Kubernetes makes it possible for companies to run their applications in any environment, automatically and at scale. No manually managing servers or virtual machines, deploying updates one-by-one, or keeping workloads balanced by hand. But while Kubernetes streamlines behind the scenes, it brings new cost challenges front and center.
If you’re looking to innovate faster with Kubernetes while keeping spend in check, read on to understand the biggest cost pitfalls and how FinOps brings the visibility and accountability you need. Tangoe makes managing it all even easier, thanks to a new Tangoe One Cloud technology integration with Kubex, a leader in Kubernetes and cloud optimization.
What Is Kubernetes?
You might be reading this and have no idea what Kubernetes is or how it works, so let’s do a quick explainer. If you’ve ever used an application that loads instantly or scales effortlessly when traffic spikes, you can thank Kubernetes. Think of a banking app managing a surge of mobile check deposits on payday without crashing, or a healthcare app staying responsive when appointment scheduling spikes.
Kubernetes is an open-source platform that helps companies manage containers: small, self-contained packages that hold everything an application needs to run (i.e., code, libraries, settings)
Before containers, developers would install applications directly on servers. If one crashed, so did everything else. Containers solved that by making each application portable and independent. Applications can run consistently anywhere – across different servers and clouds – without needing to be rebuilt every time. Kubernetes takes that one step further, automatically deploying, scaling, and managing thousands of these containers at once.
The tradeoff? Complexity, especially when it comes to understanding, allocating, and controlling costs.
How Does Kubernetes Blur Cloud Cost Visibility?
It comes down to a few things.
- How resources are used: All the apps running in a Kubernetes cluster share the same pool of CPU resources, memory, and storage. It’s like everyone using the same Wi-Fi network – you know the total usage, but not who used how much.
- How usage fluctuates: Kubernetes automatically adds or removes resources based on demand. That’s great for performance, but it means your usage (and associated cost) changes constantly.
- Developers focus on performance, not cost: Kubernetes resource specifications are usually set by developers or application owners. They can often overestimate or guess at the resource requirements of their code. This can result in a large amount of unused resources.
- Who is using resources: Multiple teams and applications often run within the same clusters, blurring ownership and turning budgeting into a moving target. For example, your engineering team and analytics team both deploy services into the same cluster. When cloud costs jump, you can’t tell whose workloads caused it because everything runs together.
- How visibility breaks down: Cloud tags – the labels you normally use to track who owns what – don’t always work for containers because they’re spun up and shut down constantly.
- Where costs accumulate: Kubernetes spend spans several layers including compute, networking, storage, and platform operations, creating a fragmented cost picture that’s hard to reconcile end-to-end.
- The rise of AI workloads landing on Kubernetes and GPUs: There is such massive growth in AI workloads as enterprises add inference-based workloads onto Kubernetes. Expensive GPUs can rapidly overshadow other cloud costs
For these reasons, Kubernetes can make cloud bills harder to interpret – and why a solution like FinOps has become essential to bring that transparency and accountability back.
How FinOps Brings Order to the Chaos
FinOps has been shown to reduce cloud costs by as much as 40%. In Kubernetes environments, it plays a crucial role in turning fast-moving, dynamic container activity into clear, strategic financial insight. The FinOps Framework brings together scopes, principles, personas, phases, domains, and capabilities – an integrated structure designed to help organizations maximize the business value of every technology dollar spent.
You can learn more about all the inner workings of the FinOps Framework here.
FinOps is performed by working iteratively through three core phases:
- Inform: Delivering timely, accurate data so teams understand usage and cost across clusters.
- Optimize: Turning that complex, technical data into clear business insights, like which teams are driving spend, where resources are being wasted, and how optimization efforts translate into real savings.
- Operate: Embedding governance, accountability, and collaboration so cost-visibility becomes part of the culture, not an afterthought.
By applying these phases, FinOps helps leaders understand (and therefore, optimize) Kubernetes usage and cost, quantify its business value, and continually improve their organization’s FinOps practice.
- You’ll begin to correlate cluster-level data with business context, like which namespace belongs to which team or project, so expenses are fairly attributed across departments.
- The risk of overprovisioning drops significantly with the ability to right-size pods and nodes, identify idle resources, and balance performance with cost-efficiency.
- FinOps adds continuous monitoring and policy enforcement, so teams can set budgets, detect anomalies, and prevent cost sprawl before it happens.
- You’ll lay the groundwork for an organizational culture of financial transparency and accountability – one where everyone understands the cost implications of technical decisions.
Tangoe + Kubex: A Powerful Duo for Kubernetes Optimization
Together, Tangoe and Kubex deliver a complete solution for Kubernetes cost visibility and optimization. Kubex provides the deep technical optimization, showing you exactly how your clusters are using resources and what needs to be adjusted. Tangoe’s FinOps-certified platform, Tangoe One Cloud, brings those insights into the FinOps model so they can be tracked, governed, budgeted, and acted on with confidence.
With Kubex, you can:
- Analyze pod, node, and cluster efficiency in real-time
- Right-size workloads with precise CPU and memory recommendations
- Identify overprovisioned resources and scale-down opportunities
- Continuously optimize container requests and limits
- Gain insight into GPU usage and optimization strategies
- Leverage the Kubex AI Agent to interact with advanced analytics through plain language questions and directions
Tangoe’s financial intelligence layer then enables you to:
- Track Kubernetes costs down to the cluster, namespace, or service level
- Attribute spend to the right teams or business units for accurate budgeting
- Automate monitoring, anomaly detection, and policy-based alerts
- Consolidate public cloud, private cloud, SaaS, and containerized spend into one unified view
Our purpose-built platform translates Kubex’s granular optimization insights into clear cost savings, better forecasting, and stronger FinOps governance. Kubex fuels Tangoe’s financial visibility with workload-level intelligence that traditional cloud tools miss. It’s the ultimate win-win.
Clarity in the Cloud
Kubernetes has become essential for modern application delivery, but its flexibility comes at a price. With the right framework and technology, organizations can embrace the power of Kubernetes without losing sight of the bottom line.
With Tangoe, that clarity is built in. See how you can scale (and spend) smarter with a demo of Tangoe One Cloud.