Cloud Spend Guardrails — Virtus Group

Summary. Keep cloud costs in check with basic guardrails: idle/rightsizing signals, alerting, and a simple monthly view of waste and actioned savings.

Who it's for. SMEs on Azure/AWS with rising bills or no clear owner for cost hygiene; great after a one-off tidy-up.

Business Outcomes

Simple view of spend anomalies and waste candidates (rightsizing/idle).
Guardrail alerting that the team can act on quickly.
Documented savings actions and trends month-on-month.

What’s Included

Scope	Description
Core Inclusions	Idle/rightsizing signal review and anomaly checks. Tagging/naming hygiene guidance (lightweight). Monthly savings log and 90‑day action list. Budget & anomaly alerts (Cost Explorer/Cost Management) with owners and thresholds Tag policy baseline (owner, environment, cost centre) and monthly tag-health checks
Optional Add‑Ons	Deeper cost modelling or FinOps dashboards (project). Automation for scheduled scale-downs (project). Reserved capacity planning workshops.

Onboarding & Steady‑State

Note: timelines depend on size and current tooling.

Phase	Activities	Deliverables	Indicative Duration
01 — Baseline	Assessment; connect accounts Initial signals	Guardrail plan (accounts connected, scopes confirmed) Initial savings backlog (idle / rightsizing / schedule opportunities) Budget & anomaly alerts configured	0.5 week
02 — Stabilise	Alerts & owners set Quick wins executed	Waste trend reduction visible Exceptions register (owner + expiry) and change governance in place	1–2 weeks
03 — Operate	Monthly report & actions	Monthly KPI pack (spend, identified vs realised savings, unit-cost trends, top offenders) Next-month actions agreed	Ongoing

Service Levels (Summary)

Plan	Coverage	Response / Restore	Governance
Bronze	Business hours (Mon–Fri 08:00–17:00 NZT, except Public Holidays)	P1: 2h / NBD • P2: 4h / 2BD	Monthly summary
Silver	Extended hours (Mon–Fri 07:00–19:00 NZT, except Public Holidays)	P1: 1h / Same day • P2: 2h / NBD	Weekly check‑in • Exceptions log
Gold	Business + after‑hours (24×7 P1 only)	P1: 30m / ASAP • P2: 1h / Same day	Exec summary • CAB-ready notes

For pricing, terms and conditions see the Pricing Annex.

Success Criteria (from our perspective)

Budget alerts configured and tested for all in-scope subscriptions/accounts
Idle/rightsizing candidates addressed with a documented savings log
Monthly savings realised ≥ target (e.g., ≥ 10% of identified waste) with trend visible
Tagging coverage (owner/environment/cost centre) ≥ 90% on in-scope resources
Anomalies triaged within SLA; exception register maintained with owners and expiries

Prerequisites

Admin or delegated access for setup and policy verification.
Tooling in place (or agreeable to deploy).
Maintenance windows agreed.
Billing/Cost Mgmt reader or equivalent role on each in-scope subscription/account
Agreement to adopt the tag baseline keys (owner/environment/cost centre)

Assumptions

Corporate-managed assets in scope unless otherwise agreed.
Low-risk, scheduled maintenance with rollback plans.
Customer approves standard change practices (CAB for Gold).
AWS and/or Azure accounts you control; third-party contracts not renegotiated in this service
Changes are low-risk and scheduled with rollback; CAB attendance for Gold on request

Risks & Mitigations

False savings / performance impact: pilot changes, rollback plan, track SLOs alongside cost
Ownerless spend: enforce tag policy; route anomalies to business owners via CAB notes
Commitment lock-in risk: advisory only at pilot stage; staged purchases with guardrails

Out of Scope

Full FinOps programme or showback/chargeback implementation
Contract/vendor negotiation and enterprise discount agreements
Automations that require custom development (unless taken as a project)

Get started

Book an Assessment Request Managed Service Request Custom Package Talk to us

Prefer to stabilise first? Run a short pilot to establish a clean baseline; then roll into this managed service.

Business Outcomes

What’s Included

Onboarding & Steady‑State

Service Levels (Summary)

Success Criteria (from our perspective)

Prerequisites

Assumptions

Risks & Mitigations

Out of Scope

Get started

Related Resources