What's new in 2024
CFP Supported within Individual MSP and End Customer Environments – December 12, 2024
Today, we launched Cloud Financial Planning (or Plans) for both MSPs and their end customers of all pricing types. Now, these organization types can create independent plans containing generated forecasts based upon analysis of prior spending patterns and adjust by adding new spend items and changes. Please note that plans do not span across environments (or between end customers and MSPs) but are contained to the environment in which they are created.
Before this release, neither MSP providers nor their end customers had the benefit of cloud financial planning available to them in their Cloudability applications. They did not have access to the driver-based forecasting, sharing, and collaboration functionality that Cloud Financial Planning offers customers looking to create actionable, defensible plans for future cloud deployments.
More information about this release
As cloud service usage grows, so does the struggle to accurately forecast and budget for cloud costs. Relying solely on past trends when forecasting oversimplifies the process and doesn’t account for planned new spend or changing business activity. Cross-functional collaboration efforts often depend on spreadsheet-based, manual processes that are error-prone and inaccurate. IBM Cloudability Financial Planning helps users break free from the spreadsheet and accurately forecast future cloud spend.
Cloudability MSP Tag/ True Cost Explorer support for Re-rated End Customers – November 27, 2024
Today we launched Tag Explorer and True Cost Explorer features for all re-rated end customers of Cloudability MSP . Now, re-rated end customers can explore their MSP-output billing data as well as analyze their Tagged/ Untagged spend with the same visually intuitive toolset already available to MSPs and raw cost end customers.
Before this release, MSP Providers and raw cost end customers had the benefit of Tag and True Cost Explorer features available to them in their Cloudability applications, Re-rated end customers did not. They or their managed service provider consultant would have to expend manual effort and time to create such Cloudability / Apptio BI reports without the powerful OOTB visualization and filtering options available in True Cost and Tag Explorer .
More information about this release
Re-rated end customers of MSPs have the same tagging and cost analysis needs as other organizations (even though they may not have access to all the same raw cost metrics). Now, they too can quickly see which tags their organization is currently using inclusive of any variations in spelling, capitalization, spacing, etc. Additionally, they can identify their highest cost drivers based on public list cost or their MSP-set costs.
True Cost Explorer
The True Cost Explorer provides an intuitive way for users to explore cloud billing data and answer questions about cost drivers. It helps them analyze spend comprehensively for optimization. It allows users to filter costs by dimensions like Usage Family, Operation, and Service, offering detailed insights into cost drivers. This enables pattern identification and actionable analysis for better cloud cost management.
Tag Explorer
Tag Explorer provides a view of coverage for all an organization’s tags and accounts groups. It also helps users see which tags their organization is currently using. Tag explorer supports AWS, GCP and Azure. Coverage for OCI, IBM Cloud and a few SaaS vendors will be extended in the future.
Removed Line Items have Charge of Zero in Cloudability MSP Reporting – November 27, 2024
Today we launched an update for how charge behaves when MSPs remove line items (or when msp_expose_to_end_customer is set to false). Starting today, removed line items will populate with a 0$ Charge metric in all MSP data. This includes Apptio BI reporting and the MSP Billing Cloud Spend API. Because the MSP’s Charge metric corresponds to the cost ( Total ) that end customers see in their own reporting (though this can be customized for raw cost end customers), removed line items should logically have a charge of 0. This means that these line items can be included in MSP margin analysis reports and properly count towards MSP margin, or charge - cost.
Before this release, MSP users who consider removed line items, which are often credits, a part of their margin could not perform holistic margin analysis across their entire customer portfolio in Apptio BI. This is because charge would often equal some non-zero cost value by default. Now, these MSPs can create such comprehensive reports using Apptio_BI (or by pulling data from our API).
Please note that this will have no impact on the end customer experience; they will continue not to see these line items at all.
Apptio_BI - Margin Calculation
Margin analysis reports can be created using the Apptio_BI Cloudability MSP Data Source.
To create Margin Analysis reports using Apptio_BI , follow the steps:
- Navigate to Apptio_BI .
- Start a new report and add a visualization.
- Select the Cloudability MSP data source.
- Under metrics, select + Calculated Metric .
- Select Compare two metrics .
- In the Target Metric field, select MSP > Charge and in the Metric field, select the cost metric that represents your true cost. Also input a name (like Margin) and display format.
- Add all other desired Apptio_BI inputs ( like view, dimensions, other metrics and filters).
- Save your Visualization.
Cloudability MSP Current Month, Forecast, and Budgets for Rerated End Customers – September 23, 2024
Today we launched Current Month , Forecast , and Budgets features for all rerated end customers of Cloudability MSP . Now, rerated end customers can establish team budgets and accurately forecast and track their cloud spend based on public list cost or their Cloudability MSP -set costs.
Before this release, MSP Providers and Raw Cost end customers had the benefit of Current Month , Forecast , and Budgets available to them in their Cloudability applications. However, rerated end customers had to track their budgets against spend over time outside of Cloudability (potentially without their MSP-set pricing reflecting under tracking) diminishing the single-pane value of the application and creating more manual effort for their teams.
More information about this release
Rerated end customers of MSPs have the same budgeting and forecasting needs as other organizations. Now, they can create forecasts based on historical spending patterns and use forecasts to create budgets. They can also proactively monitor and be notified of spending related to budgets based on public list cost or MSP-set costs.
Cloudability MSP - Set Price Book as Default– September 23, 2024
It is now possible to set any of the existing price books as default by selecting the “ Set as Default ” button, which can be found in the Actions menu (this setting can only apply to one price book at any given time).
This action will override any pre-existing default settings. Previously, it was only possible to mark a price book as default during the set up flow. Now users no longer need to create a price book from scratch to set it as default.
Instructions/ Steps
- In Cloudability MSP 's Billing app, choose the Pricing section from the side menu.
- Click on the three dots in the Actions column next to the Price Book you wish to edit and choose Set as Default .
Cloudability MSP in APAC - September 16, 2024
This release marks the availability of Cloudability MSP hosting in the APAC region. Starting today, the components comprising Cloudability MSP ( Cloudability, the Org Structure Service, MSP Billing, and platform features) can be hosted in a regionalized instance. This release will ensure that data for APAC based MSPs and their end customers stays within those regions. By localizing our services, we aim to empower organizations to bolster their compliance efforts and align with the guidelines regarding cloud cost management data.
More information about this release
Apptio already operates within the data compliance for its customers and takes all reasonable steps given the context of the engagement in which data is provided to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, interference, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Read more on Apptio’s privacy policy .
Hosting Cloudability MSP in the APAC region holds great significance for Managed Service Providers and their customers who operate within this region. This release provides a reliable and compliant MSP tooling solution that prioritizes data residency, enhances data privacy, and aligns with data protection guidelines.
Resource Inventory Support for Cloudability MSP – September 12, 2024
Today we launched Resource Inventory support for Cloudability MSP customers. Starting today, MSP customers can leverage the capabilities of Resource Inventory which they previously did not have access to; They can combine cost, util and describer data as well as track new resources created, resources removed, and idle resources.
More information about this release
Resource Inventory allows customers to get an authoritative list of cloud resources pertaining to cost data, util data and describer data in a single glass pane view. This feature gives insights into the complete cloud inventory for 5 AWS services (EC2, EBS, RDS, S3 and Redshift) and 3 Azure services (Compute, Managed Disks and Databases).
Cloudability MSP in EU – September 11, 2024
This release marks the availability of Cloudability MSP hosting in the EU region. Starting today, all its components comprising of Cloudability , the Org Structure Service, MSP Billing, and platform features can be hosted in a regionalized instance.
This strategic move is in response to EU Managed Service Provider (MSP) asks for data regionalization. This release will ensure that data for EU based MSPs and their end customers stays within those regions. By localizing our services, we aim to empower organizations to bolster their compliance efforts and align with the guidelines regarding cloud cost management data.
Apptio already operates within the data compliance for its customers and takes all reasonable steps given the context of the engagement in which data is provided to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, interference, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Read more on Apptio’s privacy policy.
More Information about the release
Hosting Cloudability MSP in the EU region holds great significance for Managed Service Providers and their customers who operate within those regions. The MSP need for data regionalization is driven not only by compliance laws (e.g., GDPR compliance) but also by the contracts they sign with their potentially hundreds of end customers which limit how and where end customer data can be stored. This release provides a reliable and compliant MSP tooling solution that prioritizes data residency, enhances data privacy, and aligns with data protection guidelines.
Cloudability MSP - Rename Price Book - August 29, 2024
Today we launched the possibility to rename Price Books created in Cloudability MSP’s Billing app’s Pricing section.
Users can now easily change the name of the Price Book by selecting the “ Rename Price Book ” button from the Actions menu. This means that any updates to the name can be applied without the need to create a new Price Book from scratch.
Steps to rename a Pricing Book
- In Cloudability MSP’s Billing app, choose the Pricing section from the side menu.
- Click on the three dots in the “ Actions ” column next to the Price Book you wish to edit.
- Edit the name as needed and click on the “ Save ” button in the bottom right corner.
Cloudability MSP - Operator “not exists” available in Pricing Rule Builder – August 8, 2024
Starting today, the operator “not exists” is available in the Pricing Rule Builder in Cloudability MSP’s billing service. It will map match expressions where the value for the selected dimension is null (or empty) allowing MSPs to build more granular and accurate pricing rules.
As an adjacent improvement, we have also updated the UI for operators to create a more cohesive user experience within the pricing rule builder.
Cloudability MSP - Fallback metric for re-rated end customers – July 1, 2024
Today, the default fallback metric for re-rated MSP end customers has been set to Cost ( List ). This change means that for any cost line items not covered by the pricing rules defined by the MSP, Cost (List) will be passed through as Charge .
As part of this update, two new Apptio BI dimensions are available to Cloudability MSP users in the Cloudability MSP data source: Price Book Name and Pricing Rule Name . These additional Apptio BI measures will allow MSP users to check which price book and pricing rule was applied, easily verify if there are line items that were not matched by any of the rules, and take appropriate steps if this behavior is not intentional.
Cloudability MSP - Operator "exists" available in Pricing Rule Builder – July 1, 2024
Today, we introduced the operator “exists” in the Pricing Rule Builder in Cloudability MSP's Billing service.
the value for the selected dimension is not null (or empty). This update will allow MSPs to build more granular and accurate pricing rules.
Cloudability MSP - OCI Support for end customers – June 26, 2024
Today, we launched OCI support for end customers of Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Starting today, end customer users who have OCI spend can get the benefit of using it in their own Cloudability environments. MSPs can assign OCI accounts or subaccounts (tenancies) to customers and re-rate or remove line items just like they would from other cloud vendors.
Before this release, MSPs could perform Cloud Cost Management and Optimization (CCMO) with OCI in their own environments, but they could not pass OCI spend through to their end customers. Now, they will be able to assign OCI accounts to end customers just like those of other vendors. This means OCI will have parity with other vendors across MSP features (MSP Billing, Org Structure Service, Apptio BI).
OCI in Org Structure Service
Just like AWS, Azure, and GCP accounts could be assigned to MSP customers, now OCI accounts can also be assigned. Assignment is still done at the billing account and sub-account level which means that OCI tenancies must be assigned to customers.
These steps assume OCI accounts have been credentialed and the msp_org_structure_key settings updated (if necessary).
To assign OCI in Org Structure Service, follow the steps:
- Select a customer unit in the Org Structure Service.
- In the properties section, search for “OCI_” + the account/ tenancy id you would like to assign.
- Repeat until all customer accounts are added.
These actions can also be taken via the API .
OCI in MSP Billing
Similarly, pricing rules within a price book can now start matching against OCI values.
Pricing settings can also be updated in bulk using the MSP Billing Pricing API .
Cloudability MSP - Commitment Features for Raw Cost End Customers on Consolidated Accounts – June 17, 2024
Today we launched commitment feature support for raw cost end customers of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who have subaccounts (such as linked accounts, projects, subscriptions) under an MSP-owned consolidated billing account. Raw cost end customers, or those who do not have their prices modified by MSPs, will now get access to Reservation Portfolio, Savings Plans, Reserved Instance Planner, and Commitment Manager in their Cloudability environment to self-serve commitment reporting and recommendations and deepen their FinOps practices.
Before this release, raw cost end customers on consolidated payers had to rely on their MSP to manage and optimize their commitment-based spend. Even if such an end customer had additional dedicated billing accounts (e.g., all spend in another account belonged to them), assignment of a single consolidated payer subaccount would have prevented them from using Cloudability commitment features.
This release does not impact re-rated end customers (or those who already have MSP pricing rules applied to their costs).
More Information about the release
Reservation Portfolio, Savings Plans, Reserved Instance Planner, and Commitment Manager are now available in all raw cost end customer Cloudability environments. These will be enabled automatically, there is no additional action to be taken.
Cloudability MSP- Ability to credential multiple exports on the same billing account for Azure – June 6, 2024
Today we launched the ability for Cloudability Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who are direct Microsoft partners to credential multiple Microsoft Partner Agreements (MPA, often used interchangeably with CSP) exports within the same billing account. Starting today, users can ingest spend for a specified subset of their Azure MPA billing account rather than all subscriptions. This means that instead of the previous “all-or-none” approach to account credentialing, Cloudability MSPs now have the option to bring in as many exports as they would like under one billing account.
Before this release, users who wanted to ingest Azure MPA data had to bring in all the spend under their billing account. This could be cost prohibitive if some end customers of Cloudability MSPs did not want to pay their MSP for Cloud Cost Management and Optimization tooling (making their MSP shoulder the entire cost). Additionally, some customer contracts or laws like the GDPR prohibit moving of end customer data without explicit consent.
More Information about the release
Previously, MSPs could only credential and ingest all spend in their Azure MPA account. Whether to avoid incurring costs that would negate the business benefit of Cloudability MSP or due to legal/ contract restrictions in their ability to ingest all end customer data, which was a deal breaker for many MSPs. Now, any such MSPs who previously could not use Cloudability MSP for this reason can reap the benefits of the product.
- In Cloudability MSP, navigate to Settings > Vendor Credentials > Azure .
- Select Add a Credential > Microsoft Partner Agreement (MPA) .
- Enter the information gathered from your Azure portal into the corresponding fields.
- On the directories, enter multiple directories (if applicable). Note:
In case you have configured an export for each of your customers, then you can add the individual directory for each customer. However, please ensure that the Cost export name and Amortized Cost export name is same in all directories.
It is recommended to use the same name for the directory as well as the customer for easier identification.
- Select Generate Setup Script to download the new script file.
- Select Close . You can return to verify the changes later.
- To add a new directory to an existing billing account for the same Tenant
ID
, Subscription ID ,
Resource Group Name
and Storage Account Name
,
Add the directory > Save >
Verify Credentials .
Or,
To add a new billing account or an update to either Tenant ID , Subscription id , Resource Group Name , or Storage Account Name , generate a new setup script and re-credential.
Cloudability MSP - Pricing UX improvements: Search functionality – June 3, 2024
Today we launched UX improvements in the Billing app of Cloudability MSP . MSP users can now easily search the lists of created price books and end customers assigned to them. Additionally, the lists of price books and customers are now sorted alphabetically, rather than by date of creation (in case of price books), or date of assignment to price book (in case of customers).
Before this release, users who wanted to find any price book or look up customers with assigned price books had to manually review the full list. This was particularly cumbersome for MSPs with high volume of end customers and/ or price books to search through multiple pages to locate the required item.
More Information about the release
- Log in to Cloudability MSP.
- Open the Billing app and navigate to the Price Books tab or Customers tab in the Pricing section.
- Start typing in the search field. On the Price Books tab, you can search for price books. On the Customers tab, you can search for customers or assigned price books.
- The results will be dynamically updated based on input.
Cloudability MSP - Populate Charge metric for non-rerated end customers - April 30, 2024
Today we launched a feature that will populate the Charge Metric for non-rerated Cloudability MSP end customers. Starting today, MSP users can easily create holistic Apptio BI reports (e.g. margin analysis) for their entire portfolio (i.e. both rerated and non-rerated end customers). The Charge metric, available as one of the dimensions in Apptio_BI, will be populated with the Cost (Total) metric by default for all of the MSP’s non-rerated end customers. Additionally, MSPs will also have the option to change this setting via the Settings page, located in Cloudability MSP’s Billing app.
Before this release, users who wanted to generate reports for their end customer portfolio had to create them separately for the rerated and non-rerated end customers, and aggregate the data manually to produce a comprehensive overview.
More Information about the release
- Log in to Cloudability MSP .
- Open the Billing app and navigate to the Settings page, available in the side menu to the right.
- Choose the cost metric you wish to apply as the Charge Metric for all non-rerated end customers.
- The newly chosen metric will be applied as the Charge Metric .
Cloudability MSP Pricing enhancement - Duplicate Price Books – April 2, 2024
Today we have launched a new feature in the Billing app of Cloudability MSP. This feature will enable MSPs to duplicate their existing price books with ease.
By copying a created price book, all the relevant details such as pricing rules will also be copied, which will save time and reduce the chance of manual errors. With this improvement, MSP users will have an enhanced experience, making it quicker and easier to set up and edit custom price books.
How this feature can help you
Before this release, users had to manually create each price book. This was a time-consuming and error-prone process for complex price books for many customers.
Cloudability MSP GA Ready – February 26, 2024
Today, we are thrilled to announce the Product General Availability Readiness of Cloudability MSP which will extend the market leading capabilities of Cloudability to Managed Service Providers (MSPs), a market forecast to reach $130.4 billion in 2027 by Gartner . MSPs get single-pane-of-glass visibility across all their managed spend and are now able to leverage Cloudability’s detailed insights to increase discount coverage and improve margins. They can uplift or discount the cloud spend they manage on their customer’s behalf, reflecting contractual pricing agreements and helping streamline billing processes. It’s straightforward for MSPs to provision individual Cloudability environments for each customer, providing their customers direct access to the leading FinOps tool and helping scale their FinOps services.
How this feature can help you
Many organizations choose to procure public cloud through an MSP rather than have a direct billing relationship with cloud vendors. The benefits of this include being able to leverage existing MSAs, local-currency invoicing and more discounting due to the scale the MSP achieves by aggregating customers. Based on this arrangement, MSPs invoice each customer monthly for their cloud usage. Before this release, calculating these monthly invoices was complex due to the need to apply agreed markups to the base charges and because multiple customers are often consolidated in a single bill by the cloud vendor (the MSP must therefore have a process to split the bill and accurately assign charges by customer). The person-hours required to do this and the risk of associated manual errors were onerous. In addition to this, many MSPs are required to give Cloud Cost Management and Optimization (CCMO) access to their end customers who want to self-serve their own reporting and recommendations. Building their own CCMO tool (with the necessary strict data governance), and maintaining it as the services of cloud vendors constantly evolve is something MSPs cannot cost effectively do.
Applications for the MSP
Cloudability
Cloudability in the MSP environment is a superset of commercial Cloudability with MSP specific improvements. It allows MSP to easily perform CCMO activities across their customer portfolio and vendors.
- Set up Cloudability normally to perform CCMO across customers (please note that at least one account must be credentialed in the Cloudability before MSPs can start setting up their new applications).
- If the MSP has any Azure Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) or Microsoft Partner Agreements (MPA) accounts, these can now be credentialed by selecting the associated account type in vendor credentials. Note: this is only available in Cloudability MSP and must be done at the billing account level for all subscriptions.
- Flexibly remove any line-item discounts for desired end customers.
Org Structure Service
Here, MSPs can set up their org structure, inclusive of internal units and end customers, and provision customer environments.
- Add internal business units and customers. Customers can be of raw type (meaning they will see vendor data with all cost metrics) or MSP-set price type (these rerated customers only see uplifted/ discounted charge based on MSP pricing rules).
- Provision customer environments.
- Flexibly assign accounts to customers.
- Enable data flow to customer environments and add users.
MSP Billing
Here, MSPs can set up their pricing rules based on customer, date, and dimensions that comes from Cloud billing files (among others). This will impact what re-rated customers see in their own environments.
- Create new price books and set up detailed, stackable rules.
- Rules can be based on vendor billing file dimensions and operators supported by Cloudability Business Mappings as well as unique MSP dimensions and operators.
- Assign customers to price books based on dates so that new contractual rates can be queued up well ahead of when they are intended to kick in.
- Billing data details, including charge can be fetched from the MSP Billing API by third party systems preventing manual, error-prone recalculation of costs for invoicing.
Apptio BI, Action Plans
MSPs can report across pre-existing Cloudability data sources as well as see customer and charge data with the new MSP data source.
Applications for End Customers
Cloudability, Apptio BI, and Action Plans
End customers can use these applications and self-administer their own environments just like any other commercial customer would. They will only see data from the accounts assigned to them by their MSPs and if they are rerated, only MSP-set costs and list cost. Cloudability vendor credentials is read only for end customers and based on the end customer type (rerated, raw cost, etc.) they may have different levels of feature availability in Cloudability in this release.
How this feature can help you
MSPs need to be able to efficiently recognize optimization opportunities, provide up to date reporting of their potentially re-rated costs, as well as track business metrics like revenue and profit across potentially hundreds or thousands of end customers. As the services of major cloud service providers constantly evolve, MSPs can not cost-effectively build their own systems to manage and optimize end customer spend while ensuring they are managing the co-mingled billing data and maintaining the strict data governance needed to report on and bill for that usage. To minimize overhead and ensure lean operation, MSPs need to leverage a product to enable their key business processes (cost ingestion, re-rating, optimization, billing, and more) so that they can focus on delivering the most optimized cloud solution for each customer.