Client Overview
Our client is a fast-scaling e-commerce company preparing to expand into a new international market. However, with a growing cloud footprint and limited cost visibility, their AWS monthly spend had escalated to approximately $20,000. To support their expansion without jeopardizing performance or financial efficiency, they engaged Finonix for a FinOps-led cloud cost optimization initiative.
Problem Statement
The client operated across multiple AWS accounts with little centralized cost governance. Their environment included:
- Redundant and stale resources still consuming costs
- Over-provisioned compute and storage services
- No clear ownership of infrastructure components
- Manual reporting with no actionable insights
- Lack of visibility into cost drivers and usage trends
As a result, the high cloud cost became a bottleneck to scaling the business efficiently.
Requirement Gathering
The client aimed to adopt FinOps practices to control and reduce cloud costs while ensuring smooth application, database, and microservice performance.
- Centralized visibility into cloud spend and resource inventory
- Spend trend analysis over the last 3 months
- Identification of waste (stale, idle, over-provisioned resources)
- Clear mapping of resources to business units or owners
- Custom automation and dashboards for real-time insights
- Optimization actions that would not compromise system performance
Our Approach
As specialists in Cloud, DevOps, and FinOps, Finonix followed a data-driven and automation-first approach:
Cross-Account Resource Inventory
Built a unified inventory across all AWS accounts.
FinOps Spend Trend Analysis
Reviewed 90-day billing data to identify cost anomalies and patterns.
Utilization Audit & Waste Identification
Flagged idle, underused, and misconfigured services using internal scripts.
Cost Ownership & Accountability
Assigned resource ownership to relevant teams for informed decisions—a key FinOps principle.
Automation for Optimization
Developed scripts and tagging logic to streamline future audits.
Visibility via FinOps Dashboard
Created an internal dashboard to offer real-time views of:
- Cost by service and account
- Top contributors to spend
- Status of flagged vs. resolved optimization actions
Key Actions & Features
FinOps Dashboard for Visibility
Built a centralized dashboard showing real-time AWS spend, enabling teams to identify and act on cost trends quickly.
Automated Resource Analysis
Custom automation flagged stale and over-provisioned resources without relying on raw billing data.
Cost Ownership Mapping
Mapped infrastructure to responsible business units to enable cross-functional decision-making and accountability.
Optimization Without Risk
All actions were taken in close collaboration with internal teams to ensure zero downtime and full service continuity.
Technologies Used
AWS (EC2, EBS, RDS, S3, Cost Explorer)
Python
AWS CLI
Boto3
Custom Dashboard
Tagging Reports
Excel-based Governance Models
Google Sheets
Data Studio
Internal Audit LogsOutcome
We cut cloud costs by $6,000/month (30%) with zero performance impact. Gained full cost visibility, empowered teams with ownership of spend, and enabled ongoing optimization through proactive cleanup using our dashboard.
Conclusion
This case study showcases how FinOps as a practice helped our client turn cloud cost chaos into clarity—unlocking $6K/month in savings while setting the foundation for financial agility and growth. If you're looking to bring accountability, visibility, and savings to your cloud environment—Finonix is your FinOps partner.
