Commitment Health

Learn how to use North.Cloud's Commitment Health page to diagnose your FinOps posture.

North’s analytics dashboard provides a one-stop view of all your cloud provider commitments, giving you complete visibility into your entire commitment ledger. Easily inspect every reserved instance and savings plan detected in your account, including those managed by North or purchased directly. The ledger offers rich information on each commitment, such as detailed policy data, start and end dates, cost per hour, utilization, Estimated Savings Rate (ESR), month-to-date savings, and more. Flexible policies acquired via North are clearly marked with a pink dot for easy identification.

To investigate historical trends or analyze past performance, select different months using the date dropdown. This allows you to see how your commitments have performed over time, providing valuable context for optimization decisions. You can also filter the ledger by type, commitment length, or other attributes, and export the list for further analysis with a single click.

Understanding Utilization and ESR

• Utilization displayed here refers specifically to how much of each individual commitment (e.g., a reserved instance or savings plan) is being used, not the overall percent of your environment covered by commitments. This lets you judge how effectively you’re using what you’ve already committed to.

• ESR (Estimated Savings Rate) is a powerful calculation North uses to measure each commitment’s actual return on investment (ROI). Since each product type can offer different maximum savings (based on AWS or cloud provider pricing), North normalizes these values as part of an intuitive scoring system.

FinOps Score: Commitment Efficiency at-a-Glance

Every commitment and service is assigned a FinOps score, normalized to a simple 5-point system. This makes it easy to quickly gauge how effective your (or North-managed) commitments are at saving you money. A score of 4 or above (out of 5) means you’re operating in the top 1% of efficient cloud spenders—our target for every customer. FinOps scores are provided both per service and for your overall architecture, giving you a concise assessment of your commitment posture.

Please note: The FinOps score here only evaluates your commitment efficiency, not other elements of cloud savings such as reshaping, anomaly detection, or cost optimization outside of reserved commitments.

How to Use the Dashboard

1. Explore Your Commitment Ledger: Start by reviewing your full list of commitments. Use filters or the date picker at the top to focus your view on current month or historical months.

2. Check Key Metrics: For each commitment, review utilization (commitment usage), ESR (ROI), cost per hour, and savings to date.

3. Review Your Scores: Scroll to view your FinOps scores—both overall and by service. Assess at a glance how well your architecture is optimized for commitment savings.

4. Export & Report: Click the EXPORT button at any time to download your ledger for deeper analysis or sharing.

5. Compare Performance: Use the date dropdown to review your past performance, spot improvement opportunities, and track your optimization progress over time.

With North’s analytics, you get a clear, actionable overview of how commitments are driving savings and efficiency, helping you stay in the top tier of cloud cost management.