Financial operations, a management practice promoting shared responsibility for an organisation's cloud computing infrastructure and costs, has been rapidly developing, with established vendors from various management disciplines and new specialised start-ups, according to a recent research by independent analyst and consultancy firm Omdia.
The study indicates that the cloud has experienced significant growth in both scope and scale over recent years, as numerous organisations turn to leverage its flexibility and operational expense model.
This shift, according to Omdia, has set the stage for cloud computing to become the dominant technology for the next decade, with the cloud market reaching a crucial turning point, with more than 50% of workloads now running on some form of public cloud.
The rise of FinOps has also addressed initial financial concerns regarding cloud computing by enhancing the understanding and optimisation of cloud costs. These concerns stem from the fact that six cloud service providers (CSPs) dominate approximately 80% of the market as highlighted in the Omdia survey.
Omdia’s report further clarifies the FinOps sector by outlining the key characteristics of a solution. The current market reality is that the FinOps foundation is working to standardise cost and usage billing presentations, allowing organisations to implement consistent processes for data ingestion and analysis across various cloud providers.
This standardisation will enable organisations to compare cloud service costs across different platforms, although FinOps solutions address the other key capabilities in diverse ways.
Despite these efforts, the market remains an emerging market consisting of native cost management from cloud providers, independent platforms, custom-built solutions (mostly XL spreadsheets), and specialised tools.
"The FinOps market is still evolving, comprising new startups, large vendors developing FinOps capabilities, and established vendors acquiring them," says Roy Illsley, chief analyst at Omdia. "Omdia estimates the market’s value at around $1.6bn. Although there is no current forecast for the FinOps market (expected in 2025), its growth is tied closely to cloud computing, projected to grow at a 14% CAGR from 2022 to 2027. Given that FinOps is still maturing, it is reasonable to assume that the FinOps market will grow faster than the cloud computing market."
"FinOps vendors are developing solutions to autonomously manage usage and rate optimization in using cloud computing. Yet, the refinement of optimising cloud-native Kubernetes deployments remains an ongoing challenge for many vendors," says Illsley.
