Introducing ServiceNow Cloud Cost Management
Launched during our Q3 Store release on August 3, 2023, as part of the Vancouver ServiceNow Platform release.
ServiceNow® Cloud Cost Management, previously known as Cloud Insights, is the only enterprise-grade cloud cost management solution for FinOps teams. It offers a comprehensive approach to overseeing cloud usage and expenses across the enterprise. This integration of cloud resources with other tech assets allows categorization of spending by cost center, while also facilitating transparent showback and chargeback reporting. The solution further extends to budgeting recommendations and automated cost optimization tasks, enhancing FinOps process efficiency. Cloud Cost Management tackles significant enterprise-level challenges:
- Data: The complexity of normalizing tags across various service providers is no longer a major concern like with other FinOps solutions.
- Actions: Unlike most solutions that offer recommendations, this one integrates actions and remediation workflows seamlessly.
- Digital transformation: While many FinOps practices fall short in integrating with Procurement, Security Operations, Risk, and ITSM, this solution excels.
- Enterprise-level visibility: Your asset information, spanning cloud, software, and hardware, can be consolidated into an asset management executive dashboard – a feature that both you and your executives will appreciate.
Within the Vancouver release, three core capabilities stand out:
- Cloud Cost Management workspace
- Cloud storage and database optimization
- Guided experience
Cloud Cost Management workspace
Lack of visibility into specific cloud spend categories, particularly storage and databases, has hindered FinOps process maturity and showback/chargeback capabilities. To address these challenges, Cloud Cost Management optimizes major cloud spend areas with actionable FinOps recommendations. It targets top cloud infrastructure costs – cloud compute, storage, and databases – two of which are addressed in this release. The solution supports FinOps teams, Cloud architects, Cloud Center of Excellence teams, and the Office of the CTO by optimizing IaaS and PaaS cloud spend. The Cloud Cost Management workspace offers a comprehensive overview of your cloud infrastructure spending, including IaaS and PaaS, centralizing information on spend, optimization, budgeting, departmental usage, and accountability.
Cloud storage and database optimization
Similar to the challenges mentioned above, lack of visibility, automation, and optimization for storage and databases often hampers FinOps processes. The Cloud Cost Management solution optimizes these areas, providing actionable recommendations to reduce costs and improve accountability. It now covers all three top cloud infrastructure costs: cloud compute, storage, and databases.
Guided experience
Navigating through complex configurations and integrations can be daunting. This challenge is met with an admin center's guided experience within the Cloud Cost Management workspace. It expedites setup and optimization, offering step-by-step processes for plugin activation, integration configuration, and preference settings. Learning resources are also included to empower teams in effective cloud spend management. This admin center particularly benefits FinOps teams and asset managers, streamlining configurations and promoting confident cloud cost optimization.
A new way to license Cloud Cost Management
In terms of licensing, ServiceNow Cloud Cost Management is now available as its own SKU. It can be purchased separately, catering well to organizations with significant cloud presence. However, it's still part of the Software Asset Management Enterprise edition. For customers seeking both products, licensing Cloud Cost Management as part of the Software Asset Management Enterprise edition is the right way to go, which provides additional enhanced functionality.
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