FinOps Strategy & Cloud Cost Optimization

As a Certified FinOps Practitioner and Certified FinOps Engineer, with supporting credentials in Kubecost, I bring a business-first mindset to cloud financial management—backed by real-world experience leading high-impact cost optimization initiatives.

My approach combines technical insight, financial modeling, and stakeholder enablement to drive business value across multi-cloud environments.

I’ve designed and implemented several FinOps tools—including solutions for anomaly cost detection, cost allocation, S3 storage analysis and much more —resulting in significant savings and efficiency gains. Here is a list of some of them:

1. EC2 Auto Start/Stop Scheduler (Cost Optimization)

To reduce AWS EC2 costs, I implemented an automated start/stop schedule for my WordPress server using Amazon EventBridge Scheduler and AWS Lambda. The solution automatically starts the EC2 instance at 8:00 AM and stops it at 6:00 PM (weekdays only) to ensure it only runs during business hours. I created a Lambda function that starts or stops the instance based on the payload, and scheduled it using EventBridge Scheduler with custom cron expressions. The instance was tagged for easy targeting, and the Lambda role was configured with secure permissions to allow EC2 control. This project demonstrates my understanding of cost-awareness, automation, scheduling, IAM roles, and server lifecycle management on AWS.

2. Route 53 + S3 Failover Site

Project: High Availability Failover with Route 53
Tech Stack: Route 53, S3 Static Website, Health Checks
Summary:
Implemented DNS-level failover for a WordPress site using Route 53 health checks and a static S3 backup website.
FinOps Impact: Maintained availability while avoiding costly multi-region replication. Cost-effective DR solution using native AWS services.

3. AWS Polly Text-to-Speech App

Project: Serverless TTS Web App
Tech Stack: AWS Lambda, Polly, API Gateway, DynamoDB, HTML/JavaScript
Summary:
Built a serverless web app that converts text to speech using AWS Polly. Usage logs are tracked in DynamoDB.
FinOps Relevance: Demonstrated scalable serverless architecture with zero idle cost.

4. HA WordPress on EC2

Project: Highly Available WordPress Deployment
Tech Stack: EC2, RDS, EFS, Auto Scaling, ALB, Route 53
Summary:
Architected a resilient WordPress environment across multiple AZs using load balancers and shared storage.
FinOps Relevance: Balances high availability with cost-efficiency by using scaling policies and optimized storage.

5. AWS Cost Explorer Dashboard Clone

Project: Custom Cost Explorer Clone
Tech Stack: AWS CUR, Athena, S3, QuickSight
Summary:
Recreated the core features of AWS Cost Explorer using Cost & Usage Report (CUR) data stored in S3, queried via Athena, and visualized in QuickSight.
FinOps Impact: Enabled advanced, customized cost views and dashboards beyond native tooling—empowering teams to monitor spend trends and drill into anomalies by tag or service.

6.Trusted Advisor Alerting Script

Project: Proactive Cost Optimization Alerts
Tech Stack: AWS Trusted Advisor, Lambda, SNS, Python
Summary:
Developed a Lambda function to periodically check Trusted Advisor for cost optimization recommendations and send alerts via SNS.
FinOps Impact: Automated the discovery of idle or underutilized resources—prompting engineers to take corrective actions and reduce waste.

7. S3 Lifecycle Rule Optimization

Project: S3 Lifecycle Automation
Tech Stack: S3, Lifecycle Policies, Cost Explorer
Summary:
Identified buckets with infrequent access patterns and applied lifecycle rules to transition data to IA and Glacier tiers.
FinOps Impact: Achieved up to 70% reduction in storage costs by aligning data retention with access frequency.

8. RI/SP Coverage Monitor

Project: Reservation Coverage Tracking
Tech Stack: Cost Explorer API, Lambda, Boto3, CloudWatch
Summary:
Built a monitoring tool that checks for drops in RI/SP coverage and alerts when thresholds fall below 40%.
FinOps Impact: Helped teams stay proactive about reservation utilization—preventing cost spikes due to On-Demand usage.

9. Azure Cost API Tracker

Project: Azure Cloud Cost Tracker
Tech Stack: Azure Cost Management API, Python, Excel
Summary:
Created a script to pull daily Azure cost data via API and generate budget tracking reports.
FinOps Impact: Improved cross-cloud visibility and helped centralize reporting across both AWS and Azure.

📩 Interested in learning more? Feel free to reach out—I’d love to connect.