How to Streamline Multicloud Cost Reporting with Microsoft FinOps Hubs and FOCUS 0 Standard

Unlock the power of Microsoft FinOps hubs to streamline multicloud cost reporting by integrating Azure and Google Cloud billing data. This guide walks you through setting up Google Cloud exports, transforming data with Azure Data Factory, and leveraging the FOCUS 0 standard for unified, actionable cloud cost insights. Unique :

Getting Started with FinOps Hubs: Multicloud Cost Reporting Made Easy

Managing cloud costs across multiple providers just got simpler with Microsoft’s FinOps hubs. Built on Azure Data Explorer (ADX) and Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS), these hubs unify billing data from Azure and Google Cloud using the FOCUS datasets. This means you can analyze your multicloud expenses in one place, saving time and improving decision-making.

What’s New: Multicloud Reporting with FinOps Hubs

Microsoft recently introduced a hands-on way to connect FinOps hubs with Google Cloud billing data. This integration lets you export, normalize, and analyze Google Cloud costs alongside Azure billing data within the same FinOps hub instance. The key? The FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) standard, which normalizes billing data for seamless side-by-side analysis.

“FOCUS enables side-by-side views of cost and usage data—such as compute hours across cloud providers—helping organizations make better decisions.”

Before FOCUS, comparing cloud costs across providers was a nightmare due to inconsistent data models. Now, with FOCUS 0, you get a single-pane-of-glass experience that’s scalable and actionable.

Major Updates: Step-by-Step Technical Walkthrough

This walkthrough requires access to both Azure and Google Cloud, plus about 2-3 hours to set up. You’ll configure Google billing exports, create BigQuery views, and build an Azure Data Factory pipeline to ingest and transform data.

Enable detailed billing and pricing exports in Google Cloud.
Create BigQuery tables for service category mapping and export metadata.
Build a FOCUS-aligned SQL view to normalize billing data.
Deploy Google Cloud Functions and Cloud Scheduler for incremental data exports.
Set up Azure Data Factory to fetch CSV exports, convert them to Parquet, and ingest into FinOps hubs.

“This enables daily cost and usage data to be streamed to BigQuery for granular analysis.”

What You Need to Know Before You Start

Make sure you have the right permissions and APIs enabled on Google Cloud. This includes roles like billing.viewer, bigquery.dataEditor, and cloudfunctions.admin. Also, prepare a Google Cloud project linked to your billing account with BigQuery, Cloud Functions, and Storage enabled.

On the Azure side, ensure your FinOps hub is already deployed and ready to receive data. The process focuses on using storage in the hub for data access, but for large datasets, consider using Azure Data Explorer or Microsoft Fabric for better performance.

Why This Matters for Cloud Cost Management

Multicloud environments are growing, and controlling costs across providers is critical. FinOps hubs, powered by FOCUS, offer a standardized, scalable approach to unify cost data. This helps teams optimize workload placement, right-size resources, and ultimately save money.

Ready to take control of your multicloud costs? Microsoft’s FinOps hubs and the FOCUS standard provide the tools you need to get started quickly and efficiently.

FinOps hubs unify billing data across Azure and Google Cloud using scalable storage and ADX.

FOCUS 0 standard simplifies multicloud cost normalization and side-by-side usage analysis.

Setup includes creating BigQuery views, metadata tables, and Google Cloud Functions for incremental exports.

Azure Data Factory pipelines convert Google Cloud billing exports to parquet format for ingestion.

Prerequisites include enabling detailed billing exports, configuring IAM roles, and linking billing accounts.

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