training and communication. Engage employees by highlighting the long-term benefits of GreenOps and FinOps, including cost savings and positive environmental impact. Encourage participation and feedback to ensure everyone is on board with the changes. Complexity Managing both FinOps and GreenOps can be complex in the cloud. The integration requires managing multiple aspects of cloud operations, from cost optimization to sustainability practices, which can be overwhelming without the right tools and processes. Solution: Utilize automated tools and technologies to simplify FinOps processes. Implementing cloud management platforms that can streamline operations and reduce the burden of manual management. Tools that provide real-time data and insights can help make informed decisions quickly and efficiently. Measurement Difficulties Measuring the impact of GreenOps and FinOps initiatives can be challenging. It involves identifying the right metrics, tracking progress in complex cloud environments, and ensuring data accuracy. Solution: Establish clear metrics and regularly review progress. Define specific, measurable goals for financial and environmental performance. Track energy consumption, carbon footprint, cost savings, and resource utilization. Regular reviews and adjustments based on data insights will help maintain the effectiveness of these initiatives.   How is Umbrella assisting in GreenOps practices?   As mentioned before, juggling various operational frameworks in the cloud can be challenging. Your company might be just getting the hang of FinOps and worry that adding another operational layer could disrupt cloud efficiency. But, as a certified FinOps cost management platform, we can help.  With Umbrella, we can provide the tools for FinOps in the cloud, allowing you to concentrate on cloud sustainability without sacrificing cost efficiency and optimization. Establishing Sustainable FinOps through Greenpixie Integration We’re partnering with Greenpixie to seamlessly integrate cloud carbon emissions data into our FinOps platform, paving the way for an innovative solution in sustainable cloud management. Through this collaboration, we will unify cost and carbon emissions data within a single interface using Greenpixie's ISO-verified methodology. This integration will give engineers precise insights to minimize cloud inefficiencies and environmental footprint. With this partnership, we aim to offer customers: An integration for precise, real-time emissions data Optimization of cloud operations and promotion of sustainable practices Alignment of cloud efficiency with environmental responsibility Solutions to assist organizations in safeguarding the planet and their profits Effective tackling of global sustainability challenges Read more about our collaboration for sustainable FinOps.   Harnessing Today's Umbrella Platform for Eco-Friendly Operations   With continuous monitoring and deep visibility, businesses gain the power to align FinOps, DevOps, and Finance teams to reduce their total cloud bill and implement GreenOps strategies effectively.  Here's how: Cloud cost dashboard: Multicloud Visibility—Umbrella seamlessly combines all of your cloud spend into a single platform. Monitor and optimize your cloud cost and resource utilization across AWS, GCP, and Azure.  Eliminate Waste: Umbrella’s easy-to-action savings recommendations enable your DevOps team to easily implement spending and service changes that can drive significant savings.  Allocate Costs: See cost causation and allocate spend by service, business unit, team, and app with deep visibility across AWS, Azure, GCP, and pod-level Kubernetes.  Enable FinOps: Avoid bill shock with near real-time alerts and insightful, ML-driven forecasting.  Granular Insights: Detailed tracking of spending and usage across Kubernetes clusters provides insights that no other cloud optimization platform offers. This allows businesses to identify under-utilization at the node level and optimize resource use, directly supporting sustainability efforts. Not using FinOps yet, or need a partner to maximize your efforts? Let's chat.   Conclusion GreenOps + FinOps = Sustainable Cloud   Organizations are starting to be mindful of how their operations contribute to carbon emissions and are working on reducing their carbon footprint. At first glance, working in the cloud may not appear to have a significant impact on the environment. However, powering data in the cloud consumes substantial energy, and inactive cloud resources result in wastage. If you're diving into GreenOps, understanding your FinOps and cloud costs can reveal where cloud waste occurs. And having a partner who can show you that insight can greatly help your cloud become more green.  Together, let’s do our part and make a more sustainable cloud!

Trying to refine your org structure and already using VMware Tanzu CloudHealth? You might have stumbled across the word FlexOrgs. If you have, you’re likely scratching your head and wondering what FlexOrgs are and, more importantly, if they can help you.  Still unsure how to get started? Don’t worry. We have the answers to your FlexOrg questions (and more!). Our FlexOrgs in a nutshell guide should give you an idea of what to expect and see if it’s the right choice for your cloud environment. What Are FlexOrgs?   FlexOrgs is a VMware Tanzu CloudHealth-specific feature that helps manage user access, sharing, and delegation across your organization’s hierarchy.  The following are some of the key components of FlexOrgs: Role Documents: These documents define user permissions within certain platforms (ex: view-only, edit, or create).  Organizational Units (OUs): Each OU gets its assigned cloud infrastructure resources, representing different parts of your organization (e.g., teams, business units, etc.).  Users: Anyone who has access to your Tanzu CloudHealth platform. User Groups: Multiple users who have similar OU responsibilities. User groups help define FlexOrg relationships. For example, here’s a breakdown of how you can build out your hierarchy with a TLOU (Top-Level Organizational Unit) and other hierarchical child OUs:  [caption id="attachment_16051" align="alignnone" width="725"] Source: VMWare[/caption]   How Do FlexOrgs Work?   If you’re looking to build out or optimize a pre-existing FlexOrg, you’ll want to follow these steps:  Determine who belongs where in your organizational units (OUs), role documents, and user groups. Ask yourself who fits where and who needs what levels of permissions. Consider how many tiers your organization requires and how you should define each tier. Keep in mind things like security (who should have access to what documents), and visibility (who needs access to what documents). Determine where you want to pull your data. If you’re using a CSP, review your platform of choice. AWS, Azure, and GCP all have the ability to build an organizational structure, so make sure you’re not duplicating someone else’s work. If you’re using an IDP or an SSO service, you can recreate that structure in Tanzu CloudHealth and simplify things.  Review your account, subscriptions, and projects. Make sure you’re familiar with your assignment strategy. Accounts and users should flow much smoother via FlexOrg's organizational hierarchy. Consider your organization's goals. Make sure you’re clear on what your organization is trying to accomplish. Do you want better delegation, user visibility, or security? These should inform how you build your FlexOrg. Assign cloud resources. Next, you’ll want to assign your cloud resources (like your GCP or AWS accounts) to your OUs.  Create user groups and assign role documents and permissions. Final step! Create your user groups and use your brainstorming from step one to assign users. You should assign permissions based on your role documents.   Drawbacks of using FinOrgs   While VMware Tanzu CloudHealth's FinOrgs feature simplifies cloud structure and tag organization, it's not as flexible as some other tools on the market. Limitations include: Perspective Building: To view tags in cost reports, you must construct a Perspective. However, these mappings may take up to 24 hours to load fully. Restricted Scope: Perspectives can be built using only tags, resources, accounts, and specific services. Separate Systems: Business Mapping and Cost Allocation are managed in different sections, adding layers of complexity. For MSPs and Enterprises needing to respond promptly to cloud environment changes, slow load times and multitasking with tags and allocation could raise manual workload, which is not ideal in a FinOps organization.   Why You Should Migrate from CloudHealth to Umbrella Feature CloudHealth Umbrella Supported Infrastructures VMware, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, K8s, Alibaba, OCI AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, K8s Virtual Tagging, Cost Categorization, and Cost Allocation Preconfigured, customization reporting for each persona Preconfigured, customizable reporting for each persona FinOps Culture and Root Cause Analysis Builds your FinOps culture and enables drill-in root cause analysis Builds your FinOps culture and enables drill-in root cause analysis Showback and Chargeback Yes Yes Rightsizing Savings recommendations Very few basic recommendations across primary services, automatable, savings projections, inaccurate, and inflated. Reduce waste and maximize utilization with 40+ savings recommendations highly personalized to your business and infrastructure Forecasting and Budgeting Inaccurate forecasts frustrate many customers AI-driven forecasting ensures high-certainty predictions at various levels of detail Anomaly Detection and Management Set up email alerts for detecting deviations from historical trends. No distinction between noise and impact activity Fully-automated AI not only detects anomalies in real-time but the root cause as well. Feature alerts the appropriate teams prompting quick response and resolution Extensibility Multiple fractured APIs hinder data accessibility Single, robust, easy-to-use API Ease of Use Not user friendly or instinctive interface Intuitive and responsive display Pricing Unpredictable pricing taxes customers at 3% of cloud spend, offered at low cost by MSPs Single, robust, easy-to-use API Company Status CloudHealth Technologies was acquired by VMware in August 2018. Then, Broadcom acquired VMware in November 2023, resulting in delays to product development and innovation for its users Umbrella has recently doubled the size of the team supporting our FinOps product, MSPs, and publishes a public-facing roadmap that promises rapid innovation Good news - if you need a tool similar to FinOrgs but require flexibility and agility to respond in a fast-paced cloud infrastructure, Umbrella's Cloud Center is designed for FinOps organizations aiming to lessen admin overhead and automate processes. Umbrella's Cloud Center: A More Comprehensive Solution Umbrella's Cloud Center offers a more comprehensive and flexible approach to cloud cost management compared to FlexOrgs. It provides a unified platform for visualizing and analyzing your cloud costs, enabling you to gain deeper insights and make data-driven decisions. Key Advantages of Cloud Center: Unified View: Easily visualize your cloud costs across different departments, teams, or lines of business. Automated Filtering: Automatically filter data based on your selected view, providing tailored insights for each group. Enhanced Flexibility: Enjoy greater flexibility in creating and organizing cost categories compared to FlexOrgs. Integration with Existing Tools: Seamlessly integrate Cloud Center with your existing cloud infrastructure and tools. Scalability: Easily scale Cloud Center to accommodate your growing organization and cloud resource needs. How Cloud Center Works Cloud Center leverages advanced analytics and machine learning to provide actionable insights into your cloud costs. By mapping your organizational structure to your cloud resources, you can: Identify cost-optimization opportunities: Pinpoint areas where you can reduce spending without compromising performance. Allocate costs accurately: Ensure that costs are allocated fairly across different departments or teams. Track usage trends: Monitor your cloud usage patterns to identify anomalies and optimize resource allocation. Why Choose Umbrella? Comprehensive Solution: Umbrella offers a comprehensive suite of FinOps tools, including cost optimization, anomaly detection, and user access control. Scalability: Easily scale Umbrella to accommodate your growing organization and cloud resource needs. Flexibility: Umbrella's flexible approach allows you to adapt to changing business requirements. Expert Support: Benefit from Umbrella's team of FinOps experts who can provide guidance and support. Conclusion If you're looking for a more powerful and flexible solution to manage your cloud costs, Umbrella's Cloud Center is the answer. By providing a unified view, automated filtering, and enhanced flexibility, Cloud Center empowers you to make data-driven decisions and optimize your cloud spending. It’s Time to Upgrade from FinOrgs to a Flexible Cloud Center   FlexOrgs is a great start when your organization is still trying to define roles and permissions in the cloud, but if you’ve mastered hierarchy and are ready to move on to cloud cost optimization, cost anomaly detection, and user access control specifically for cost data, Umbrella is for you.  Curious about Umbrella and the services we offer? Talk to us to learn how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.    

Most enjoy the peace of mind cloud backups offer for all the damage the costs can do to their wallets. Microsoft Azure offers Azure Backup service to safely backup your data on Microsoft Azure cloud, allowing you to store Azure VMs and even on-premise machines and workloads.  But Azure prices can be confusing, and Azure Backup is no different. To best understand how much you’re paying and why you’re paying that much, read on!  In this article: What is Azure Backup? How the Azure Backup pricing model works What factors influence Azure Backup costs? How to calculate your Azure Backup budget How to optimize Azure Backup costs Optimize Azure Backup Pricing with a third-party platform Source: Azure What is Azure Backup?   Before we get into budget breakdowns, let’s define some terms. Azure Backup is a Microsoft service that lets you backup your data into Microsoft Cloud. Enterprise companies use this service to manage backups for the following:  Azure File Shares SQL Server Databases Azure Managed Disks SharePoint, Exchange, Hyper-V workloads VMWare and bare metal machines SAP HANA databases Remember that Azure Backup is not to be confused with Azure Site Recovery. Azure Site Recovery is a full disaster recovery solution that allows you to completely replicate VMs to a secondary location, whereas Azure Backup is a data backup storage service.  Azure Backup benefits Azure Backup means you don’t need to worry about your data vanishing during a freak accident or data breach. You can have copies of all your data and VMs, as well as your files, folders, SQL database, and system state.  Azure Backup uses VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service) to guarantee application consistency for pre/post-processing scripts.  Azure Backup architecture Azure Backup uses four different technologies, MABS (Microsoft Azure Backup Server), System Center DPM (Data Protection Manager), MARS (Microsoft Azure Recovery Services), and Azure VM extensions. Each technology runs in a different way and for different workloads. MABS, for example, is deployable using either on-premise services of Azure VMs. Here’s a breakdown of each model and the pros and cons of each to help you decide which system would work best for your organization:  Azure Backup Solution Features Limitations Azure MABS Support for Windows and Linux. Application-aware and includes agents for SQL, Exchange, and more and provides granular backups and restores. SQL backups every 15 minutes with other workloads backed up hourly. No additional licensing costs. Support for VMWare and Hyper-V. MABS has to be deployed to backup Azure VMs. Infrastructure as a Service requires additional monitoring and maintenance. System Center DPM Application-aware agents for SQL, Exchange, and more. Support for Linux, Windows, VMware, and Hyper-V. Granular backups and restores. Licensing cost. Infrastructure as a Service requires additional monitoring and maintenance. Azure MARS Agent Provides backup support for Azure VMs and on-premise machines. No additional backup infrastructure is needed. No Linux support, and backups are limited to files, folders, and volumes due to no application awareness. Only allowed 3 scheduled backups per day. Azure VM Extensions No additional agent backup infrastructured needed since this solution provides full VM backup for Windows/Linux Application-aware snapshots that use VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Services) for Windows applications and pre- and post-processing scripts for Linux. You're only allowed one scheduled backup per day (though you can get up to three on-demand backups per day if needed). You won't get any monthly or yearly support, and you can only restore at the disk level. No on-premise backup support Need more info on Azure pricing? Check out our guide to Azure Savings Plan and Azure Functions Pricing. How the Azure Backup pricing model works   [caption id="attachment_16041" align="aligncenter" width="725"] Source: Microsoft[/caption] Azure Backup uses a MARS agent. MARS stands for Microsoft Azure Recovery Services. MARS works by sending data to the Azure Backup Service Vault connected to your Azure Storage account. You decide how often that backup data gets sent, though the flow will be regulated by the volume available in your Azure Storage space.  Still unsure as to what exactly you can backup? Here’s a breakdown of what you should expect:  Source You can backup Azure VMs Folders, share volumes, app-specific data, and anything protected by a MABS/DPM backup server All on-premise machines Folders, share volumes, app-specific data, and anything protected by a MABS/DPM backup server   Just keep in mind that Azure Backup only supports Windows-based Azure VMs. Linux machines will not be supported. The same goes for on-premise machines. Any Linux machines are not compatible with Windows backup services.  What factors influence Azure Backup costs?   Azure Backup pricing is determined by the following factors:  Fixed pricing of Azure Backup service. No matter how much data you need to store, there will always be a fixed Azure Backup fee you’ll have to pay. Storage space required. This amount will fluctuate depending on your storage space needs and the number of historical copies you need for retention. And don’t forget that Microsoft charges Azure Storage as a separate fee! Bandwidth needed. This number is determined based on how much bandwidth you need with each data transfer. The good news is that once Azure has moved your initial data copy, it only synchronizes the following changes, which saves you bandwidth… and money.  Keep in mind that the data size you’re looking to backup plays a big role in determining your Azure Backup costs. This means how that data size is calculated can vary depending on whether you're backing up a SQL Server, where the database size determines the data size, or a VM, where the data size would be determined by the actual, used size of the VM, excluding any temporary storage.  But don’t worry! We’ll go into more detail on these specific situations below.  How to calculate your Azure Backup budget   [caption id="attachment_16042" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Source: Microsoft[/caption] With that said, Azure Backup prices are influenced by various other factors. Let’s take a closer look at how you can calculate and project those numbers for some of the most common workloads:   Azure VM or On-Premise Server If you want to estimate your costs for backing up on-premise servers or Azure VM, you’ll need to consider the following factors:  Size of on-premise servers or VMs you want to back up Number of servers at that size Expected data churn  Chosen backup policy and how often you need to backup the data Something to note about churn rate is that a higher churn means you’ll need to back up more data. In other words, a higher churn rate will be more expensive. You’ll want to use a higher churn rate if you’re running a database, but you can get away with low or moderate if you only have a file server. The following are optional add-ons that can increase your price if you choose to opt-in. These add-ons give you additional flexibility for backup redundancies and more:  Regional pricing or discount rates Backup storage redundancy  Selective disk backup Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month Instance < or = 50 GB $5 + storage consumed Instance is >50 GB but < or = 500 GB $10 + storage consumed Instance is >500 GB $10 for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed SQL Server SQL storage backup costs are similar to backing up Azure VM or on-premise servers. You’ll use all of the factors listed above to determine your price. SQL servers only differ because you’ll need to calculate your expected compression rate. You can review an example table below to get an idea of how these different variables will influence your budget:  Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month Instance < or = 50 GB $5 + storage consumed Instance is >50 GB but < or = 500 GB $10 + storage consumed Instance is >500 GB $10 for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed SAP HANA Prices for SAP HANA Azure VM storage are calculated depending on the number of SAP HANA servers combined with the size of data needed to be backed up, data churn, expected log size, backup type, policy retention, and storage redundancy.  For more details, review our estimated budget projections below: Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month Instance < or = 500 GB $80 + storage consumed Instance is >500 GB $80 for each 500 GB increment + storage consumed File shares Azure file shares backup prices are determined based on file share GB size, type of storage account, your chosen performance tier (Premium, Hot, Cool, Transaction Optimized), as well as your backup storage redundancy choice and expected data churn.  Pro tip: check for region-specific discounted rates!  Below is a table that illustrates projected costs:  Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month Instance < or = 250 GB $5 + storage consumed Instance is >250 GB 60% of Azure Files Protected Instances price per month Storage This is measured per GB/month. You can choose from four storage levels: Locally Redundant Storage (LRS), Geo-Redundant Storage (GRS), Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS), and Read-Access Geo-Redundant Storage (RA-GRS). The appeal of GRS is that it lets you store data in two different Azure data centers and includes an automatic failover to the secondary center, providing an additional level of security. The price of storage fluctuates depending on whether you choose LRS (locally Redundant Storage) or GRS (Geo-Redundant Storage). The good news is that you can optimize Azure storage so you get the best possible prices for your backup service! Here’s what the price breakdown looks like for the East US region for Azure VM storage:  Storage Type Standard Tier Archive Tier LRS $0.0224 per GB $0.0013 per GB ZRS $0.028 per GB n/a GRS $0.0448 per GB $0.004 per GB RA-GRS $0.0569 per GB $0.004 per GB   Note that any backup data moved to the Archive tier can be subject to an Archive early deletion period of 180 days. Since this charge is prorated, if a “Stop Protection and Delete data” is used on a backup moved to the Archive tier, you’ll be charged an early deletion fee for 135 (180 minute 45) days of Backup Storage in the Archive tier.  Also, if you choose to restore data from the Archive tier, you'll be charged a one-time data retrieval fee. These charges are the same as Azure Blob storage retrieval charges.  Azure Blobs Azure Backup lets you store data in Azure BLob via operational or vaulted backup.  Operational backup is a managed, local data protection option that prevents accidental deletion by providing point-in-time restoration. You incur charges for soft blob deletes, point-in-time restore, Blob versioning, and Change feed. Vaulted backup, on the other hand, enables data transfer to the vault and protects your blobs from data loss situations ranging from ransomware attacks to malicious admins to accidental deletions. You’ll be charged an instance fee, and for write transactions and backup storage.  Here’s a breakdown of the prices you can expect depending on how those features fluctuate:  Size of each instance Azure Backup price per month Instance is <10 GB 10% of Azure Blob protected instances per month Instance is 10-100 GB 30% of Azure Blob protected instances per month Instance is 100 GB-1 TB 60% of Azure Blob protected instances per month Instance is >=1 TB $10   Remember that Azure Backup prices can fluctuate depending on your location and Azure's whimsy. This article was last updated in 2024, but it's possible Azure has changed its prices since. To be absolutely certain, you can refer to their official pricing page. How to optimize Azure Backup costs   Though there is little you can do in terms of optimizing your Azure Backup costs in terms of the fixed service costs, you can always change your approach to storage space, bandwidth, and number of protected instances to make your wallet happier.  Here's what we recommend:  Opt into Azure Backup Storage Reserved Capacity One way you can lower your Azure Backup costs is by opting into Azure Backup Storage Reserved capacity. You'll have to commit to a one—or three-year agreement to use a set amount of storage each month, and so long as you use it below your agreed-upon threshold, you can save big on yearly prices. You can also look into opting into Azure Savings Plan if you’re looking to save on spend.  See how much you can save on either a one or three-year reserved instance below:  1-year reserved 3-year reserved Standard Tier Standard Tier 100 TB / month 1 PB / month 100 TB / month 1 PB / month LRS $24,222 $236,760 $66,060 $642,634.00 GRS $48,444 $473,520 $132,121 $1,285,269 ZRS $30,278 $295,950 $82,575 $803,293 RA-GRS $61,528 $601,413 $167,805 $1,632,406   Optimizing storage space Since the amount of data you store in Azure directly impacts your Azure Backup costs, you can optimize your spend by implementing an effective data retention policy. Create a schedule to determine how long data needs to be stored and how often old backups can be deleted to ensure your space is being used most cost-effectively.  Optimizing bandwidth The more data you need to backup and restore, the more bandwidth you'll need, so implementing another strict data policy here is your saving grace. Consider how often you need to transfer data and if all data needs to be backed up, and be as judicious as possible to ensure your bandwidth is fully optimized.  Optimizing your number of protected instances The number and type of protected instances will directly impact your Azure Backup pricing, especially if you work with VMs or other compute resources. Consider what protected instances need to be backed up and how often to ensure your spend is not wasted.  Optimize Azure Backup Pricing with a third-party platform   Azure Backup costs don’t need to push your monthly budget projections into red. If you want to ensure that every dollar you spend to secure your data is spent to the best of its ability, you’d do well to invest in a third party cloud spend optimization platform like Umbrella.  With Umbrella’s cost management platform, you can get all your K8 and multicloud data in one place and be projected onto easy-to-understand, customizable dashboards and budget projections. You can even retain data down to the hour with 18 to 24-month retention periods.  Other Umbrella’s tools also include:  Personalized Alerts & Anomaly Detection: Enhance understanding and responsiveness with tailored alerting systems designed to detect cloud spend spikes in real time and optimize budgeting.  AI-Powered Recommendations: Provides actionable AI-powered support for efficient resource utilization and cost reduction. Next-Gen Forecasting: Utilizes predictive analysis for accurate future cloud spending and budgeting. Multicloud Support: Offers comprehensive visibility and control across different cloud platforms. Why go with Umbrella? We specialize in demystifying cloud costs for FinOps organizations and helping you save up to 40% on annual cloud spending. Our real-time anomaly detection and customizable alerts mean you never need to worry about overspending, while our AI-powered feedback means you can easily optimize your budget without lifting a finger.  Need proof of concept? Talk to us to learn how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools. 

MSPs working in the cloud are pretty popular these days. About 73% of businesses using cloud-based MSP solutions plan to increase their usage. For MSPs, that's both good and bad news. The good news is that more organizations are using MSPs to scale their business profitably. The bad news? It also means tracking several customers at once and managing their accounts. MSPs need a cloud management solution to handle multi-cloud setups. DoiT's Cloud Navigator has some basic features for MSPs, but is it truly designed for FinOps? Let’s compare it with our platform and see. Company Profiles   Combining multi-cloud with FinOps Umbrella We’re a next-gen certified FinOps platform made for MSPs. Our features help cut down on cloud waste and keep costs in check across multi-cloud environments, allowing MSPs to see, allocate, report, and bill all their multi-cloud spending. Don’t worry—we’ve got the numbers to back this statement up. Our solution offers 80 actionable savings recommendations, helping MSPs save an average of 40% on annual cloud spending by reducing the time to detect and resolve revenue-critical issues by up to 80%. Why Umbrella is the top choice for MSPs in multi-cloud environments Umbrella optimizes cloud financial management across the three leading public cloud providers, AWS, GCP, and Azure, and full complete visibility into their customers’ cloud environments, enabling enhanced customer experience and scalable business growth. With our capabilities, you can enhance your customer's experience and your own while working in the cloud. Key features: Tracking multi-cloud inventory  Providing accurate billing and reporting  Analyzing cloud unit economics  Offering a consolidated view of customer accounts  Delivering actionable recommendations  Granting instant access to anomaly alerts and FinOps reporting Combining multi-cloud with FinOps can boost MSP operations and transform cloud economics, especially with the right cloud cost management provider. Background of DoiT   DoiT Cloud Navigator is a cloud management platform developed by DoiT International. The platform offers basic cost visibility, optimization, and governance tools, primarily addressing operational challenges rather than driving comprehensive FinOps success. Limited capabilities for MSPs in multi-cloud environments Even though Cloud Navigator incorporates different technologies from DoiT's existing portfolio, it wasn't specifically designed to support advanced FinOps practices. This might hold back its effectiveness for organizations looking for high scalability and specialized FinOps solutions across various cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. That's just one of the biggest differentiators: Umbrella or DoiT: Which gives MSPs the capabilities needed for complete visibility of the cloud?   Umbrella's multi cloud visibility and reporting tools were made for MSPs, offering comprehensive inventory tracking, cost, usage, and performance across various cloud environments.  How? Through precise billing via advanced data ingestion and normalization, accurate cost allocation with business mappings, and improved efficiency with seamless invoicing and FinOps reporting. DoiT's Cloud Navigator technology comes from a decade ago, and with FinOps quickly becoming the go-to for cutting down on cloud waste and maximizing costs, the features aren't keeping up with today's evolving landscape for MSPs. Our platform helps MSPs eliminate manual tasks with granular cloud visibility so you can multitask in the cloud without frustration. See the difference.  

AWS has Savings Plans and Reserved Instances, two very different opportunities for users to save big on your cloud spend budget.  But which of these two plans is best for you, and how can you start saving on your cloud management?  In this guide, we'll cover both options so you can make the best choice when using AWS. In this article: What are AWS Savings Plans? What are AWS Reserved Instances? Reserved Instances vs Savings Plans: Similarities Savings Plans vs Reserved Instances: Differences Which Plan Should You Use? How to Save Up to 40% of Your Cloud Spend What are AWS Savings Plans?   Amazon Savings Plan is a flexible pricing model that can help you save over 70% on your AWS compute usage. This plan gives you access to lower AWS EC2 instance usage prices, no matter what instance family, OS, tenancy, region, or size you're working with.  The catch here is that you'll need to be able to commit to either a oneor three-year period of specific compute power. So long as your compute usage remains below your agreed-upon amount, you'll keep saving... though even if you spend vastly below your agreed-upon amount, you'll still need to play the same number. Here’s a graphic to help you better visualize how these plans work:  So proceed carefully and only if you know you'll have regular compute usage for the next one or three years.  AWS offers three Savings Plans, each named for the usage you save with. The Compute Savings Plan, for instance, applies to AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, and Amazon EC2 usage.   Compute Savings Plans No matter your family size, AZ, region, OS, or tenancy, these plans automatically apply to Lambda, Fargate, and EC2 instance usage. That means if you were using the Compute Savings Plan and decided to change from C4 to M5 instances and/or move your workload from the US to Europe, you won't have to worry about any changes to your Compute Savings Plan price.   EC2 Instance Savings Plans EC2 Instance Savings Plan offers savings up to 72%, but to get bigger savings, you'll have to commit to less flexibility. This plan locks you into a specific region and instance family, though you can still update your instance size, tenancy, and OS if need be.   SageMaker Savings Plans An important thing to know about SageMaker Savings Plan is that it does not apply to any ML instance or size, no matter your region, without manual modifications.  If you consistently use Amazon SageMaker instances and more than one SageMaker component, the SageMaker Savings Plans should appeal to you and allow you to change from instance family to region over time while helping you save on spending.   What are AWS Reserved Instances?   AWS Reserved Instances (RIs) are another discount pricing model that can help you save up to 75% on On-Demand Instances—–so long as you purchase your Instances in advance for a one to three-year period.  RIs differ from Savings Plans in that RIs let you "book" your computing power and then pay in advance.  When “booking” these options, you’ll have three different payment options to choose from:  All Up-front Reserved Instances (AURI)  Partial Up-front Reserved Instances (PURI)  No Up-front Reserved Instances (NURI)  There are also two different types of RIs for you to choose from: Standard vs Convertible. We’ll go into more detail on these plans below. Standard Reserved Instances Standard RIs give you the biggest bang for your buck with up to 75% off On-Demand instances, and work well if you have steady-state workloads and predictable usage patterns. You'll only need to commit to a specific instance family and region and be prepared to stick with the same OS and instance class after purchase. Convertible Reserved Instances On the other hand, Convertible RIs offer a smaller discount at 54% off On-Demand but do give you more flexibility in that you can change your application. You can exchange your Convertible RIs for other Convertible RIs if you want to try out a different OS, family, or tenancies—–so long as what you exchange for is of equal or greater value.  Regional vs Zonal Reserved Instances Another thing to keep in mind with RIs is that they either have a regional or zonal scope. Zonal RIs apply only to instances in a particular availability zone, which means you can reserve capacity in a specified Availability Zone. Regional RIs can't do this; instead, these instances only apply to a particular AWS region within the same family.  Reserved Instances vs Savings Plans: Similarities   RI and Savings Plans do share several features, such as the option to commit to a one or three-year payment period.  Other similarities are:  Both models are billed by the hour.  If you exceed your agreed-upon usage period, Amazon applies On-Demand pricing.  RIs and Savings Plans also have the same three payment options of all up-front, partial up-front, or no up-front.  Convertible Reserved Instances and Compute Savings Plans offer similar savings amounts, whereas Standard RIs and EC2 Instance Savings Plans offer similar savings.  Keep in mind that Savings Plans don't provide capacity reservations. But—pro tip—you can still reserve capacity via on-demand Capacity Reservations and then pay lower prices using Savings Plans.  Savings Plans vs Reserved Instances: Differences   Now, there are significant differences between RIs and Savings Plans. These plans vary in flexibility, discount application, savings amounts for specific AWS applications, and purchasing options.   Feature AWS Savings Plans AWS Reserved Instances Commitment Spend a certain dollar amount per hour for 1 or 3 years Use a specific instance at a certain price for 1 or 3 years Flexibility High (instance family, OS, region, size can change) Low (limited to specific instance family, region, OS) Scope (Services Covered) EC2, Lambda, Fargate EC2, RDS, Redshift, Elasticsearch Savings Up to 66% Up to 75% (Standard RI) Management Automatic application Requires monitoring for updates Surplus Resell/Exchange No Yes (through AWS Reserved Marketplace) Upfront Cost None All Up-front (AURI), Partial Up-front (PURI), No Up-front (NURI) options Better for: Unpredictable workloads, Frequent changes, Diverse services Predictable workloads, Cost-sensitive, Long-term commitment Additional Considerations Can't be sold, Doesn't reserve capacity Can be resold (except discounted RIs), Reserves capacity The main thing you should know is this:  Reserved Instances are based on your commitment to using instances at a certain price and over a certain time period. On the other hand, Savings Plans require you to commit to using a certain dollar amount per hour over a certain time period.  But let’s get a bit more granular, so you have a solid idea about which plan is the best for you.  Scope Reserved Instances cover more Amazon tools than Savings Plans. RIs apply across Relational Database Service (RDS), Redshift, Amazon EC2, and ElasticSearch.  On the other hand, Savings Plans cover Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, and AWS Fargate.  If you’re working with a broader toolset, you likely won’t be able to opt into Savings Plans.  Flexible Compute Savings Plans offer much more flexibility than Convertible Reserved Instances. Where Savings Plans let you alternate between different locations/regions and usage types, Convertible RIs need you to stick to a specific place, instance type, and OS. With Savings Plans, you can also queue the plan up to apply automatically at a future date, giving you more scheduling flexibility.  Surplus resell or exchange opportunities If you have surplus RIs, you can always resell them or even purchase Standard RIs from the AWS Reserved Marketplace (but you should know that AWS keeps a 12% service fee). Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to buy or sell Savings Plans.  Automated coverage Savings Plans will automatically reapply if you need to change your infrastructure or instances. RIs will need to be monitored to ensure they apply properly. This is very important to keep in mind when calculating Savings Plans vs RIs management overhead! Better savings If you're really hunting for the best savings, Reserved Instances have the better discounts, especially if you're willing to make a full three-year commitment. You'll just want to make sure you're spending the amount you agreed on.  Which Plan Should You Use?   So, based on all of the above, which plan should you use?  It depends on what you want to accomplish with AWS management and cost savings. In general, Savings Plans offer more benefits than RIs. You get more overall flexibility, making it easier for your business to fluctuate naturally. You'll also save more money on managerial overhead because the Savings Plan automatically applies itself, whereas RIs require monitoring if and when updates are made.  However, RIs do have their time and place. RIs cover more services and can be resold on the RI marketplace. However, it's important to know that RIs purchased at a discount (like through EDP or volume tiering) cannot be sold on the AWS Marketplace.  The most important thing to do when considering which plan is the best for you is to keep in mind:  How much your cloud usage might change in the next three years? What services are you using now?  What services are you going to start or stop using in the future?  How much time do you have to commit to monitoring your savings plan? The good news is that even if you’re not sure you’re ready to commit to a one—or three-year agreement, there are still other ways for you to save in the cloud… and we’re ready to share all the trade secrets.  How to Save Up to 40% of Your Cloud Spend   There are more ways to optimize your AWS spend than binding yourself to a one—or three-year agreement. Third-party cloud cost management platforms like Umbrella can help you save up to 40% on cloud spend through data analysis alone. Our platform is designed to make cloud management easy and breezy. We even designed an AWS integration offering so you can simplify your toolset.  With Umbrella’s cloud cost management platform, you can get comprehensive dashboards showing data down to the hour. That, plus retention periods of up to 18 to 24 months and AI-powered budget projects means you can finally invest in a tool that your finance, DevOps, and FinOps team can all agree upon. Another feature that should appease all your teams? You can get all of your multicloud spend and K8 data in one place. No need to juggle multiple dashboards anymore.  Optimize Azure Functions pricing with our CCM features:  Real-time Anomaly Detection Dashboards: Customizable dashboards to help you visualize your DevOps cost-savings and identify unusual cloud cost spikes.  AI-Powered Recommendations: Provides actionable AI-powered recommendations to improve cost reductions and resource utilization.  Personalized Alerts: Tailored alert systems that offer massive improvements to response times.  Next-Gen Forecasting: Predictive analyses for accurate future cloud spending and budgeting. Umbrella makes managing AWS costs easy for FinOps organizations. Its real-time anomaly detection and customizable alerts eliminate overspending and constant management overhead. AI-powered support makes budget projections a breeze, and Umbrella’s dashboards clarify cloud spending down to the last penny.  Interested in exploring a POC?? Talk to us for more insight into how much you can save on cloud spend with Umbrella’s platform. 

Cloud budgeting just got easier on the Umbrella platform. Our budget monitoring tool has transformed to make tracking finances in the cloud seamless, customizable, and, above all, easy.  If you can’t stand the anticipation, it’s available on our user's accounts now for you to check out for those who want a detailed update on what’s new, this post got you covered on what to expect in this new update and how Umbrella Cost has been further revamped to be manageable across multiple providers and teams. What are the new cloud budget monitoring features in Umbrella Cost?   Working in various cloud environments is standard in the industry, with 98% of enterprises that use public cloud opting for a multi-cloud setup.  It's a smart move since a multi-cloud strategy offers many perks, such as cost optimization, improved resilience, and the ability to tap into the strengths of different cloud platforms. But every strategy has its challenges, and when it comes to cloud budgeting across many cloud providers, cost tracking has limitations, complexity, and visibility that can cause oversights and hidden costs.  We understand this has been a constant problem (especially for MSPs and Enterprises!). That’s why we’ve created these new budgeting monitoring features, which will make working in multi-cloud environments much easier and without all the headaches. Budget Improvements     Our budget management updates align with your need for a holistic view of expenses across different cloud platforms and to establish rolling budgets that adapt monthly based on the current period. Edit Existing Budgets: Modify and adjust their existing budgets to better suit changing cost requirements. Define Slack Channels for Budget Alerts: Choose particular Slack channels to receive budget alerts, ensuring quick notifications and collaboration. Multicloud Budget Alerts: Establish budget alerts, offering a comprehensive expenditure overview across various cloud platforms. Rolling Budgets: Create monthly budgets that automatically adjust based on the current period. MSP Customization   Private Pricing Transfer for MSPs has become increasingly significant. Customized pricing based on specific client needs, usage patterns, and service agreements can lead to client retention in the highly competitive and dynamic cloud services market. And now it’s available on the Umbrella platform!  Personalized Private Pricing Transfer: MSPs now have the option to transfer Private Pricing settings to their customers, giving them greater control over pricing configurations.   Expanded Slack Integration   What's even better than one Slack update for budgeting? Getting another one. Streamlining communications in multi-cloud environments is a must for smooth workflows, improved collaboration, and quick responses. Our new Slack integration updates now have timely notifications so you can respond and react to any cloud activity.   Alerting features: The integration with Slack has been enhanced to enable the definition of alerts for anomalies, budgets, and other relevant notifications to be sent to specific Slack channels, streamlining communication and incident response.   Business Mapping Rules   Our Business Mapping feature already helps you gauge the business value of your cloud spending in detail by determining costs across different product sections.  You can allocate costs by project, customer, department, or any other category you prefer. Utilize specific rules and operators to establish the level of detail needed. Now, you can make rules for item descriptions!   Item description rules: Create mapping rules based on item descriptions and available options. This allows for more precise categorization and management of cost data based on specific criteria. How to Access Budget Monitoring in Umbrella   Our Budget Monitoring helps you tackle the challenges of managing cloud costs in constantly changing environments. Whether you're in FinOps, finance, or part of a dev team, our platform provides robust tools for budgeting, monitoring, and forecasting to optimize your cloud spending.  Here’s a handy step-by-step guide to learning the features inside out and getting the most out of our Budget Monitoring immediately.  Umbrella Budget Monitoring Components Monitor: Set and track budgets at multiple levels for daily and monthly periods. Forecast: Plan and allocate resources wisely to control costs and optimize cloud infrastructure to meet business objectives. Report: Visualize actual spending or forecasted data for all stakeholders. Alert: Receive notifications when budgets are at risk using thresholds compared to actual or forecasted spending. Creating a Budget Navigate to Monitoring > Budget: From the left menu. Click 'Create Budget': Start the budget creation process. Steps to Create a Budget   1. Details & Filters: Budget Name: Mandatory and should be unique. Budget Description: Optional for budget details presentation. Cost Basis: Mandatory selection from Amortized, Net Amortized, Unblended. Filters: Set filters to reflect the total spend if none are selected. 2. Settings: Budget Period: Monthly, with a default of 1 year onward. Budget Type: Fixed Monthly Budget: Tracks spending against a fixed monthly amount. Planned Monthly Budget: Sets the budget amount for each month, with options for auto-filling values. Fixed Period Budget: Tracks spending against a fixed set number of months. Alerts: Alert Granularity: Choose from Daily, Monthly, or Total budget periods. Alert Threshold (%): Define when the alert should trigger based on spend. Alert Trigger: Select from Forecasted Spend or Actual Spend. Recipients: Configure multiple email recipients. Complete Creation: Click 'Create Budget' to finalize. Viewing and Editing Budgets Existing Budgets: View a list of budgets and a summary of their status. Single CSP Budget and Multi-Cloud Budget: Fields Shown: Budget Name, Cloud Provider, Cost, Accumulated Current Spend, Budget Amount, Forecasted Spend, Current vs. Budgeted, Forecasted vs. Budgeted, Exceeded Budget, Remaining Budget, Alerts, Actions. Daily and Monthly View Daily View: Shows an accumulated daily view with data points representing daily costs. Monthly View: Shows bars representing the monthly budget. Budget Alerts Alerts are triggered once the threshold is crossed. Alerts for updated budgets are triggered from that point onward. Daily and monthly granularity alerts include both actual and forecast conditions. Budget Forecast Algorithm Accurate Forecasting: The platform's median monthly accuracy is 98.5%. Autonomous and Flexible: Designed for business analysts without data science intervention. Rolling Budget: A dynamic strategy that updates and extends the budget over time, rolling over unspent funds to the next period. Let us know if you have further questions about accessing Budget Monotiring in your account! This is just the Beginning   In 2024, get ready for even more from Umbrella! We're introducing new upgrades and updates to different tools on the platform. Whether you're an MSP, Enterprise, or somewhere in between, your Umbrella account will stay at the forefront of innovation, equipped with cutting-edge tools to optimize your cloud savings.  

If your company is a big Azure spender, you should use Azure Hybrid Benefit. If not, you're leaving money on the table.  But how much money? If eligible, your company can save up to 40% on Azure Virtual Machines, up to 55% on Azure SQL databases, and, if you combine that with Azure Reserved Instances, you can even save up to 80%.   [caption id="attachment_15979" align="aligncenter" width="512"] Source: Azure[/caption] Azure Hybrid Benefit is the perfect way to cut costs while migrating to the cloud. This stable and secure offering guarantees you won't have to pay for Microsoft software changes, making it easier (and more cost-effective) to move workloads and scale.  Before we get ahead of ourselves with the benefits of this tool, let’s define some terms.  In this article: What is Azure Hybrid Benefit? How Azure Hybrid Benefit works for license types How Azure Hybrid Benefit works What is the Azure Hybrid Benefits cost calculator? How Azure Hybrid Benefit and Umbrella Can Work Together What is Azure Hybrid Benefit?   Azure Hybrid Benefit is a Microsoft licensing offering that enables you to use your pre-existing on-premise operation system and application licenses in Azure. If your company has Microsoft Software Assurance and uses Microsoft Windows, Microsoft SQL Server, and/or select Linux SUSE licenses or Red Hat licenses, you are eligible for Azure Hybrid Benefit.   Advantages of Azure Hybrid Benefit Azure Hybrid Benefit has three big advantages: Big cloud cost savings. You don’t have to buy a new license if you’re already using Azure products (we’ll go into more detail about this below). Cloud environment flexibility. It allows users to save money on cloud spending by reducing the cost of a cloud migration and letting you transition to a hybrid or fully cloud environment at your own pace.  Simplified migration. You can use your existing software and migrate your applications to the cloud without worrying about spiking operational charges. In other words, your operation doesn’t need to be disrupted. Most organizations would undoubtedly benefit from Azure Hybrid Benefit, especially if you're gearing up to migrate to the cloud and want to cut costs and bolster security and stability.   How Azure Hybrid Benefit works for license types   First, before you get too excited about using this offering, make sure your organization has an existing license covered by Microsoft Software Assurance. Once that's been verified, you have been unleashed to enjoy the many advantages of Azure Hybrid Benefit.  Azure Hybrid Benefit for Linux Virtual Machine   [caption id="attachment_15980" align="aligncenter" width="610"] Source: Azure[/caption] Azure Hybrid Benefit can be applied to existing Linux VMs to eliminate software fees as your licensing cost will be covered by your pre-existing Red Hat or SUSE licenses – which means you'll only have to worry about paying for your VM compute costs.  Expect operational costs to lower due to automatic updates, patches, and image maintenance. You also won't have to worry about product redeployment because of the seamless post-deployment conversion process. Since Red Hat, SUSE, and Azure offer co-located technical support, your technical challenges will become highly streamlined, with deployment and management simplified to a unified user interface via the Azure Portal and CLI.   Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server   [caption id="attachment_15981" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Source: Azure[/caption] After your verification is complete, you can apply Azure Hybrid Benefit to new or preexisting Azure VMs. This means you'll get a new, reduced hourly rate, so you can start saving up to 80% over standard pay-as-you-go rates.  This benefit includes 180 days of dual-use rights, meaning you can run the same Windows Server license for both Azure and on-premise environments. If you're still mid-migration, this benefit is a game changer because it enables you to maintain your on-premise presence for six months.  When you're looking to deploy new Azure VMs and want to include them in the Hybrid Benefit policy, just make sure you review Azure's documentation so everything is properly configured for maximum savings. You can also check out the Azure Hybrid Benefits cost calculator to get an estimate for how much you’re going to spend.   Azure Hybrid Benefit for Azure SQL Database [caption id="attachment_15982" align="aligncenter" width="629"] Source: Azure[/caption] Azure Hybrid Benefit can work with Azure SQL Database PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) environment or Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instances. This program is ideal for companies with strict security requirements and compliance regulations. By opting into Azure Hybrid Benefit for Azure SQL Database, you can save up to 85% for SQL Server licenses... so run, don't walk.  As with the Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server, you'll receive 180 days of dual-use rights so you can use the same SQL Server license in Azure and on-premises to help smooth cloud migrations.  You'll also get an amazing vCPU exchange rate, and for each existing SQL Server Enterprise Edition license core, you can get 4 vCPUs in Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure SQL Database general purpose, and Hyperscale tiers.   How Azure Hybrid Benefit works   Usually, when you purchase cloud services and software licenses, the license cost is included in the hourly cloud service costs. For example, if you were to purchase an Azure VM, the license to run Windows Server in your Azure environment will be automatically included in the per-minute cost of your chosen Windows VM. Azure Hybrid Benefit lets you cheat that system, allowing you to apply your current license to whatever Azure services you use and, in doing so, receive a lower cost.  This means you only have to pay the basic compute rate (for example, you would pay the Linux rate if you were using Windows VMs). You get to use your existing on-premise licenses and reduce cloud migration costs.  Below is a table that breaks down some example basic compute rates:  Service # of Core Licenses Hours/month Eligible VMs Monthly Estimates Savings Windows Server VMs 40 730 5 $1,543.94 42% SQL Server VMs 8 enterprise edition 730 1 $2,190 74.90% Azure SQL Managed Instance 1 standard edition 730 2 $584.19 39.70% Azure SQL Database 2 enterprise edition 730 4 $582.73 39.60%   Note that these estimates are for the Eastern US region and for instance sizes D4 v2: 8 cores, 28 GB RAM, and 400 GB SSD and for a single instance type and general purpose tier if applicable.  If you qualify, you can easily apply for Azure Hybrid Benefit. After creating an Azure VM, select "Use Hybrid Benefit" and apply the discount to your VM account.  For example, here’s what your Windows Server would look like if you applied your Azure Hybrid Benefit.  [caption id="attachment_15983" align="alignnone" width="584"] Source: Microsoft[/caption] What is the Azure Hybrid Benefits cost calculator?   Azure Hybrid Benefits Savings Calculator is a special Azure tool that helps you figure out how much you can save by switching to Azure and using Azure Hybrid Benefits.  You'll get an in-depth analysis of your future savings that breaks down how and where you can save in terms of workload, operating system, region, and more.  Switching from your current on-premise setup and using Azure Hybrid Benefits will give you a clearer picture of how much your finance team will love you, making it easy to break down the pros and cons.   How Azure Hybrid Benefit and Umbrella Can Work Together   There are more ways to optimize your Azure spend than to opt into Azure Hybrid Benefit and pairing it with a cloud cost management tool like Umbrella can help you boost your cloud savings through advanced data analytics. With Umbrella’s cloud cost management tools, you can get all of your multicloud and K8 data in one place with customized, easy-to-understand dashboards showing the numbers down to the hour. That, plus retention periods of up to 18 to 24 months and AI-powered budget projects means you can finally invest in a tool that your finance, DevOps, and FinOps team can all agree upon.  Optimize Azure Functions pricing with our CCM features:  AI-Powered Support: Provides actionable AI-powered insights to improve cost reductions and resource utilization.  Personalized Alerts: Tailored alert systems that offer massive improvements to response times.  Next-Level Forecasting: Predictive analyses for accurate future cloud spending and budgeting. Real-time Anomaly Detection Dashboards: Customizable dashboards to help you visualize your DevOps cost-savings and identify unusual cloud cost spikes.  Multicloud Support: Offers comprehensive visibility and control across different cloud platforms. Umbrella makes cloud costs simple for FinOps organizations all while helping you save up to 40% on annual cloud spending. Umbrella’s real-time anomaly detection and customizable alerts mean you won’t have to worry about overspending again. You can finally have all the AI-powered support you need with budget projections so you can be certain every penny paid to the cloud is putting in work.  Need proof of concept? Talk to us for more insight into how you much you can save on cloud spend with Umbrella’s tools. 

The FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) 1.0 was officially launched on June 20, 2024, marking a revolutionary shift in Cloud Cost Management (CCM). Long awaited by MSPs and FinOps, this framework now aligns data sharing among vendors, FinOps tools, and users in a simple manner. It's an exciting new era for shaking up business strategies in cloud cost analysis. But let’s take a step back and refocus on what FOCUS 1.0 is. (Pun intended.) significance of FOCUS 1.0, its impact on Umbrella's Cloud Cost Management platform, and how it will transform business approaches to cloud cost analysis.   What is FOCUS 1.0?   FOCUS 1.0 has been in the making since 2021, aiming to bridge finance and engineering teams for better cloud cost management. To tackle cultural resistance when implementing FinOps practices in existing workflows and new accountability measures, The FinOps Foundation created a new framework to standardize these practices to drive long-term success, and thus, FOCUS 1.0 was born!  Breakdown of FOCUS 1.0   FOCUS 1.0 is an acronym designed to help teams within organizations effectively manage cloud financial operations by highlighting key practices for success. FOCUS in FinOps stands for: FinOps Principles: Key principles and practices to support effective cloud financial management, like being accountable, striving for continuous improvement, and maintaining transparency. Observability & Automation: Emphasizes the importance of having clear visibility into cloud usage and costs, leveraging automation to streamline processes and reduce manual effort. Collaboration & Communication: Highlights the need for effective communication and collaboration across different teams (e.g., finance, engineering, operations) to ensure everyone is aligned and working towards common goals. Utilization Optimization: This focus is on optimizing the use of cloud resources to avoid waste and ensure cost efficiency, including rightsizing resources, using reserved instances, and leveraging spot instances. Standardization & Best Practices: Advocates for establishing standardized processes and adopting best practices to ensure consistency and reliability in managing cloud finances. Here’s an example of FOCUS 1.0 in action: Suppose an MSP implemented the FOCUS 1.0 Framework for cloud financial management. Initiatives could include regular financial reviews and advanced tools, enhanced accountability, reduced manual efforts, and optimized cloud resource utilization.  Cross-functional teams would then collaborate for cost efficiency, leading to significant cloud spending reduction.  These standardized processes boost operational efficiency and teamwork, slashing cloud waste when done right and saving some serious $$$.   Source: FinOps Foundation   Impacts of FOCUS 1.0 on Umbrella's Platform   We support the launch of FOCUS 1.0 and are committed to ensuring it is reflected in our integration efforts. What does that mean exactly? Users can look forward to a streamlined data process, comparing amortized and actual costs and improved onboarding for new cloud providers.  Umbrella’s Strategic Implementation   Our roadmap is about getting the most out of FOCUS 1.0 with a step-by-step integration plan. Here’s what to expect from us on how we’ll support the launch of this new framework.  Integration of Azure Support Azure support integration on our platform will finish in a few months. Users can handle amortized and actual costs in a single input stream. This streamlining will enhance cost management accuracy, offering users a clearer view of cloud expenses. Introduction "Bring Your Own Data" This update will let users import their data into our platform, boosting flexibility, integrating proprietary data, and offering tailored cloud cost management for each organization's needs. Supporting Multi-Cloud Environments We strive to align Umbrella’s multi-cloud solution with all FOCUS 1.0 features by providing seamless data intake and cost management across cloud providers, enabling other CSPs to create a unified platform for users to manage their cloud costs efficiently, regardless of provider.  Streamlining Onboarding and Export Processes FOCUS 1.0 will also be central to streamlining onboarding processes for new cloud providers and simplifying data export to the Umbrella platform. Users can quickly and efficiently integrate additional cloud providers into their cost management strategy by reducing the time and effort required for onboarding new services.  Certification and Training  Our team comprises leading industry experts and leaders who will be well-equipped to leverage FOCUS 1.0's full potential into our solution. As part of our strategic implementation, we plan to offer certification programs that provide in-depth training on FOCUS 1.0 features and functionalities to enhance user proficiency and customer support. Collaboration with CSPs Our integration strategy includes working closely with cloud service providers to ensure that FOCUS 1.0 functions are fully supported and optimized on various platforms.  Continuous Improvement and User Feedback We value user feedback and are committed to continuous improvement. As we roll out FOCUS 1.0, we will actively seek input from our users to refine and enhance our platform. This iterative approach will help us remain responsive to user needs and continue delivering cutting-edge cloud cost management solutions. By following this comprehensive strategic roadmap, Umbrella is set to harness the full potential of FOCUS 1.0, providing our users with a robust, flexible, and future-proof cloud cost management solution.   [caption id="attachment_15906" align="alignnone" width="725"] Source: FinOps Foundation[/caption]   The Future of FOCUS 1.0   This launch begins a new FinOps phase, and we plan to see it become a prominent staple for cloud providers and MSPs. The new standardization of FOCUS 1.0 comes with numerous perks. The framework is set to introduce new dimensions, reference specific billing details, and accommodate different savings plans, securing its position at the forefront of cloud cost management innovation. What to Expect from FOCUS 1.0?   Prepare for enhanced innovation, flexibility, and customization with FOCUS 1.0. It offers a comprehensive overview of costs and billing from various cloud providers and vendors. For many, this means less cloud waste, more granularity in cloud cost, and greater collaboration between cloud providers, engineers, and fiance team organizations. But here's something that really excites us - a deeper unified cross-cloud, cross-vendor cost view. The increased visibility will give businesses a full outlook on costs and billing across different cloud providers. For enterprises with multi-cloud setups, this means simplifying the task of managing scattered cost data. By bringing this data together in one view, FOCUS 1.0 helps businesses dive into their cloud expenses, spot potential cost-saving chances, and make smart financial choices. In other words, the FOCUS forecast is expecting clouds with far less waste!  Conclusion   FinOps practitioners have long waited for a framework that makes dealing with cloud costs across multiple teams SIMPLE. Now, with FOCUS 1.0, that can finally happen, bringing a new standardization in the industry that supports a unified front between organizations, cloud providers, and third-party tools.  As a third-party tool, we plan to contribute to the success of FOCUS 1.0. We'll offer users thorough documentation, strong support, and dedicated customer success teams so they can make the most of it and reach their cloud cost management goals. FOCUS 1.0 is the future, and as a leading platform for Cloud Cost Management, we’re here to support FinOps in its new era of innovation with our integration. Have more questions about the launch of FOCUS 1.0 and Umbrella's integration plans for this new phase in FinOps? We’re here to answer them. 

If your business has predictable compute workloads and wants to save on Azure spend, Azure Savings Plan might be an appealing solution. So long as you fully understand this plan’s offering and consistently use the same amount of resources every year, you can save significant amounts. Read on to discover the pros and cons of Azure Savings Plan and if this offering is a good fit for your company. What is Azure Savings Plan for Compute?   Azure Savings Plan for Compute is a Microsoft Azure pricing model that lets users save up to 65% more in comparison to pay-as-you-go pricing models. The good news is you can start saving today. The bad news? You can start saving so long as you're ready for a one or three-year commitment to consistent compute usage. We say “up to 65%” because the actual discount is calculated based on the type of service you select, your deployment region, and if you choose a one or three year commitment. If your business has predictable workloads and is able to commit to said workloads for year(s) at a time, you may be a good fit for this plan... just know that even if your compute load drops, if you are still within your one or three year commitment to Azure, you'll still have to pay for the compute usage you committed to. This means that you should carefully consider the state of your company and your needs for the upcoming year or more before making this commitment. [caption id="attachment_15963" align="aligncenter" width="624"] Source: Azure[/caption] The above graphic from Azure shows that if your compute usage falls below the green line, you'll still pay for any unused resources. Compute resources within the agreed-upon plan amount are charged at discounted rates, but if you exceed that amount, you'll get hit with pay-as-you-go prices. Use cases The following are examples of different use cases where Azure Savings Plan can help rescue your budget – aka, allow you to allocate your dollars to better use: -Dev/Test environments: If you need constant compute resources for your dev/test workloads, Azure Savings Plan is likely the most cost-effective solution. -Regular workloads: A Savings Plan can be the ideal choice if you have a regular workload and known resource utilization for a set period, like a product environment. -Regular deployment pipelines: Savings Plans are also great if you use Azure VMs in a continuously regular deployment pipeline or server construction process. In other words, as we’ve said above, so long as you have a predictable compute usage, Azure Savings Plan can be the fastest way to your financial department’s heart. In particular, Savings Plan is ideal for companies that have inconsistent resource usage which makes it impossible for you to buy Azure Reservations – but we’ll go into more detail on Azure Reservations vs Azure Savings Plan below. Why use Azure Savings Plan Beyond the obvious of Azure Savings Plan (the benefit being in the name of the plan), there are several other reasons why you might want to opt into Azure Savings Plan. Despite the demand for you to commit to a one or three year period, Azure Savings Plan actually provides the most flexibility out of other Microsoft savings programs, especially in comparison to Reserved VMs (Virtual Machines). The Azure Savings Plan model enables you to move about, as you aren't stuck with a certain VM size, family, or region. This means you can change things as your business grows without having to worry about your savings plan changing. If your business is in a state of growth or anticipates expanding into new markets within the next one to three years, the flexibility offered by the Azure Savings Plan should appeal. You'll have the freedom to update your VM region to better appeal to your customers without worrying about losing your cost benefits.   Flexibility Despite the demand for you to commit to a one or three year period, Azure Savings Plan actually provides the most flexibility out of other Microsoft savings programs, especially in comparison to Reserved VMs (Virtual Machines). The Azure Savings Plan model enables you to move about, as you aren't stuck with a certain VM size, family, or region. This means you can change things as your business grows without having to worry about your savings plan changing. If your business is in a state of growth or anticipates expanding into new markets within the next one to three years, the flexibility offered by the Azure Savings Plan should appeal. You'll have the freedom to update your VM region to better appeal to your customers without worrying about losing your cost benefits. You'll also have access to resources beyond VMs. All of the following are resources included in Savings Plan: Azure Premium Functions Azure Container Instances Azure App Services (only included if you choose the Isolated v2 or Premium v3 plan) Azure Dedicated Hosts (only including compute costs) Azure SQL database compute resources Having this many resources available means you can easily distribute your cost commitments. You can split your allocated budget across VMs, Container Instances, and more, and still reap the bonus of the Savings Plan. No need for upfront payment Good (budget-friendly) news! Azure Savings Plan doesn't require upfront payment. This is an unusual feature, as many cloud providers will require this. Simplified budgeting and management Since Azure Savings Plan offers a single commitment that covers all compute usage, it's much easier to budget and manage as a whole. You don't need to worry about forecasting and navigating the different areas of Azure spending because everything will be consolidated to one tool.   How does Azure Savings Plan work   Simply put, Azure Savings Plan works by locking you into a commitment for a specific amount of compute resources (measured in dollars per hour) in a set region for either a one or three year period. In return for agreeing to a set amount of compute resources for a one or three year period, you’ll get an automatically applied discounted rate of up to 65% off pay as you go rates, no manual adjustments for individual VMs or databases needed. Once your one or three-year period ends, you can let your plan lapse or modify or renew it. Remember: if your compute usage falls short of the amount you've agreed to, you'll still be billed for the full amount.   Azure Savings Plan best practices   Maximize your Azure Savings Plan benefits by doing the following: Thoroughly review your compute usage Review your current and projected compute usage. How often does that vary? Ensure that you'll be able to regularly commit to the amount required for the Azure Savings Plan so you aren't wasting money. Consider if your business is going to grow or shrink, and project your compute resources accordingly. Use a cloud cost management platform To fully understand how much you're paying for cloud resources, consider using a third party cloud cost management tool. These kinds of tools will give full insight into your spending and help you identify cost optimization opportunities. No cancellation policy All Compute Savings Plans are final purchase. You cannot cancel or get refunds, and you can't even exchange your plan for Reserved VMs. The only flexibility in terms of changing out the plan is you are able to trade Azure Reservation for a Savings Plan if you are still within the term of reservation. Long-term commitment to compute levels As you cannot cancel your plan, you're essentially committing to a level of usage, and if you don't meet that level, you'll be losing money. Make sure that level of compute power is absolutely necessary for your company and makes sense from a one or three year growth perspective to prevent budget waste.   Azure Savings Plan vs Azure Reservations   Picking between Azure Savings Plan and Azure Reservations can be a bit tricky. If you have consistent compute spend but can't buy Azure Reservation instances because you use resources inconsistently, Azure Savings Plan is the best decision for you. We've mentioned Azure Reservations a couple times before. Let's get into the difference between Azure Savings Plan and Azure Reservations because ultimately, the two accomplish the same thing: help you save money. But they are a bit different in terms of flexibility and use cases. As we've mentioned above, Azure Savings Plan lets you pick a set hourly spend for certain Azure compute services for a period of one or three years. You get a discounted rate and still some flexibility in terms of compute services. On the other hand, Azure Reservations lets you save more, but gives you less flexibility. You can still pick between a one or three year plan, only this time you have to pick specific compute services and region combinations. This means if you suddenly have the opportunity to offer services in a new region, you can't include those offerings in your Azure Reservation Plan. You can get resource discounts up to 72% from pay-as-you-go prices, but you'll have to commit to specific resources, like the VM you need to use. When it boils down to it, Azure Reservations lets you save more, but provides less flexibility, which can make the Savings Plan a lot more appealing for fluctuating businesses. There's actually a hack where you can combine both plans to get even bigger savings. You can use the Reserved Instance and a Savings Plan to cover all your resources plus possible overages. Just make sure you're set on what resources you need to use before agreeing to that one or three year plan! How to optimize your Azure spend Azure Savings Plan doesn’t have to be the only way you save money on your Azure budget. Whether you’re unsure if you want to commit to a Savings Plan or if you’ve already pulled the trigger and are still looking for ways to cut cloud costs, you’re in luck. We’ve got just the third part cloud cost optimization tool that can help you save up to 40% on annual cloud spend: Umbrella. With Umbrella’s cost management tools, you can get all your multicloud data projected onto comprehensive and customizable dashboards and budget projections. With data retention from 18 to 24 months that shows changes down to the hour, you’ll finally have 100% visibility into your cloud performance. Other Umbrella tool features include: Automated Anomaly Detection: Personalized alerts that enhance understanding and response time to cloud spend spikes and improve real-time budgeting. AI-Powered Recommendations: Actionable AI-powered support to improve resource utilization. Multicloud Visibility: Comprehensive support and visibility across all cloud platforms so you can see your cloud spend and activity all in one place. Next Level Forecasting: Next-gen analysis to help you best budget and prioritize future spending. Why Umbrella? Our speciality is demystifying cloud costs for FinOps organizations. With our real-time anomaly detection and customizable alerts, you never need to worry about overspending, and with our AI-powered feedback, you can easily optimize your budget without lifting a finger. Want a proof of concept? Talk to us to learn how much you can save with Umbrella’s tools.