Becoming a FinOps Certified Practitioner
I recently became a FinOps Certified Practitioner and wanted to write about my experience.
What is FinOps?
In simple terms, FinOps is a discipline and a set of cultural best practices designed to help companies get the most value out of their Public Cloud. FinOps does this by breaking down the silos between engineering, finance, and business teams. FinOps is not just about saving as much money as possible. FinOps is about achieving maximum business value by using data-driven decisions to optimize and take advantage of the variable cost model of the cloud.
If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into the details of FinOps, I highly recommend checking out the FinOps Foundation. In fact, if you are interested in taking on the FinOps Certified Practitioner exam, you will be spending a great deal of time reading through their documentation.
Who should become a Certified FinOps Practitioner?
Everyone. Whether your company is thinking about adopting the Public Cloud or already using it, establishing a FinOps culture is crucial.
How do I get started?
The FinOps Foundation provides two different courses to choose from; virtual led or self-paced. I opted for the self-pace. When I signed up for the self-paced course, I was able to gain access to the modules tied to the course. Please be aware, once you gain access to the course, you will only have 12 months of access to the course materials.
What can I expect?
The FinOps Certified Practitioner took me around 2 weeks complete. In theory, once you complete all the modules within the course, you will be able to take the exam. While I think it is possible to pass the test in a week, I would recommend taking the time to; digest the modules, read the FinOps Foundation documentation, and read the Cloud FinOps book (an updated copy is expected to release in 2023). The FinOps book is not required to pass the certificate and, in some cases, may be out-of-date. However, I enjoyed how it was able to tie everything together. There is also no audio version of the book currently.
Do not expect to find any sort of study guide or practice exams. Instead, you will get 2 reties if you do not achieve a passing grade of 75% the first time.
The exam itself it non-proctored and you will have 1 hour to answer 50 multiple choice questions. Once you pass, the certification is good for 24 months.
Overall, I would anticipate the certificate to take about a month or two to complete.
What’s next?
I would highly recommend checking the FinOps Getting Started page. Once you pass your certificate, you can apply to become a FinOps Foundation member and join a community who enjoys collaboration on all things FinOps. There are also many other FinOps certifications that you can pursue!
Most importantly, use the knowledge gained to help get the most value out of your Public Cloud! Remember, everyone has an obligation to optimize cloud spend.
