FinOps & process
FOCUS
The FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification: an open, vendor-neutral standard for how a provider's cost and usage export is shaped, maintained by the FinOps Foundation.
Last updated
Definition
FOCUS defines a common set of column names, data types, and required values for billing data, so a query written against one provider's FOCUS export mostly works against another's. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud all publish a FOCUS export today; coverage and the exact version each provider ships varies.
It standardizes the shape of the data, not where it lives or how it's monitored. A provider still has to turn the export on, and something still has to pull it, join it against every other provider you use, and alert on it. That gap is what a normalized cost view is for.
Where it shows up
FOCUS shows up as a specific export format a provider's billing console lets an account enable: AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud each publish a FOCUS-formatted export alongside their native billing export, with a common set of column names defined by the FinOps Foundation's published specification.
What makes it expensive
Teams get burned by assuming turning on a FOCUS export alone gives visibility, when the spec only standardizes the data's shape, not where it lives or who reviews it. Enabling the export is one checkbox. Pulling it from every provider, joining it, and alerting on it is the work the standard deliberately leaves to you.
Related
The invoice is a lagging signal.
A monthly invoice tells you what already happened. CostMon builds a daily baseline, so a spike stands out while you can still act on it.