See What a FinOps Sprint Delivers
This is an illustrative example of a completed FinOps Sprint deliverable — representative of the findings, savings breakdown, and guardrails we establish during a typical 14-day engagement. Actual results vary based on your cloud provider, account structure, and current spend level.
Numbers in this sample are representative, not from a specific client. No client data is disclosed.
Executive Summary
The 14-day sprint analyzed three AWS accounts covering compute, storage, network resources, and commitment purchases. Five cost finding categories were identified and remediated during the sprint window, with guardrails installed to prevent regression.
Illustrative sample only. These numbers are representative of findings we commonly encounter for organizations spending $10k–$30k/month on AWS. Your engagement will be scoped and sized to your specific environment.
Cost Findings (Sample)
Five categories of cloud waste were identified and addressed during the sprint. Each finding includes the root cause, estimated monthly savings, and the remediation action taken.
Over-Provisioned EC2 Instances
Compute
Fourteen EC2 instances running at under 15% average CPU utilization for 30+ consecutive days. Three production web servers were sized for peak-year traffic that never materialized.
Rightsize to the next smaller instance type for each workload. Schedule dev and test instances to shut down evenings and weekends using AWS Instance Scheduler.
Missing Savings Plans Coverage
Commitment Discounts
Stable baseline workloads — application servers and database instances that have run continuously for 18 months — are entirely on-demand. No Savings Plans or Reserved Instances in place.
Purchase 1-year Compute Savings Plans sized to the committed baseline. Model with the AWS Cost Explorer Savings Plans recommendations before committing.
Orphaned EBS Volumes and Snapshots
Storage
31 EBS volumes totaling 4.2 TB are not attached to any running instance. 200+ automated snapshots older than 90 days remain in the account with no documented retention policy.
Delete unattached volumes after confirming no active mount references. Implement a snapshot lifecycle policy: 7-day daily, 4-week weekly, 3-month monthly. Remove snapshots outside that window.
Unused Elastic IPs, Load Balancers, and NAT Gateways
Network Resources
Eight Elastic IP addresses with no associated instance. Two Application Load Balancers with zero target traffic for 60+ days. One NAT Gateway serving fewer than 500 MB/month — well below the break-even threshold for elimination.
Release unattached EIPs immediately (no data risk). Decommission the two idle ALBs after confirming no pending DNS references. Evaluate replacing the low-traffic NAT Gateway with a NAT instance.
S3 Storage Class Mismatches
Object Storage
Approximately 18 TB of objects in S3 Standard that have not been accessed in over 90 days — including application logs, CI/CD artifacts, and archived media — have no lifecycle policy applied.
Apply S3 Intelligent-Tiering to buckets with unpredictable access patterns. For predictably cold data (logs, archives), create lifecycle rules transitioning objects to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval after 90 days.
How the 14-Day Sprint Works
The sprint is structured to deliver tangible savings during the engagement, not just a list of recommendations. By the end of day 14 you have working guardrails, implemented changes, and a clear path forward.
Access and Baseline
Days 1–2
- Read-only access configured (no production changes during discovery)
- Cost and usage report (CUR) analysis to identify top cost drivers
- Establish monthly spend baseline per service and per team
Savings Implementation
Days 3–7
- Rightsizing and scheduling for identified idle resources
- Orphaned resource cleanup (volumes, snapshots, EIPs, unused LBs)
- Savings Plans / Reserved Instance analysis and commitment modeling
Guardrails and Controls
Days 8–12
- Budget alerts at 80% and 100% of monthly targets, per account and per team
- AWS Cost Anomaly Detection configured with alert thresholds
- Tagging policy documented and Tag Editor remediation applied
Handoff and Roadmap
Days 13–14
- Executive summary with realized savings and projected 12-month impact
- 90/180-day optimization roadmap prioritized by ROI and implementation effort
- Optional transition to monthly FinOps Management for sustained savings
Guardrails Installed
Savings without guardrails regress. By the end of the sprint, the following controls are operational so spend does not creep back.
Your Sprint Deliverables
Every FinOps Sprint produces the same core set of outputs — scoped to your environment and spend level.
Best fit: $5k–$100k/month cloud spend on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
Ready to see your numbers?
Book a 30-minute call to confirm fit, discuss your cloud environment, and scope the sprint. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you directly.