AWS Cloud Financial Management

We’re excited to engage with the FinOps community at FinOps X 2026 in San Diego, June 8-11. If you’re looking to spend quality time with the AWS team, here’s where you can find us: Monday June 8th The AWS Frugal Architect GameDay: Hands-on challenges for applying FinOps principles Bring your laptop and dive into a […]

Your AWS bill reveals more than spend patterns; it can identify security issues. The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) contains detailed usage data across your AWS Organization, enabling you to find cost optimization opportunities, allocate costs, and uncover potential security risks. In this post you’ll learn how you can use the AWS CUR to identify potential security issues in your environment. We share examples of potential risks, and the markers in the CUR […]

The latest Amazon Q cost capabilities are transforming how FinOps teams navigate cloud spend. By the time a FinOps team flags an expensive configuration, it may already be running in production. The fix can be more disruptive to deploy, the discussions can be more challenging, and the savings are often smaller than they could have been. […]

As you scale Generative AI usage with Amazon Bedrock, a common question emerges: “Which team, application, or user is driving the Bedrock spend?” Until now, answering that question required manual reconciliation correlating AWS CloudTrail logs with billing data to map API calls back to specific identities. That approach is time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to maintain at scale. AWS has announced AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) Principal-Based […]

Imagine it’s Monday morning and your CFO, engineering directors, and finance team all receive a comprehensive AWS cost report in their inbox, without anyone on your FinOps team lifting a finger. The report shows last week’s spending trends, Savings Plans utilization, and cost breakdowns by service, all formatted professionally and ready for review during the […]

We’re excited to announce AI-powered cost analysis in AWS Cost Explorer, powered by Amazon Q Developer. You can now click a suggested prompt or ask a question in your own words right from the Cost Explorer. Amazon Q delivers detailed insights while Cost Explorer automatically updates its charts, tables, and report parameters to reflect the […]

AWS Nitro Enclaves promise a new level of security for sensitive workloads, but running them at scale across multiple clients introduces a hidden challenge: how do you actually know who used what, and for how long? This post explores a surprisingly lightweight and affordable architecture that brings real visibility to Nitro Enclave usage, making accurate client billing finally possible.

A video hosting platform cut Amazon S3 costs by 70% by analyzing usage patterns and optimizing their architecture. They discovered that a tiny fraction of files were generating excessive retrieval costs in S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and moved them to S3 Intelligent-Tiering while improving CloudFront caching. These strategic changes reduced GET requests by 90% and delivered substantial six-figure annual savings.

CrowdStrike, a leader in cloud-delivered endpoint and workload protection, provides comprehensive security solutions to organizations worldwide. CrowdStrike’s implementation of a dedicated FinOps admin account demonstrates that organizations can achieve efficient cost management while limiting management/payer account access. Their approach provides a clear framework that other organizations can adapt for their own environments, particularly those operating at scale where both cost management complexity and security requirements are high.

With re:Invent 2025 behind us and over 60 launch announcements, here are five hidden gems that may have gone unnoticed but still have big cost impacts. While everyone was talking about the database savings plans and AI announcements, these quieter launches are already helping customers optimize their cloud spend in creative ways.