AITGS Case Study

Reducing Federal Azure Spend with FinOps

What is FinOps?

The FinOps framework provides a structured approach to optimizing cloud financial management by guiding organizations through a progressive maturity model. Using the “crawl, walk, run” methodology, it encourages teams to start with foundational, achievable actions and gradually advance toward more complex, strategic initiatives as capabilities mature. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used throughout each phase to track progress and measure the impact of FinOps adoption.
FinOps framework

THE CHALLENGE

Years of evolution in cloud technology and a patchwork of contracted service providers left a federal agency burdened by waste. Such waste included virtual machines (VMs) that had been deallocated but never removed, legacy remnants from a required disk conversion continued to consume storage, and key Azure configurations were improperly set. Despite the presence of Microsoft’s Azure Advisor tool, these hidden inefficiencies went undetected.

The kicker – this issue is common in the federal sector due to limited accountability for routine cloud cleanup.

THE SOLUTION

As part of its cloud services engagement with the agency, Arctic IT Government Solutions (AITGS) proposed a comprehensive review of the agency’s Azure cloud spending to uncover potential areas for significant cost savings. The agency agreed to the initiative, emphasizing a collaborative approach for maximizing value from their cloud investment.

By applying the FinOps model, beginning with the crawl phase, the AITGS team was able to:

  • Uncover and deactivate agency accounts that had gone unused for seven years
  • Clean up deallocated VMs to save on storage
  • Remove remnants from a disk conversion to free up substantial disk space
  • Adjust the backup settings from 180 days of full backups down to the 30 days needed
Azure data flow

THE RESULTS

In a collaborative effort, AITGS was able to save the agency an annualized Azure cost reduction of 29.2% – a combination of cost avoidance and rate optimization. Guided by the FinOps framework, the team focused on identifying and eliminating the highest-impact sources of cloud waste, effectively reallocating those funds to support future storage requirements and account growth. These savings have empowered the agency to redirect resources toward more strategic, mission-aligned initiatives prioritized by government leadership.

Ongoing monthly reports from AITGS continue to reveal new cost-saving opportunities as the agency’s cloud environment evolves and matures through the FinOps process.

AITGS eagle mascot

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