FINOPS CERTIFIED PRACTITIONER EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Prius effect - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅The effect of changed behavior as a result of making information
about a subject more visible and available.
Three parts of a successful FinOps practice - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Real time reporting + just-in-time
processes + teams working together = FinOps
Core principles of FinOps - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅1) Teams need to collaborate
2) Decisions are driven by the business value of the cloud
3) Everyone takes ownership of their cloud usage
4) FinOps reports should be accessible and timely
5) A centralized team drives FinOps
6) Take advantage of the variable cost model of the cloud
unit economics - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅measure cloud spend against a business metric (total revenue,
shipments made, paid subscribers, customer orders completed, etc.)
Chapter 1: What Is FinOps? conclusion - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- FinOps is about collaboration between
all teams inside an organization.
- Everyone has a part to play and should become cost-aware.
- The core principles of FinOps should be the foundation of all processes around cloud financial
management.
- Real-time reporting gauges your current spend and optimizations.
- Data-driven processes are key to an organization becoming cost-efficient.
- Business decisions can accelerate and match the rate of cloud resource decisions.
OSSM - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅on-demand
scalable
self-service
measurable
,Chapter 2: Why FinOps? conclusion - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- Cloud spend has -- or soon will have -- a
major effect on organization balance sheets.
- The procurement team no longer has control of the spending. In cloud this power has been pushed to
engineers.
- FinOps allows you to operate at the per-second speed of cloud rather than relying on traditional
monthly or quarterly spend reviews, which allows you to avoid unexpected costs.
Why a centralized team? - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- unbiased team shares objective best practices and
recommendations so won't push a specific agenda
- fosters agreement that the spend data is objectively attributed to the correct team
- defines what the organization uses as a business metric so everyone speaks the same language
Executive persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: VP/Head of Infrastructure, VP/Head of Cloud
Management and Operations, CTO, CIO
- focus on driving accountability and building transparency, ensuring teams are being efficient and not
exceeding budgets
- drivers of the cultural shift that helps engineers begin considering cost as an efficiency metric
FinOps practitioners persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: Cloud Cost Optimization Manager,
Cloud FinOps Analyst, Director of Cloud Optimization, Manager of Cloud Operations, Cloud Cost
Optimization Data Analyst
- understand different perspectives and have cross-functional awareness and expertise
- central team that drives best practices into the organization, provides cloud spend reporting at all the
needed levels, and acts as an interface between various areas of the business
Engineering and operations persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: Lead Software Engineer,
Principal Systems Engineer, Cloud Architect, Service Delivery Manager, Engineering Manager, Director of
Platform Engineering
, - focus on building and supporting services for the organization
- consider the efficient design and use of resources via activities such as rightsizing, allocating container
costs, finding unused storage and compute, and identifying whether spending anomalies are expected
rightsizing - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅the process of resizing cloud resources to better match the workload
requirements
Finance and procurement persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: Technology Procurement
Manager, Global Technology Procurement, Financial Planning and Analyst Manger, Financial Business
Advisor
- use the reporting provided by the FinOps team for accounting and forecasting
- work closely with practitioners to understand historic billing data so that they can build more accurate
cost models, use forecasts and expertise from the FinOps team to engage in rate negotiations with cloud
service providers
Engineer motivations - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- want to work on something meaningful and fun
- want to deliver software fast and reliably
- hate inefficiency and want efficient use of resources
- stay up to speed on the latest tech
- are measured by uptime
- want to deliver features, fix bugs, and improve performance
- would prefer not to worry about cost (but are responsible for incurring it)
Finance motivations - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- want to accurately forecast and predict spending
- want to be able to charge back and/or allocate 100% of spening
- seek to amortize costs appropriately to the teams responsible
- want to split out shared costs, like support and shared services
- want to control and reduce costs, but maintain quality/speed
- want to help executives inform cloud strategy
- want to be aware of budget risks
Prius effect - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅The effect of changed behavior as a result of making information
about a subject more visible and available.
Three parts of a successful FinOps practice - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Real time reporting + just-in-time
processes + teams working together = FinOps
Core principles of FinOps - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅1) Teams need to collaborate
2) Decisions are driven by the business value of the cloud
3) Everyone takes ownership of their cloud usage
4) FinOps reports should be accessible and timely
5) A centralized team drives FinOps
6) Take advantage of the variable cost model of the cloud
unit economics - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅measure cloud spend against a business metric (total revenue,
shipments made, paid subscribers, customer orders completed, etc.)
Chapter 1: What Is FinOps? conclusion - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- FinOps is about collaboration between
all teams inside an organization.
- Everyone has a part to play and should become cost-aware.
- The core principles of FinOps should be the foundation of all processes around cloud financial
management.
- Real-time reporting gauges your current spend and optimizations.
- Data-driven processes are key to an organization becoming cost-efficient.
- Business decisions can accelerate and match the rate of cloud resource decisions.
OSSM - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅on-demand
scalable
self-service
measurable
,Chapter 2: Why FinOps? conclusion - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- Cloud spend has -- or soon will have -- a
major effect on organization balance sheets.
- The procurement team no longer has control of the spending. In cloud this power has been pushed to
engineers.
- FinOps allows you to operate at the per-second speed of cloud rather than relying on traditional
monthly or quarterly spend reviews, which allows you to avoid unexpected costs.
Why a centralized team? - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- unbiased team shares objective best practices and
recommendations so won't push a specific agenda
- fosters agreement that the spend data is objectively attributed to the correct team
- defines what the organization uses as a business metric so everyone speaks the same language
Executive persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: VP/Head of Infrastructure, VP/Head of Cloud
Management and Operations, CTO, CIO
- focus on driving accountability and building transparency, ensuring teams are being efficient and not
exceeding budgets
- drivers of the cultural shift that helps engineers begin considering cost as an efficiency metric
FinOps practitioners persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: Cloud Cost Optimization Manager,
Cloud FinOps Analyst, Director of Cloud Optimization, Manager of Cloud Operations, Cloud Cost
Optimization Data Analyst
- understand different perspectives and have cross-functional awareness and expertise
- central team that drives best practices into the organization, provides cloud spend reporting at all the
needed levels, and acts as an interface between various areas of the business
Engineering and operations persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: Lead Software Engineer,
Principal Systems Engineer, Cloud Architect, Service Delivery Manager, Engineering Manager, Director of
Platform Engineering
, - focus on building and supporting services for the organization
- consider the efficient design and use of resources via activities such as rightsizing, allocating container
costs, finding unused storage and compute, and identifying whether spending anomalies are expected
rightsizing - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅the process of resizing cloud resources to better match the workload
requirements
Finance and procurement persona - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅examples: Technology Procurement
Manager, Global Technology Procurement, Financial Planning and Analyst Manger, Financial Business
Advisor
- use the reporting provided by the FinOps team for accounting and forecasting
- work closely with practitioners to understand historic billing data so that they can build more accurate
cost models, use forecasts and expertise from the FinOps team to engage in rate negotiations with cloud
service providers
Engineer motivations - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- want to work on something meaningful and fun
- want to deliver software fast and reliably
- hate inefficiency and want efficient use of resources
- stay up to speed on the latest tech
- are measured by uptime
- want to deliver features, fix bugs, and improve performance
- would prefer not to worry about cost (but are responsible for incurring it)
Finance motivations - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅- want to accurately forecast and predict spending
- want to be able to charge back and/or allocate 100% of spening
- seek to amortize costs appropriately to the teams responsible
- want to split out shared costs, like support and shared services
- want to control and reduce costs, but maintain quality/speed
- want to help executives inform cloud strategy
- want to be aware of budget risks
