Technical Foundations of FinOps on Google Cloud Training in New Zealand

Knowledge of Google Cloud infrastructure as covered in the 'Google Cloud Fundamentals: Core Infrastructure' course.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Understand the core principles of FinOps and its role in bridging technology and finance in the cloud.
• Identify cost inefficiencies and optimise resource utilisation for significant savings.
• Leverage monitoring tools and data-driven insights to forecast costs and make informed decisions.
• Implement cost allocation models to attribute cloud expenses accurately.
• Utilise Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for automating cost management processes.
• Gain visibility into cloud spending through industry-leading tools and platforms.
• Apply FinOps strategies to real-world scenarios using hands-on exercises and case studies.
• Foster a culture of cost awareness and accountability within an organisation.

Module one: Foundations of FinOps on Google Cloud

• Financial governance challenges.
• The Google Cloud FinOps framework.
• Cloud FinOps operating model.
• The three phases and five pillars of the Google FinOps journey.

Module two: Exploring and understanding billing data

• Google Cloud Billing accounts and dashboard.
• Billing export to BigQuery.
• Visualising costs using Looker Studio.
• Labs: Exploring the Billing Dashboard and Visualising Costs.

Module three: Resource labelling and tagging

• Labels and tags for cloud resources.
• Accessing and analysing label and tag data in billing.
• Labs: Tagging Resources and Examining Labels in BigQuery.

Module four: Budgets and alerting

• Creating budgets and setting alerts.
• Automating budget creation using tools like gcloud, Python, and Terraform.
• Demo: Automating budget creation with Terraform.

Module five: BigQuery cost management and optimisation

• Compute and storage cost concerns.
• Allocating and managing BigQuery costs effectively.
• Lab: Analysing BigQuery Costs Across Projects and Organisations.

Module six: Compute and GKE cost management

• Identifying and reducing compute waste.
• Managing costs for Compute Engine and Kubernetes.
• Labs: Reviewing Compute Billing and Kubernetes Costs.

Module seven: Cloud storage and database cost management

• Optimising costs for Cloud Storage.
• Managing SQL and NoSQL database costs, including Spanner, Bigtable, and Firestore.
• Lab: Managing Cloud Storage and Database Costs.

Module eight: Machine learning and Vertex AI cost management

• Monitoring costs for machine learning models and generative AI usage.
• Lab: Reviewing Vertex AI Costs in Billing Data.

Module nine: Automating billing activities

• Automating resource management and responding to budget alerts programmatically.
• Leveraging the Cloud Asset Inventory service and Google FinOps Hub.
• Labs: Automating Tagging and Programming Budget Alert Actions.

Module ten: Building a FinOps practice

• Establishing a FinOps team and roadmap.
• Defining goals, milestones, and success metrics.
• Continuous improvement and evolution of FinOps.
• Lab: FinOps Challenge Lab.