Platform Criteria 1: FinOps for Technology Categories
| Application | Visual One Intelligence (VisualOne / VSI) |
| Platform version referenced | v6.0.0.1 |
| Criterion | FinOps for Technology Categories, enabling the practice of FinOps beyond public cloud |
| Source basis | VisualOne reference documentation (FinOps for VisualOne Reference Guide; VSI Screen Reference Guide; VSI Virtualization Reporting User Guide; Visual One Storage Reference) |
Overview
VisualOne was built for the hybrid estate. Its primary navigation is organized by technology category, Storage, Hosts, Files, Virtual, Backup, Switches, Databases, Cloud, Security, and Kubernetes, with a single FinOps menu operating across all of them. Cost, allocation, optimization, and forecasting are not cloud-only functions bolted onto an infrastructure monitor; every technology category below is normalized into the same cost model (Storage / Compute / Cloud contexts), carries the same tag-based allocation dimensions, and appears in the same chargeback, unit-cost, savings, and forecasting reports.
The categories below are each evidenced by dedicated screens, dedicated collectors, or dedicated cost treatment in the reference documentation.
Category 1: On-Premises Storage Infrastructure
Scope: SAN, NAS, object, and archive storage in customer-owned data centers, block, file, and unstructured.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated reporting | 23 documented storage screens, including Enterprise Summary, Device Summary, Device Details, Physical Diagram, Storage Group Summary, Device Trends, Storage by Server by Type, Free Space by Disk Group, Provisioning Report, Enterprise Health Report, Enterprise Health Alerts, and Enterprise Delta Report |
| Inventory granularity | All Units views at six levels, Devices, Pools, Volumes, LUNs, Shares, and Nodes |
| Estate segmentation | Storage Environment by Data Center, by Classification, and by Geography |
| Planning | Pool Capacity Plan and Device Capacity Plan, each with a Date Adjustments scenario dialog and both Capacity (GiB) and Performance (IOPS / bandwidth) planning modes |
| FinOps treatment | Full Storage context across Savings Report, Chargeback, Tag Summary, Financial Administration Report, Amortization, Cost Per Sector, Cost YTD, and Cost Efficiency Dashboard |
| Unit economics | Price per GiB, $ Per TiB Total and Daily, Total Cost per GiB per Day, effective vs. physical capacity, Data Reduction Ratio |
| Optimization | Orphaned LUNs and Volume Locked Free Space detection with dollar and GiB valuation per array |
| Cost model inputs | Per-device Power, Floor Space, Personnel, Purchase Price, and Maintenance cost, configured in Operating Cost settings |
Category 2: Private Cloud and Virtualization
Scope: VMware vSphere/ESXi estates, vSAN, and hyperconverged platforms.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated module | A full Virtualization Reporting module with 16 documented screens |
| Object hierarchy | Environment / vCenter → Data Center → Cluster → Host → VM → Datastore / LUN → VMDK, drillable at every level |
| Portfolio views | All Units for Clusters, Hosts, VMs, and Datastores; Virtual Environment; Virtual Trends; Delta Report |
| Deep dives | VM Summary, Cluster Summary, Cluster Trends, ESX Host Summary |
| Capacity concepts | Capacity Score (0-100), Weeks Left to Capacity, Build Capacity, Capacity Constraint / Limiting Factor |
| Scenario modeling | Cluster Modeling with custom host models, month-to-add, and vCPU / memory / disk / VM build / cost tabs |
| FinOps treatment | Compute/Virtual context throughout; per-host cost decomposition with CPU Cost % and Memory Cost % (typically 50/50) enabling per-vCPU and per-GiB-memory chargeback |
| Optimization | VM Right-Sizing with target allocations and an Approve action; Orphaned VMDK inventory; CPU and memory over-provisioning savings quantified per vCenter |
| Health | Virtual Health Alerts with critical/warning/info severity, acknowledgement, and ServiceNow ticketing |
Category 3: Public Cloud
Scope: Hyperscale public cloud resources, subscriptions, and billing accounts.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Estate scale observed | 7 subscriptions, 42 resource groups, 60 resource types, 435 cloud resources |
| Resource fidelity | Full Azure Resource Manager resource ID paths, resource group and subscription hierarchy, raw per-resource tag JSON |
| Resource types observed | Virtual machines, managed disks, storage accounts, databases, images, restore point collections, public IPs, event hubs, monitoring metrics |
| Cost fidelity | Per-resource Effective Cost and Daily Cost; per-subscription cost and savings roll-up |
| Billing structure | Billing Account ID / Name / Type and Sub Account ID / Name / Type carried through to FOCUS Export |
| Optimization | Cloud context Savings Report; savings plan, reserved instance, and unused subscription recommendations with estimated savings and adoption status |
| FinOps treatment | Cloud is one of the three first-class contexts, appearing alongside Storage and Virtual in Tag Summary, Tag Forecasting, Cost YTD, Cost Per Sector, and Chargeback |
Category 4: Containers and Kubernetes
Scope: Container platforms and Kubernetes workloads.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated section | Kubernetes is a top-level navigation section |
| Platform collector | OPENSHIFT_DEVICE registered as a supported collection device type |
| Allocation | A Kubernetes tag key present in the tag catalog and carried into chargeback allocation alongside BU, Owner, and Operational Category |
| Optimization | Kubernetes-native recommendation: enable Vertical Pod Autoscaler recommendation mode to right-size resource requests and limits, surfaced in the same Optimization Recommendations report as cloud and VM recommendations with the same Open / Suggested / Applied lifecycle |
Category 5: Data Protection and Backup
Scope: Backup software, purpose-built backup appliances, and data protection estates.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated section | Backup is a top-level navigation section |
| Platform collectors | VEEAM_BACKUP, COMMVAULT_BACKUP, COHESITY_BACKUP, COHESITY_HELIOS_DEVICE, COHESITY_HELIOS_SAAS_DEVICE, AVAMAR_DEVICE, DATA_DOMAIN_DEVICE, HP_STOREONCE_DEVICE, STOREONCE_DEVICE, plus Rubrik appliances present in the cost ledger |
| Cost treatment | Backup appliances carried in the Amortization Report and Financial Administration Report; the reference notes distinct treatment for a backup appliance carrying a flat recurring Effective Cost rather than a depreciating hardware curve |
| Allocation | Backup appears as an Operational Category tag value and within Kubernetes and resource-level tag values, so protection cost is chargeable to consuming business units |
| Estate signals | Backup-related tag keys observed in the live tag catalog, including Veeam backup appliance identifiers and Rubrik export/source/task metadata |
Category 6: Databases
Scope: Database platforms and database-backing infrastructure.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated section | Databases is a top-level navigation section, with database counts surfaced in the Virtualization Overview |
| Cloud databases | Azure database resources ingested with per-resource Effective Cost through the FOCUS dataset |
| Allocation | Sql Server present as an Operational Category tag value, and a Rubrik-managed SQL resource tag key present in the catalog, allowing database estate cost to be isolated and charged back |
| FinOps treatment | Database infrastructure inherits the standard cost model, unit economics, and chargeback dimensions applied to all other resource classes |
Category 7: Data and Analytics Platforms
Scope: Data cloud and analytics platforms operating on top of cloud infrastructure.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Platform observed | Databricks, ingested as Azure Databricks resources with full resource ID paths |
| Platform metadata | Dedicated tag keys present in the live catalog: databricks-environment and defaultExperience (value: Databricks) |
| Allocation dimension | Databricks is carried as a Business Unit tag value with its own cost line, appearing in Tag Cost Inventory, Chargeback, and the YTD Cost by Tag Key view |
| Cost fidelity | Per-resource daily and effective cost with price-per-GB normalization, alongside all other resource classes in the same reports |
Category 8: Unstructured Data and File Services
Scope: File systems, shares, and unstructured data estates.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated section | Files is a top-level navigation section |
| Analysis collectors | FILE_ANALYSIS and FOLDER_WALKER_CONFIG collector types, extending collection beyond device polling into file-level analysis jobs |
| File platform collectors | ISILON_DEVICE, HITACHI_HNAS_API_DEVICE, NETAPP_CLUSTER and other NAS platforms |
| Inventory | All Units – Shares view; quota-related health alerting including Hard Quota Applications and Advisory Quota categories |
| FinOps treatment | File storage carried in the Storage context with the same unit-cost and chargeback treatment as block storage |
Category 9: Storage Networking
Scope: SAN fabric and switching infrastructure.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Dedicated section | Switches is a top-level navigation section, with switch counts surfaced in the environment overview |
| Topology | Physical Diagram and Storage by Server by Type screens document server-to-storage connectivity |
| Health | Server Volume Mapping status indicator reports connectivity state between servers and storage, with red-alert escalation when mappings are missing or broken |
Category 10: Enterprise and Midrange Compute
Scope: Non-x86 and managed enterprise compute platforms.
| Dimension | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Platforms observed | IBM Hardware Management Console controllers managing IBM Power systems (models 9105-22A and 9009-41A) carried as compute devices in the cost ledger |
| Cost treatment | Full per-host cost decomposition, Power, Floor Space, Personnel, Purchase Price, and Maintenance, configured in the Compute context of Operating Cost settings and flowing into the Financial Administration Report |
| FinOps treatment | Included in Compute context aggregates, chargeback, and TCO analysis on the same basis as x86 virtualization hosts |
Cross-category consistency
What makes this multi-category coverage a FinOps capability rather than a monitoring inventory is that every category resolves into the same financial constructs:
| Shared construct | Applied across all categories |
|---|---|
| Normalized contexts | Storage, Compute/Virtual, and Cloud, with a Total roll-up |
| Unified tagging | One tag vocabulary, with Foreign Tag Key mapping reconciling source-specific tag schemas from every platform into it |
| Common cost model | Power + Floor Space + Personnel + Maintenance + amortized capital, resolved to daily, monthly, and annual bases |
| Common unit economics | Per-GiB, per-TiB, per-vCPU, per-GiB-memory, and per-VM rates |
| Common allocation | Chargeback by any tag dimension, spanning all categories in a single report |
| Common optimization | One Savings Report and one Optimization Recommendations report covering storage, compute, cloud, and Kubernetes findings together |
| Common forecasting | Tag Forecasting projects Compute, Storage, and Cloud effective cost on one chart with a Total effective cost series |
| Common export | FOCUS Export presents all categories in a single standards-aligned dataset |
Summary of categories
| # | Technology category | Primary evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | On-premises storage infrastructure | 23 storage screens, six All Units levels, capacity planning, full Storage context FinOps |
| 2 | Private cloud and virtualization | 16-screen Virtual module, cluster/host/VM/datastore hierarchy, right-sizing, cluster modeling |
| 3 | Public cloud | 435 resources across 7 subscriptions, ARM resource IDs, billing/sub-account structure, cloud savings |
| 4 | Containers and Kubernetes | Kubernetes section, OpenShift collector, Kubernetes tag key, Vertical Pod Autoscaler recommendation |
| 5 | Data protection and backup | Backup section, nine backup platform collectors, appliance cost treatment, backup allocation |
| 6 | Databases | Databases section, cloud database resources, SQL Server allocation category |
| 7 | Data and analytics platforms | Databricks resources, dedicated tag keys, Databricks as a costed BU dimension |
| 8 | Unstructured data and file services | Files section, file analysis collectors, Shares inventory, quota alerting |
| 9 | Storage networking | Switches section, physical topology, server-volume mapping health |
| 10 | Enterprise and midrange compute | IBM Power via HMC in the compute cost ledger with full cost decomposition |