Operations and reliability
FinOps and AI costs
Allocation of cloud and AI spend, budgets, alerts and reviews of models and tokens.
Fictional scenario. An example situation that illustrates the approach. It is not a client project and describes no measured results.
Business problem
A fictional company sees growing cloud and AI API bills but does not know which team and feature cause them.
Assumptions
- Billing data is accessible.
- Resources can be tagged.
- AI requests go through a shared layer.
Constraints
- No savings forecasts.
- Budgets have owners.
- Production is never blocked without a decision.
Reference architecture
Components by stage — an illustration, not a running system and not a certified design.
01Data
- Billing export
- Token usage
02Allocation
- Tags
- Shared-cost rules
03Control
- Budgets
- Alerts
- Quotas
04Optimisation
- Model choice
- Caching
- Commitments
The diagram as a list
| Stage | Components |
|---|---|
| Data | Billing export, Token usage |
| Allocation | Tags, Shared-cost rules |
| Control | Budgets, Alerts, Quotas |
| Optimisation | Model choice, Caching, Commitments |
Interfaces
| From | To | Via |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud | Cost store | Export |
| AI gateway | Counters | Request metadata |
| Budgets | Owners | Alerts |
Data flow
- Costs are collected daily.
- They are allocated by tags and rules.
- AI usage is counted per feature.
- Budgets are compared with thresholds.
- Reviews propose actions.
Security boundaries
- Read-only billing data.
- No request content in counters.
- Review roles per department.
Where a person approves
- Buying commitments.
- Changing the production model.
Delivery phases
01 · Visibility
Tags and allocation.
02 · Control
Budgets and alerts.
03 · Optimisation
Models, caching, commitments.
04 · Culture
Regular reviews with the teams.
Limitations
- Provider prices change.
- Shared costs are approximate.
Trade-offs
- A cheaper model — lower cost, possibly lower quality.
- Commitments — discount vs flexibility.
Related services
Related assessments
Integration patterns used
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