How to Set Up a FinOps Savings Campaign

Using AWS EBS gp2 to gp3 Upgrade as an Example

Cloud costs can easily spiral out of control and become a hidden monster in your organization’s budget. While technical expertise is crucial for understanding and optimizing cloud environments, relying solely on the latest cost-saving tools without a broader strategy often falls short of delivering meaningful results. 

Here's why a comprehensive FinOps savings campaign is your secret weapon to achieve true cost optimization. Below, you'll learn more about the complexities of FinOps implementation and how well-structured campaigns can address them. Using the practical example of upgrading from AWS EBS gp2 to gp3, we will show you how FinOps campaigns can be implemented and what practical tips you should know. 

FinOps Savings Campaign

Optimizing cloud costs is a key objective in the cloud era. Achieving essential cost savings through FinOps isn't just about technical expertise. To truly succeed, well-structured campaigns are necessary to drive the complex task of implementing FinOps. These FinOps campaigns foster collaboration across various teams and address the challenge of behavioural change. Raising awareness about FinOps and motivating stakeholders to take action is essential for long-term results. Additionally, resource constraints necessitate empowering other teams. Campaigns can equip these teams with the skills and resources they need to take ownership and implement cost-saving measures.  

Effective FinOps campaigns hinge on several key aspects. First, clear and concise communication is crucial. By transparently highlighting the potential cost savings, stakeholders become aware of the need for action. Gaining management support is also essential. Management buy-in ensures the allocation of resources and helps prioritize FinOps initiatives. Furthermore, motivating teams is key. Campaigns should educate teams on how FinOps benefit them directly, showcasing the individual potential for cost savings within their areas. Finally, equipping teams with the necessary tools and resources empowers them to implement these savings efficiently. This comprehensive approach ensures all parties are informed, engaged, and equipped to achieve significant cost optimization through FinOps.  

The success of FinOps initiatives relies on a well-coordinated team effort. The FinOps team is the driver and facilitator, initiating, designing, and implementing campaigns to raise awareness and drive cost savings. Engineering and operations teams play a crucial role as the decision-makers responsible for implementing these cost-saving measures. Finally, management is a vital supporter and promoter, providing the resources and setting priorities to ensure the campaigns achieve their goals. This collaborative approach leverages the expertise of each stakeholder group for a successful FinOps implementation.  

Achieving lasting success with FinOps depends on addressing several key factors. Firstly, setting clear and measurable goals provides a roadmap for progress and allows everyone to track the effectiveness of the implemented strategies. Secondly, having committed and competent teams is essential. A team with the dedication and expertise to implement FinOps practices is crucial for driving change. However, success isn't a one-time event. Continuous communication and performance measurements are necessary to identify areas for improvement and ensure the campaigns remain relevant. Finally, adaptability is key. The most effective campaigns can adjust to the evolving needs of the teams and the ever-changing cloud environment. By focusing on these factors, organizations can create a foundation for a successful and sustainable FinOps journey. 

The FinOps Maturity Model

FinOps is a collaborative approach that helps businesses get the most out of their cloud spending. By bringing together IT, finance, and business teams, FinOps ensures that cloud resources are used efficiently and effectively while aligning with business goals. The FinOps Maturity Model provides a roadmap for this journey. It outlines different stages of FinOps maturity, from initial awareness to advanced optimization:  

Crawl: This initial phase focuses on establishing basic cost visibility. Organizations gather data on cloud usage and spending, identify key cost drivers, and develop rudimentary cost allocation models. The goal is to gain a foundational understanding of cloud costs and identify areas for potential optimization. 

Walk: Building on the foundation established in the Crawl phase, organizations move to a more proactive approach. They implement cost forecasting and budgeting, establish cost optimization policies, and begin to analyze cost trends. Collaboration between finance, IT, and business teams becomes essential during this stage. 

Run: In the Run phase, FinOps becomes embedded in the organization's culture. Advanced analytics and machine learning are leveraged to optimize resource utilization and predict future costs. Automation is implemented to streamline processes and reduce manual effort. Continuous improvement and innovation drive further cost reductions and business value. 

Organizations can effectively manage cloud costs, improve resource utilization, and drive business growth by following a “Crawl, walk, run approach”. Remembering that progress may vary across different departments and cloud services is essential. A flexible and data-driven approach is key to achieving long-term success.  Advancing through the FinOps Maturity Model is not a linear process but one that thrives on agile iteration within the FinOps lifecycle. Each phase - Crawl, Walk, and Run - offers opportunities to revisit, refine, and enhance practices as organizations grow and their cloud environments evolve. Through iterative cycles of experimentation and feedback, teams can address challenges, adapt to changing business needs, and continuously improve their processes. This agile approach ensures that FinOps remains a dynamic and scalable discipline, capable of delivering sustained value as new technologies, tools, and cloud strategies emerge. 

Upgrading from AWS EBS gp2 to gp3: A Performance and Efficiency Boost 

Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) General Purpose (GP) volumes have been a popular choice for many workloads due to their balance of performance and cost. However, the introduction of gp3 volumes has significantly elevated the performance and cost-efficiency bar. 

AWS gp2 volumes offer a burstable performance model, meaning that they can handle short bursts of high IOPS but might experience performance degradation under sustained heavy workloads. This can be problematic for applications with unpredictable I/O patterns. In contrast, gp3 volumes provide consistent performance, regardless of volume size, with adjustable IOPS and throughput. This makes gp3 an ideal choice for workloads with varying I/O demands. 

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With gp3 volumes, you can provision IOPS and throughput independently, without increasing storage size, at costs up to 20% lower per GB compared to gp2 volumes. This means optimizing performance without overprovisioning storage, leading to substantial cost savings. Additionally, gp3 delivers a higher baseline performance than gp2, often resulting in lower overall costs.  

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Upgrading to gp3 can bring several benefits:

• Improved application performance: Consistent performance under varying workloads can lead to smoother user experiences and increased application responsiveness. 

• Cost optimization: By tailoring performance to actual needs, you can avoid overpaying for unused IOPS. 

• Simplified capacity planning: gp3's decoupled performance model makes predicting and managing storage requirements easier. 

• Future-proofing: As your application's I/O demands grow, gp3 offers flexibility to scale performance independently of storage capacity. 

Migrating from gp2 to gp3 can be a straightforward process. However, to maximize the upgrade's benefits, meticulously evaluate your workload characteristics and determine the optimal IOPS and throughput settings for your gp3 volumes. Careful planning and thorough testing are crucial for a smooth transition. 

There is a detailed AWS blog post which explains the different EBS volume types and the upgrade process in detail. 

Potential Analysis EBS gp2 to gp3 Upgrades: Structured by FinOps Maturity Levels

The potential analysis of EBS gp2 to gp3 upgrades can be structured according to the FinOps maturity model, aligning with the crawl, walk, and run phases.

In the crawl phase, the goal is to identify the initial savings potential, implement early nudges, and prioritize efforts.

During the walk phase, ongoing showback mechanisms provide continuous visibility into costs, raising awareness across teams.

In the run phase, standardized monitoring is established, focusing on ensuring new projects are onboarded with gp3 from the start, preventing inefficiencies before they occur. 

Preconditions and Data Basis 

To perform an effective cost analysis, certain prerequisites must be met to ensure the organization has a robust and accurate data foundation. These steps lay the groundwork for meaningful insights and actionable recommendations: 

• Access to relevant cost data: Organizations must ensure they have visibility into their cloud spending. This can be achieved through the cloud provider’s native tools, such as AWS Cost Explorer, or by leveraging third-party FinOps platforms that provide enhanced analytics and reporting capabilities. 

• Cost allocation: Properly attributing costs to allocation levels - such as projects, products, teams, or departments - is essential for understanding spending patterns and accountability. This often involves tagging resources and maintaining accurate account structures to enable granular visibility. 

• Stakeholder identification: Key contacts responsible for each allocation level must be identified early in the process. This ensures smooth communication, alignment of goals, and collaboration between stakeholders across IT, finance, and business units. 

With these foundational prerequisites addressed, organizations can gather the critical data points necessary for conducting a savings potential analysis: 

• AWS Cost and Usage Data: The comprehensive dataset provides detailed insights into cloud usage and spending patterns. 

• Filtered for EC2 Other cost and usage: Focusing on specific cost categories, such as EC2 Other, helps narrow down areas of interest. 

• Usage filtered specifically for gp2 volumes: Isolating data for gp2 storage volumes allows for a targeted analysis of opportunities, such as migrating to more cost-efficient options like gp3. 

  
  

This systematic approach ensures the analysis is grounded in accurate, actionable data, setting the stage for meaningful optimization efforts. 

Initial Manual Savings Potential Analysis - Crawl Phase

In the crawl phase, the first step is to analyze the historical cost data. For this example, we’ll use AWS Cost Explorer to select a relevant time period, typically six months, to get a clear view of the gp2 usage and costs. The following filter set is applied: 

• Service: EC2 Other 

• Usage type: Select all with gp2 

Figure 1: Filter Setup for Historical Cost Analysis in AWS Cost Explorer 

Once filtered, the data is exported and manually processed in Excel. Based on an average savings potential of 20% from previous price comparisons between gp2 and gp3, a simplified calculation can be applied. You can calculate 20% savings on the current gp2 costs, which gives an estimate of the potential monthly savings. This figure can then be annualized to provide a broader savings outlook. 

Additionally, the proportion of gp2 usage compared to the total EC2 Other costs for each project is calculated. This combination of data helps projects prioritize the migration to gp3 by showing both the absolute savings potential and the relative impact on their overall cloud spend. 

Figure 2: Calculation of Savings Potential in Excel  

Revisiting Savings Potentials or Continuous Showback - Walk Phase 

In the walk phase, the same simplified manual calculation used in the crawl phase can be applied periodically to re-evaluate the savings potential. For instance, every six months, the top 10 spending projects could be "nudged" again, showing them their potential savings from migrating to gp3. 

Alternatively, a continuous showback mechanism can be introduced using dashboards built with tools like AWS QuickSight or other third-party FinOps cloud cost management tools. These dashboards would use the same filter set from the initial savings potential analysis (Service EC2 Other, usage type gp2). This allows the ongoing costs for each project to be displayed alongside their gp3 usage, enabling teams to independently track their performance and make data-driven decisions based on cost showback. 

This visibility empowers project owners to take action independently, providing continuous awareness of potential savings and cost management opportunities. 

Standardized Monitoring and Cost Avoidance - Run Phase

Building on the insights from the crawl and walk phases, the run phase involves establishing standardized monitoring. The FinOps team creates a regular monitoring process to ensure that gp2 volumes are continuously reviewed and addressed. This standardized monitoring process is described in detail in the chapter "Development of a Monitoring Process as part of FinOps Operations". 

In addition to regular monitoring, the focus shifts to new accounts and projects. After conducting the initial potential analysis and following up with projects during the revisits, most established teams will have evaluated and likely migrated their workloads from gp2 to gp3. At this point, the FinOps team can direct its resources towards ensuring that new projects adopt gp3 from the beginning.

One method is to use FinOps cost management tools to filter for changes in gp2 usage and proactively reach out to accounts that have seen significant increases in gp2 usage in recent months. By focusing on these new or growing projects, the team ensures that inefficiencies are caught early and new workloads are set up for long-term cost efficiency. 

Organizations can iteratively develop their cost optimization strategies by structuring the potential analysis phase across the crawl, walk, and run phases. This approach ensures immediate savings and builds a proactive culture around cost management, fostering continuous improvement and alignment with the FinOps maturity model. 

Communication of EBS gp2 to gp3 Potentials: Structured by FinOps Maturity Levels

The previously calculated potential that can be realized by upgrading from EBS gp2 to gp3 must ultimately reach the AWS account managers, as only they have the technical view of their account and can, therefore, decide whether an upgrade is technically possible. For this reason, there are several ways to reach and communicate with these AWS account managers so that they can ultimately implement the upgrade. Below is an overview of the different communication formats. It is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, as organizations and cultures are different. Consequently, a “crawl, walk, run approach” makes sense.  

Initial Communication with Top Spenders - Crawl Phase

The analysis carried out in the crawl phase above clearly showed that an upgrade from EBS gp2 to gp3 offered significant savings potential for our biggest cost drivers - the top spenders. Clear and straightforward communication with the responsible account managers is essential to realize this potential quickly. 

In this phase, the FinOps team creates a personalized E-Mail for each top donor or uses other common communication channels to send easy-to-understand information and the potential analysis in Excel format directly to the account managers. This E-Mail should include the following information: 

• Concrete recommendation: Upgrade from EBS gp2 to gp3 is recommended. 

• Current share: Displays the current percentage of the EBS gp2 volume. 

• Savings potential: Both monthly and annual savings are quantified. 

• Advantages: The performance advantages of gp3 are highlighted. 

• Instructions: Detailed instructions (How-To) are included. 

• Call to action: The FinOps team is available to answer questions and assist with implementation. 

  
  

This personalized support from the FinOps team enables us to implement recommendations quickly and achieve early success. Visible savings increase the acceptance of FinOps initiatives and encourage long-term collaboration. In addition, the FinOps team's personalized approach helps build trust and cooperation with the account managers. 

However, the manual creation and distribution of individual analyses by the FinOps team is time-consuming and limits outreach. The high manual effort limits the scalability of this approach. To establish a scalable FinOps practice, it is therefore necessary to aim for the automation of these processes by the FinOps team in the long term. 

Realization of a Multi-Layered Communication Campaign - Walk Phase

After identifying the individual benefits of an EBS gp3 upgrade for our top spenders in the crawl phase, the walk phase aims to extend these findings to the entire organization. The aim is to create awareness of the performance benefits and cost savings of gp3 and to accelerate the migration of gp2 volumes.

The FinOps team is using a multi-layered communication strategy to spread the word about the benefits of gp3 and motivate employees to participate actively. This includes:

• Community postings: Regularly post to internal communication channels to provide updates on the progress of the gp3 migration, share best practices, and address frequently asked questions. You can use tools such as Microsoft Viva Engage or your individual internal communication platform.  

• Roundtables: Interactive formats such as roundtables provide a platform for sharing experiences and in-depth knowledge about the technical differences between gp2 and gp3 and the benefits for different workloads. It is important to demonstrate how simple the upgrade process is, effectively removing any perceived barriers. People can ask questions, share their perspectives and benefit from each other's experiences. 

• Webinars and training: Online training courses provide in-depth knowledge on FinOps topics and enable employees to expand their knowledge. 

• Success stories: Success stories from teams that have already switched to gp3 serve as inspiration and show the concrete benefits. 

• Personalized emails: Targeted emails can be used to provide specific information to specific audiences. 

  
  

To ensure the effectiveness of the communication campaign, employee feedback is continuously collected and used to improve the campaign. Surveys and open forums allow the FinOps team to identify employee needs and concerns and adapt communications accordingly. 

Automated Communication with All Spenders - Run Phase

After raising awareness of the benefits of an EBS gp3 upgrade in the walk phase, the run phase focuses on automated communication measures to make the communication of the upgrade from gp2 to gp3 scalable and efficient. Examples for automated communication measures are:  

• The creation and sharing of knowledge articles in a central knowledge base to ensure that everyone has access to them, regardless of whether they have been shared or not. 

• Make finding knowledge articles in the central knowledge base easier by linking them in the community channels.  

• If you use a FinOps tool such as IBM Cloudability, you can create a savings dashboard for upgrades per AWS account and automatically share it with all account owners in your organization. 

• If you use an account provisioning or management tool, you can integrate tool-based recommendations and nudges directly within it. 

• Send automated email alerts to all accounts currently using AWS EBS gp2 and enable them to upgrade.   

• Provide a chatbot to answer frequently asked questions about the upgrade. 

  
  

By automating communications through the above measures, the FinOps team can ensure consistent messaging, save time and reach a wider audience, ultimately leading to faster adoption of EBS gp3 and significant cost savings. 

Development of a Monitoring Process as Part of FinOps Operations

Regular monitoring of all accounts allows the FinOps team to evaluate the progress of the upgrade from EBS gp2 to gp3. The aim is to ensure that all accounts benefiting from the upgrade have been informed accordingly. It is important to understand that the account owner is responsible for implementing the upgrade, not the FinOps team. However, the FinOps team can ensure that the costs for gp2 volumes are continuously minimized. 

Preconditions and Data Basis

You can choose data from different sources to monitor the current level of EBS gp2 volumes that are still running. One source could be the AWS Cost Explorer. The correct filters are already explained in the part which describes the data basis for potential analysis. Another source could be the AWS Cost Optimization Hub, an AWS Billing and Cost Management feature. The AWS Cost Optimization Hub provides a comprehensive overview of cost optimization recommendations from several AWS services. Optimization recommendations for EBS gp2 to gp3 upgrades can give the FinOps team and all the account owners detailed information about every specific upgradable resource like resource ID, Region, and account ID. Most useful, the feature also categorizes each recommendation in terms of the effort required to implement, whether a restart of the resource is needed and whether a rollback would be possible. To help prioritize this action, there is also direct information on approximate savings in percentage and monthly dollar values.  

The needed filter to get all optimization recommendations regarding EBS gp2 to gp3 upgrades consists of:  

• Resource type = EBS volume 

• Recommended action = Upgrade 

Figure 3: Example of Cost Optimization Hub in AWS

Here are some helpful links to help you better understand the very useful AWS Cost Optimization Hub function:  

• https://aws.amazon.com/aws-cost-management/cost-optimization-hub/  

• https://aws.amazon.com/aws-cost-management/cost-optimization-hub/faqs/ 

• https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-cost-optimization-hub-to-find-all-recommended-actions-in-one-place-for-saving-you-money/  

  
  

Development of an Operating Process for Ongoing Monitoring - Walk Phase 

The following is an example of an operational process that analyses the regular monitoring of new gp2 volumes and rapidly growing gp2 volumes so that account managers are constantly encouraged to upgrade to gp3. It is important to note that whether these steps work or other processes can be used to reduce or eliminate the spread of gp2 volumes permanently depends very much on the existing structures in the organization and the FinOps team. The process described below should, therefore, be seen as an example.  

1. Open your data source, which can be AWS Cost Explorer, AWS Cost Optimization Hub or dashboards in other third-party FinOps tools  

2. Monthly check which accounts are created resources with new EBS gp2 volume over a predefined threshold. If accounts are found, find out the account owner of the account and contact the person with a standardized message. The aim of the message is to empower the account owner to upgrade the resource directly. They will also get a link to instructions.  

3. Check monthly to see if there are accounts with a significant EBS gp2 volume usage increase above a pre-defined threshold. If accounts are found, the account owner is identified and contacted with a standardized message. The purpose of the message is to enable the account owner to upgrade the resource directly. They will also receive a link to instructions.  

4. Check monthly the changes in KPI, which show the usage of EBS gp2 volume over the whole organization. Hopefully, the FinOps team can observe that the usage of gp2 volumes is going down.  

   
   

Optimizing Operational Processes: Implementing Policies for Restricting gp2 Volume Utilization - Run Phase 

After successfully implementing a manual process for reducing the use of EBS gp2 volumes, the next step is to optimize by automating key tasks and restricting the use of less efficient resources. This can be achieved through a two-pronged approach.  

First, automate the analysis of EBS gp2 volumes to detect new provisioning or significant increases in usage, and automatically notify account managers. Simultaneously, implement a policy for the FinOps team to execute an one-time upgrade of all existing EBS gp2 volumes to gp3, incorporating a communication and veto process for account managers and the FinOps community to address potential application compatibility issues.  

Second, policies should be implemented to prevent the creation of new EBS gp2 volumes in AWS while establishing a clear exception process for technically necessary gp2 volume requirements, such as with the help of support requests. This ensures operational flexibility while minimizing the use of less efficient volumes. 

This comprehensive approach optimizes EBS volume management by promoting automation, resource efficiency, and operational flexibility. 

Let’s Get Started with Your Own FinOps Savings Campaign

Thank you for reading this article in full. You now have a comprehensive set of tools and ideas to help you develop your own FinOps savings program, potentially starting with an AWS EBS gp2 to gp3 upgrade, where you could unlock up to 20% in savings. Remember, mastery takes time, and success doesn’t happen overnight - Rome wasn’t built in a day. The key is to begin. Learn from your successes and challenges and use those insights to optimize and scale your FinOps savings campaigns continuously. 

Should you require further assistance or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us!