Usage Data: Auditable or OperationalMetering, Metrics, and FinOps’ FOCUS

The adoption of AI, usage attribution, and chargeback use cases are on the rise as modern businesses aim to gather and assign usage data for billing, sales, product development, and cloud cost analysis. Usage data can be complex due to different needs per use case, such as accuracy, cardinality, real-time aspects, and retention requirements. Auditable data is complete and requires full records retention, while operational data doesn't require strict completeness and may employ sampling. Event-driven metering and time-series monitoring are two main ways to collect usage data, each with its own strengths and challenges. The FinOps Foundation recently unveiled the initial draft of its FOCUS (Open Cost & Usage Specification) to address integration challenges of usage data between vendors for billing and cloud cost analysis use cases.