Redefining Cloud Cost Management with Database-Level Insights
We’re thrilled to announce our membership in the FinOps Foundation—a move that aligns our vision with an organization dedicated to advancing cloud financial management as a discipline. The FinOps Foundation unites a community of over 23,000 practitioners and 10,000 companies to set standards and foster best practices in cloud cost optimization. Fortified is partnering to address what we see as a critical gap in the current landscape of FinOps tools: the absence of cost insights and optimization at the database level.
Addressing a Gap in FinOps Tools: The Database Cost Perspective
Today, many FinOps tools excel at showing an organization’s overall cloud spend but rarely provide insights into what drives those costs in the details—especially within databases. Cloud environments are inherently complex, with costs often buried in specific services and applications that support core business functions. Databases, as the lifeblood of many applications, are frequently a significant portion of cloud expenses. Yet, existing tools often lack the depth required to provide actionable insights specifically around database optimization.
Fortified is here to fill this gap. Our flagship product, Fortified WISdom, brings unprecedented visibility to the database layer, allowing users to view and manage costs in detail. But we don’t just stop at visibility. WISdom offers actionable recommendations for optimizing code, which in turn reduces cloud costs, builds capacity, and improves database performance across the board. This shift is a major change for FinOps: we’re not only helping organizations see where their money is going but also how to take immediate, effective action to bring those costs down.
Introducing WISdom to the FinOps Community: Database Optimization Made Accessible
With Fortified WISdom, we’re introducing a new approach to the FinOps community—one focused on database optimization. Here’s how WISdom brings value:
- Cost Transparency at the Database Level: WISdom drills down to the database layer, revealing how individual queries and workloads contribute to overall cloud costs. For the first time, technical teams can collaborate with financial stakeholders to pinpoint specific areas driving costs. This level of detail empowers teams to take strategic action rather than simply acknowledging the spend.
- Performance and Code Efficiency: WISdom goes beyond simple cost analysis, recommending specific code optimizations that enhance efficiency. It evaluates factors like query performance, wait statistics, blocking, and deadlocks, all of which impact both cost and performance. By optimizing code, WISdom helps technical teams reduce costs by cutting unnecessary workloads and improving processing times, leading to a better-performing environment.
- Building Capacity Without Expanding Spend: Cloud costs aren’t just about spending less—they’re about building capacity responsibly. WISdom shows users where they can reallocate resources, allowing them to support more users or handle larger workloads without increasing costs. This reallocation contributes to sustainable growth, empowering organizations to meet rising demands without sacrificing financial control.
- Creating a Common Language Between Finance and Technical Teams: By bridging the divide between financial and technical insights, WISdom helps companies establish a common language around costs and efficiency. This means Finance can understand the value of technical improvements, and technical teams can grasp the financial implications of their actions. WISdom is helping eliminate “lost in translation” moments by providing shared metrics that both sides can discuss and act upon.
Why Fortified and FinOps Are a Perfect Fit
Fortified’s mission complements the goals of the FinOps Foundation. As a community-driven organization, the Foundation has built a variety of programs to support FinOps professionals at all levels. Whether it’s certification programs like FinOps Certified Practitioner or initiatives like the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS™), which sets standards for cloud cost and usage data, the Foundation is a catalyst for growth and consistency across the cloud cost management space.
Joining the FinOps Foundation extends our reach and strengthens our commitment to this mission. The foundation’s emphasis on connections, best practices, and career development resonates with Fortified’s belief in helping organizations make smarter, financially sound decisions around cloud investments. We’re excited to contribute our expertise in database cost management and look forward to collaborating with other members on advancing FinOps.
Empowering Practitioners to Lead with Confidence
The FinOps Foundation is more than just a collection of best practices—it’s a community where practitioners can transform how organizations approach cloud costs. At Fortified, we’re proud to be part of an organization that prioritizes empowerment, ensuring that individuals who manage cloud finances have the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to make a lasting impact.
By joining forces with the FinOps Foundation, we’re also advocating for a culture shift where database-level insights are recognized as essential for effective cost management. We envision a world where FinOps practitioners, DevOps teams, and database administrators have a unified approach to cost and performance optimization. This approach doesn’t just save money; it elevates entire IT operations, allowing companies to achieve more with less.
A New Era for Database-Driven FinOps
Our journey with the FinOps Foundation is just beginning, but the impact of this collaboration will be profound. With WISdom, Fortified is helping to redefine what’s possible in the FinOps space by connecting cloud costs directly to database performance and code efficiency. Our solutions are designed to meet the needs of both financial and technical stakeholders, fostering collaboration, transparency, and sustainable growth across the board.
Stay tuned as Fortified continues to lead the way in database-driven FinOps, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for organizations striving for financial and operational excellence in the cloud. We’re excited to be a part of the FinOps Foundation and look forward to making a meaningful contribution to this vibrant and essential community.