FinOps

Realm9 FinOps provides unified cloud cost visibility across AWS and Azure — including cost trends, anomaly detection, resource utilisation, rightsizing recommendations, and forecasts.

Licence requirement: FinOps is available on the Ultimate tier.
Access: Admin role only.

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Getting Started

1. Navigate to Settings → FinOps
2. Toggle Enable FinOps on for each cloud connection you want to track
3. Click Configure on the connection to select cost allocation tags — tag discovery runs automatically when the dialog opens
4. Go to FinOps → Overview and click Sync Cost Data to run the initial sync
5. The first sync fetches the last 90 days of cost data — subsequent syncs are incremental

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Overview Dashboard

The main dashboard gives a real-time picture of your cloud spend.

Summary cards:

• Total multi-cloud cost for the selected period (with period-over-period comparison)
• Active cloud connections tracked
• Number of distinct service categories
• Top-cost region

Period selector: 7 Days / 30 Days / 90 Days / 6 Months

Visualisations:

• Cost Trend Chart — daily spend area chart for the selected period
• Cost Distribution — donut chart split by provider and by connection
• Top 5 Services by Cost — stacked bar chart across all connections

Insight sections:

• Anomaly Alert Banner — summary of open anomalies by severity with total cost impact
• Cost Trend Alert — flags significant period-over-period changes with the top contributing services
• Top Cost Changes — top cost increases and decreases by service for the selected period
• Optimisation Score — FinOps health score (0–100) with category breakdown

Quick actions link directly to Anomalies, Usage Analysis, and Cost Explorer.

Syncing Cost Data

Click Sync Cost Data to trigger a manual sync. A progress dialog shows real-time phase updates. The sync runs in three phases:

1. Cost Data — pulls from AWS Cost Explorer API or Azure Cost Management
2. Metrics — fetches CloudWatch or Azure Monitor resource metrics
3. Inventory — updates the resource catalog with current tags and states

Syncs also run automatically every day at 2:00 AM UTC — you do not need to trigger them manually for ongoing data freshness.

View the last 50 sync jobs under View History. The history shows each job's status, trigger type (manual or scheduled), triggered-by user, phase breakdown, and error details. Filter by status or trigger type.

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Cost Explorer

Two Cost Explorer views are available:

Cost Explorer (/finops/explorer)

The primary explorer for trend analysis and forecasting.

Tabs:

• Trends & Forecasting — area chart of cost over time. Granularity toggle (Daily / Weekly / Monthly). Optional forecast overlay. Period comparison toggle (current vs previous period). KPI cards: Daily Burn Rate, 7-Day Growth, 30-Day Growth, Month-End Projection.
• Cost Breakdown — cost grouped by a selected dimension (Service Name, Service Category, Region, Cloud Provider, Cloud Connection, or any configured cost allocation tag)
• Details — 5-level drill-down table for granular cost analysis

Filters: Date range, Cloud Connection, Service (select, limited to top 20), cost allocation tag key/value pairs

Export: CSV export available on all tabs

Cost Explorer v2 (/finops/explorer-v2)

Multi-dimension drill-down explorer with advanced filtering.

Tabs: By Provider, By Service, By Region, Trends & Forecasting

Drill-down: Click any row to enter a drill-down view with breadcrumb navigation — explore costs from provider → service → region level

Advanced Filters panel: Dimension selectors specific to the selected cloud provider

Forecasting

Enable the forecast toggle on the Trends & Forecasting tab to project costs forward.

Forecasts show upper and lower confidence bounds (95% confidence interval).

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Anomaly Detection

Navigate to FinOps → Anomalies to review detected cost spikes.

Severity Levels

Detection Sources

• Statistical — algorithms applied to your historical cost data
• Provider — AWS Cost Anomaly Detection or Azure native anomaly signals
• Hybrid — combines both for higher confidence

Anomaly Statuses

Anomaly Details

Each anomaly detail dialog shows:

• Anomaly Period — start date, end date, and duration
• Affected service, region, and cloud account
• Actual vs. expected cost and variance percentage
• Root Cause Analysis — contributing factors with type, cost impact, and percentage of the anomaly
• 7-Day Forecast — trend direction, forecasted daily cost, expected percentage change
• Related Infrastructure Changes — Terraform runs in the 7 days before the anomaly, with description and resource count

Actions

From the anomaly dialog:

A Run Detection button on the list page triggers manual anomaly detection.

Filters

Filter by status, severity, detection source, and cloud connection. Summary charts show Detection Trend, By Severity, and By Source breakdowns.

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Usage Analysis

Navigate to FinOps → Usage for resource-level utilisation insights.

Overview Tab

High-level utilisation metrics and efficiency scores across all tracked resources. Highlights the most underutilised resources.

Resources Tab

Full resource inventory with resource ID, name, type, region, current state (running/stopped), monthly cost, and CPU and memory utilisation. Sortable and filterable by resource type, state, and region.

Utilisation Tab

A heatmap of resource utilisation. Select a metric (CPU, Memory, Network I/O, Disk I/O) and a time period (Last 24 Hours, Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days). A distribution bar chart is shown for CPU and Memory metrics.

Utilisation thresholds (used in Rightsizing analysis):

• Idle — CPU < 5%
• Over-utilised — CPU > 80% or Memory > 85%
• Oversized — CPU < 30% and Memory < 40%

Rightsizing Tab

Recommendations to resize or remove resources based on utilisation data from AWS Compute Optimizer, Azure Advisor, and Realm9's own threshold-based analysis.

Each recommendation shows: resource name and region, resource type, current instance size, recommended size, recommendation source (AWS Compute Optimizer / Azure Advisor / Realm9), confidence level, CPU average, CPU max, memory average, estimated monthly savings, and performance risk score.

Filter recommendations by type (All / Idle / Oversized / Undersized).

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Custom Dashboards

Navigate to FinOps → Dashboards to build personalised views.

Creating a Dashboard

Create a blank dashboard or start from one of three built-in templates:

Widget Types

Ten widget types are available:

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Settings

Path: /settings/finops

The settings page shows a summary of all cloud connections, how many have FinOps enabled, and how many have tags configured.

Per-Connection Toggle

Enable or disable FinOps cost data collection for each cloud connection independently. Enabling a connection that has not been configured automatically opens the configuration dialog.

Cost Allocation Tags

For each enabled connection, configure which tag keys are used to slice costs in the Explorer. Realm9 supports up to 10 tag keys per connection. When you click Configure, available tags are fetched automatically from your cloud provider.

Permission Validation

If your cloud connection's IAM role is missing required permissions, the configuration dialog shows the missing permissions and remediation guidance. For AWS, the minimum required permissions are ce:GetCostAndUsage, ce:GetTags, and ce:ListCostAllocationTags.

Manual Sync

Trigger a manual cost data refresh from the FinOps Overview page using the Sync Cost Data button.

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Supported Providers

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Role-Based Access

FinOps data is restricted to Admin and Super Admin roles.

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Next Steps

• Connect Cloud Accounts
• Configure FinOps Settings
• View Audit Logs