Let’s talk cloud costs.

Cloud costs refer to the expenses associated with using cloud computing services to store, manage and process data and applications. Cloud computing is a scalable and flexible technology that allows businesses and individuals to access computing resources, such as virtual servers, storage, databases and more, over the internet. While cloud computing offers numerous benefits, it is not without its costs, which varies depending on several factors.

Cloud service providers, like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google (News - Alert) Cloud Platform, for example, offer various pricing models. The most common ones include pay-as-you-go, reserved instances and spot instances. Pay-as-you-go pricing charges based on actual usage, while reserved instances and spot instances can offer cost savings for more predictable workloads or when customers can be flexible with their resource allocation.

With that said, it is important to understand and manage cloud costs to avoid unexpected bills and to make the most of the benefits that cloud computing offers. Providing real-time cost visibility and insight for teams using Kubernetes is Kubecost, trusted by thousands of companies to monitor costs across all major cloud providers and in on-prem and air-gapped environments.

In 2022, Kubecost donated code to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation to launch OpenCost. OpenCost has provided valuable cost monitoring for thousands of users looking to get insight into a single cluster.

Now, Kubecost added cloud cost support to OpenCost to allow OpenCost to support accessing provider billing and cloud cost visibility beyond Kubernetes across AWS, Azure and GCP – with support for more platforms to come.

Kubecost is enhancing OpenCost's capabilities by providing budgeting, forecasting, alerting, and savings recommendations for multiple clusters and multiple clouds. This expansion aligns with the FinOps Foundation's FinOps Open Cost & Usage Specification, or FOCUS, and aims to make it easier for technical users and developers to implement FOCUS in multi-cloud environments.

FOCUS provides a standardized framework for presenting cloud cost data, allowing businesses to gain a unified perspective on their expenses related to cloud-based applications and services. This consistent structure enhances data trustworthiness and enables easier cost mapping to specific business functions. FOCUS simplifies the understanding and reporting of billing data across different cloud vendors, streamlining processes like allocation, chargeback, budgeting, forecasting and other FinOps functions.

OpenCost is set to become an open source implementation of the FOCUS 1.0 specification, which is backed by the FinOps Foundation.

"The FOCUS project continues to gain industry-wide momentum and contributors for its ability to bring together practitioners, cloud service providers, vendors and consultants around a common specification for presenting cloud cost and usage data,” said Udam Dewaraja, Chairperson for the FOCUS Working Group. “Open source projects like OpenCost will help extend the benefits of FOCUS to a wider group of users.”

Kubecost's focus on delivering cost visibility and analysis tools to engineering, DevOps and technical teams addresses a key challenge: empowering engineers to take action regarding cloud costs. With the expanded cloud cost management coverage, Kubecost aims to help bridge this gap and support organizations in optimizing their cloud spending.

“FOCUS is a new open approach to cloud cost monitoring,” said Webb Brown, CEO and co-founder of Kubecost. “By implementing FOCUS, we believe we’ll further be able to make the lives of developers, engineers, FinOps and other technical personas that are hands-on managing infrastructure cost much more manageable.”