Home/White Papers/The Cloud Waste Audit Framework
Free white paper · Rightsizing and waste

The Cloud Waste Audit Framework.

The exact framework we use to find and rank cloud waste: the resource categories to check, the queries to run on each cloud, and the scoring model that turns a pile of findings into a prioritized, dollar-ranked plan.

Most teams know they have cloud waste. Few have a repeatable way to find all of it, prove how much it is, and decide what to fix first. This framework is that method, written down. It is the same one behind our 31 percent average reduction across 500+ environments since 2019.

What is inside

A practical, vendor-neutral reference you can run yourself, across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and OCI.

  1. The seven categories of cloud waste, defined precisely enough to query
  2. Per-cloud detection: the queries and console paths for idle, zombie and oversized resources
  3. The scoring model: ranking every finding by dollars, confidence and effort
  4. Ownership: resolving untagged and unowned resources before you act
  5. The safe-removal checklist, with rollback notes for each resource type
  6. Turning a one-time audit into a continuous detection loop
  7. The one-page reporting template for leadership

Who it is for

Engineering leaders who want a defensible number, FinOps practitioners who want a repeatable process, and finance teams who want the waste reported the same way every month. No tool purchase required; everything in the framework runs on data you already have.

Pairs with the pillar guide

This framework is the downloadable companion to our complete guide to cloud rightsizing and waste elimination. Read the guide for the narrative; download the framework for the checklists and queries.

Prefer to have it run for you? Our rightsizing and waste elimination service applies this exact framework to your environment, and on the performance model you pay only from realized savings.