Cloud Computing · intermediate

Multi-Cloud FinOps & Cost Optimization Dashboard

A dashboard that aggregates billing data from AWS and Azure, identifies "zombie" resources, and visualizes potential savings.

Project overview

With cloud budgets tightening, demonstrating immediate ROI through cost optimization is a highly sought-after skill.

Real-world use case

A mid-sized SaaS company struggling with "cloud sprawl" and looking to implement formal FinOps practices.

Tools and technologies

Skills you can demonstrate

FinOps, IaC, Multi-cloud API, Data Viz

Build roadmap

  1. Set up billing access
    In AWS: enable Cost Explorer API. In Azure: create a service principal with billing reader. Store creds in secrets manager.
  2. Build the data fetcher
    Python script that pulls daily cost data from both clouds, normalizes the schema, and loads to PostgreSQL.
  3. Identify zombie resources
    Unattached EBS volumes, idle EC2s, unused Elastic IPs, stopped RDS with storage. Write detection queries for each.
  4. Calculate savings opportunities
    For each zombie, estimate monthly savings. For running resources, check if Reserved Instances would save money.
  5. Build the Grafana dashboard
    Multi-cloud cost trend, top 10 most expensive services, zombie list with "Total Savings Found" counter.
  6. Generate the weekly PDF report
    Use a scheduled Lambda that pulls data, asks Claude to write an executive summary, and emails the PDF to stakeholders.

Ways to extend the project

Use an AI agent to automatically generate a "Cost Optimization Report" in PDF every week, suggesting specific Reserved Instance purchases.

How to showcase your work

Open this project in BuildersBenchBrowse Cloud Computing projects