CFM 2025 Program for FinOps Center with Agent Bill

To Lower the Total Cost of AWS, customers need to have Best Practice Cloud Financial Management (CFM) Processes and targeted integration with the AWS Platform and legacy systems (E.g., Finance, ITSM). Implemented with FinOps Center and the Agent Bill Framework, the CFM 2025 Program will enable your company to have a Business-Owned Cloud Estate.

The Program has five stages, assuming that your organization prefers to understand the current state before designing and deploying the CFM 2025 Program with the FinOps Center. Depending on priorities and requirements, Integration Sprints can be utilized to customize the CFM 2025 Program within your organization.

Phase 1: Assessment

• Current State Understanding of:
• Core Team & Roles
• What happens when the Bill Shows up?
• How many Budgets are within AWS Bill?
• How are Budget Owner Engagement
• How is Spending Approved by Budgets Owners?
• How are Disputes handled?
• What happens if Bill is Over Budget? Over 20%?
• Total Workloads & New Workload (Dev->Prod)
• Program Participation Maximization (MAP)
• How are AWS Credits Managed?
• How are Accruals Integrated into the Legacy Platform?
• Allocation (New Account / Cost Categories
• Tagging Strategy (New and Update)
• Budgets (Duration & Activities)
• Cost Optimization (Activities & Validations)
• Buying Decisions (Savings/RI)

Phase 2: Business Goals, Operational Strategy & Planning Business Goals

• Leadership Alignment
• Statement of Strategic Goals of Program
• Define Roles/Individuals with Organization
• Definition and Adoption Plan for Spend Governance
• Create Monthly Calendar of Deliverables
• Create Communication Plan
• Define Teams Activities/Responsibilities Daily, Weekly, Monthly
• “Big Idea” Agentic CFM
• Business Goals, Operational Strategy, & Planning
• Multi-Account Definition
• Cost Allocation (Tag Strategy)
• New Workload Definition
• Approvals Process
• Budgeting/Alerting Strategy/Cost Governance Process
• Business Platform Activity
• Onboarding/Updating Financial Budget
• Monthly Run Scheduling & Approvals
• Budget Alerts and Spending Controls
• New AWS Account Vending and Budget Allocation
• New Workload Onboarding (Estimate to Actual)
• Workload Cost Optimization
• Provide Visibility to Business Users on Spending within Financial Scope
• Capacity Purchases (Spending Plan / RI)
• Spending Disputes/Resolutions within Month
• Program Management /Maximization (AWS MAP)
  • Onboarding
  • Management/ Visibility
• Credit Management
• Month Close Process

Solution Architecture/Integrations

• AWS Platform Integration (Budgets)
• 3rd Partner Cost Optimization Tooling
• GenBI/BI Integration
• ITSM
• Tag Automation
• AR/FP&A Integration

Phase 3: Installation, Configuration, & Budget Onboarding Installation & Configuration

• Validate that all prerequisites are complete.
• Validate that FinOps Center was installed and configured to DNS via CloudFront
• Validate that CUR is loading from the Management Account via Bucket Replication
• Add FinOps Center components to VPC
• Load Budget File, work with teams to generate File from Core Financial Systems and transform to FinOps Center CSV for Upload (Optional)
• Update Welcome Email to Company Standards
• Create Mass Update File for Cognito or Add via Admin Screen
• Create DynamoDB S3 Backup Schedule
• Update QuickSight Topics for Naming
• Validate Key Question in Topics
• Validate QuickSight Dataset Capacity and Refresh
• Implement Monitoring

Business Onboarding & Integration Projects Business Onboarding

• Implement Business-Owned AWS Cloud Strategy
• Define Cost Allocation across the Organization
• AWS Account Allocations
• Workload Estimates and Claiming
• Onboard/Approve Budgets across the Organization
• Enable Business Teams on the Day/Week/Month in the Life Process and Usage of FinOps Center
• Allocate Savings Plans to the Appropriate Workloads
• Allocate Credits to Budgets
• Create Feedback loop for Enhancements

Integration Projects

• IdP Migration from Cognito
• Budget Alerts integration to Communications
• Linked Account Buying for Savings Plan requiring CFT Deployment
• ITSM Integration (possible Agent Pilot)
• Systems Manager Integration for Tagging aligned to programs like MAP
• Customer Amazon Q Topics or QuickSight Dashboards
• Automation of File integration to FP&A or AP

Go Live

Agentic Pilot

• Leverage FinOps Center Agent Bill Solution to build an internal CFM Agent
• Deploy to Pilot Group
• Collect Feedback for Production Deployment