FinOps Domains represents a sphere of activity or knowledge. Every organization adopting FinOps will perform activities in all FinOps Domains. Each FinOps Domain consists of FinOps Capabilities. Capabilities outline functional activities that can be performed as part of that Domain.
FinOps Domain Model
Taken together, the FinOps Domains represent the Capabilities an organization must perform in the practice of FinOps. Every organization will leverage each Domain in their FinOps practice. The particular mix of capabilities implemented within each Domain may be unique for an organization and will depend on their FinOps maturity level.
FinOps Domains are not exclusive to one another or process steps. Multiple Domains may be pursued during any phase of an organization’s FinOps practice.
The Domains are interdependent, and together provide a high level overview of what functional activities are needed to run a FinOps practice. The results of an organization implementing these Domains, will show up in cost and usage reporting, will have an impact on performance, and will allow new opportunities to be identified that can serve as inputs to subsequent iterations through the FinOps Phases.
Understanding Cloud Usage and Cost
Within this Domain, the organization will work to gather all required information about its cloud usage and cost, normalize it, make it available for review, including circulating it to those personas that will use it in other Domains.
The Capabilities within this Domain focus on understanding and allocating the cost and usage within the organization, and not on actioning it for a particular purpose.
This Domain enables an organization to understand what cloud services it’s using, what is driving spend, and who owns that spending. It provides key data consistently to support a picture of current cloud usage and a view into historical trends, at a level of granularity appropriate to the organization’s current maturity level to support the second Domain: Performance Tracking and Benchmarking.
At its core, this Domain answers the question: What are we spending on cloud and what are we using?