The FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS™) is an open-source technical specification for cloud billing data that defines clear requirements for cloud vendors to produce uniform cost and usage datasets.
The FOCUS Project kicked off in 2023 with the goal of establishing a common format and terminology for billing datasets that were produced by cloud vendors. FOCUS 1.0 gave FinOps Practitioners the ability to merge billing data from multiple Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) without applying proprietary normalization schemas.
The latest release – Version 1.1 – was ratified by the FOCUS Steering Committee on November 7, 2024. This version adds new Columns that deepen support for billing data generated by cloud service providers, giving FinOps Practitioners the ability to do more granular multi-cloud analysis on that multi-cloud data. This release also improves metadata to better support Extract Transform Load (ETL) processes, and includes normative changes for some existing FOCUS Columns.
Adoption of the Specification
Billing data generators can now begin updating their offerings to align with version 1.1. Practitioners should expect that adoption of the Specification will happen at a different pace for each vendor.
Practitioner Adoption
With the launch of FOCUS 1.0 in June 2024, FinOps Practitioners can get their own cloud billing data in the FOCUS format from four of the largest Cloud Service Providers. That milestone marked the first time that Practitioners could merge billing data from these sources without applying any proprietary normalization schemas. Practitioners are beginning to use these uniform datasets to uncover insights that inform decision-making when performing FinOps Capabilities.
Vendor Adoption
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) have released support for FOCUS datasets.
FinOps tool vendors and FinOps service providers are also adopting the requirements of the Specification and its terminology for their offerings. Current tooling capabilities typically include the ability to ingest FOCUS datasets and/or report using FOCUS attributes and metrics.
Release Planning and Roadmap
The FOCUS Steering Committee and Maintainers are now engaging in roadmap development and release planning.
Vendors and Practitioners can expect incremental releases over the next several years as the Specification is expanded to provide the data elements necessary to perform additional FinOps Capabilities and integrate additional types of IT spending.
