What is the future of the FinOps Hub Toolkit?

[ptoulouse]

Since Microsoft reorg this summer, I don't see progress in this repository.

Looking at the past releases, releases were happening every 4 to 6 weeks. There is no release since July. Last merged pull request dates back to 2 months ago.

What are the plans? I was considering deploying the FinOps Hub, but I currently have a feeling that it will be the equivalent of forking it and managing it on my own.

I placed the same question with my Microsoft Account Team that was promoting the FinOps Hub, but did not hear back from them yet.

[francesco1119]

Salut Pierre,
I deployed the FinOps Toolkit last week and I have the same feeling.

As long as the daily data gets ingested and I can connect my Power BI to the ADX I can keep going.
If everything dies at least that will be stable for the years to come.

Sad that Microsoft won't give much love to this product. But in the end, FinOps, doesn't really improve their incomes :/

[flanakin]

Well, fwiw, I would argue (as I always have) that FinOps does improve Microsoft's bottom line. We even did research that proved that. But there are execs who don't believe the data and chose a different direction. It's unfortunate for sure.

My hope when I started the project was to build a foundation that would grow into a full product. Fwiw, I still think that's possible. The current state isn't sustainable for Microsoft. There's a point where leadership will realize the mistake and will look for an answer. We'll still be here. Still strong, still moving forward; however slowly it may be after losing over 90% of our core contributors.

I would push a different perspective: If you're interested in things progressing, I challenge you to be part of it. If you see an issue or something that could be improved, how can you help? That's the way this community will thrive. That's how it's always thrived. We will never be successful with a single person sitting behind it. It's never been that way. We've always been a community. We always will. Even with the ups and downs. Join us. Let's see what we can do together 🙂

[francesco1119]

I agree, having unhappy customers will bite back.
If the monthly bill is inflated by a 20, 30 or 50% because resources are overprovisioned... this can drive C-suite mad.
And those guys take decision to move away from Azure.

[flanakin]

We've had progress, but it has definitely slowed down. The v13 release is actually ready to go. I got wrapped up in another project that I'm hoping will allow me to do more and accelerate progress here. While leaving Microsoft has had a big impact on how much time I can spend on the FinOps toolkit, it hasn't minimized any desire or intent. A few examples:

1. I've been working with @MSBrett to see if we can build a portal extension, which would allow us to provide a much better experience when deploying, managing, and especially troubleshooting issues. But that's just one thing.

2. @MSBrett is working on some AI platform capabilities that should also amplify what we're doing in the FinOps toolkit. That's in a separate repo, which is why you're just not seeing it here.

3. @helderpinto started working on ingesting Azure Resource Graph data. Since the org changes, he hasn't had as much time, either. This was actually one of the next things I was gonig to do before I got tied up. I'm hoping to finish that project in December. Or at least make enough progress to help drive this ARG data integration feature home.

I have a long list of things I want to do and am meeting with other contributors a few times every week. But I suppose my question for you is: What are you missing? Is there something you want to see happening?

[francesco1119]

I can help out. I will flag what I see and I will eventually help in my spare time

[flanakin]

That woudl be awesome! Every little bit helps.