Vantage Plugin Features

This document describes the features, capabilities, and limitations of the Vantage plugin for FinFocus.

Overview
Supported Cloud Providers
Supported Cost Types
Supported Operations
Limitations
Feature Roadmap
API Version Compatibility

Overview

The Vantage plugin is a read-only adapter that fetches normalized cost and usage data from Vantage’s REST API and maps it to FinFocus’s internal schema with FinOps FOCUS 1.2 compatibility.

Key Capabilities

Multi-Cloud Cost Aggregation: Unified cost reporting across AWS, Azure, GCP, and more
Historical Cost Analysis: Retrieve actual costs with daily granularity
Flexible Filtering: Filter by provider, service, account, region, tags
Cost Forecasting: Snapshot-based cost projections
FOCUS 1.2 Compliance: Industry-standard cost record format
Incremental Sync: Bookmark-based synchronization with rate limit backoff
Tag Normalization: Automatic tag key formatting and filtering

Supported Cloud Providers

The Vantage plugin supports cost data from the following cloud providers through Vantage’s aggregation API:

Fully Supported

Provider	Support Level	Notes
AWS	Full	All services, RI/SP, data transfer
Google Cloud (GCP)	Full	All services, committed use discounts
Microsoft Azure	Full	All services, reservations
Kubernetes	Full	Via Vantage’s Kubernetes integration
Snowflake	Full	Compute and storage costs
Databricks	Full	Workspace and cluster costs
MongoDB Atlas	Full	Cluster and data transfer costs
Datadog	Full	Monitoring and APM costs
Confluent Cloud	Full	Kafka cluster costs
Fastly	Full	CDN and compute costs

Partial Support

Provider	Support Level	Limitations
Oracle Cloud	Partial	Limited service coverage
Alibaba Cloud	Partial	Core services only

Provider Detection

The plugin automatically extracts provider information from resource types:

aws:ec2:Instance       → Provider: AWS
google:compute:Disk    → Provider: GCP
azurerm:compute:VM     → Provider: Azure
kubernetes:apps:Pod    → Provider: Kubernetes

Supported Cost Types

Cost Metrics

The plugin supports multiple cost metric types:

Metric	Description	Availability
cost	Net cost after discounts, before taxes	All providers
amortized_cost	Amortized including RI/SP allocation	AWS, GCP, Azure
usage	Usage quantity in native units	All providers
effective_unit_price	Computed per-unit cost	All providers
taxes	Tax amounts	AWS, Azure
credits	Free tier, promotional credits	AWS, GCP, Azure
refunds	Refund amounts	AWS, Azure

Cost Dimensions

Group and filter costs by:

provider: Cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.)
service: Cloud service (EC2, S3, Compute Engine, etc.)
account: Billing account or AWS account ID
project: GCP project or organizational unit
region: Geographic region (us-east-1, europe-west1, etc.)
resource_id: Specific cloud resource identifier
tags: Custom tags/labels applied to resources

Granularity Options

Daily: Day-by-day cost breakdown (recommended)
Monthly: Aggregated monthly costs

Supported Operations

Historical Cost Retrieval

Fetch actual historical costs from Vantage:

# Daily costs for date range
finfocus cost actual \
  --plugin vantage \
  --start-date 2024-01-01 \
  --end-date 2024-01-31 \
  --granularity day

# Group by service
finfocus cost actual \
  --plugin vantage \
  --start-date 2024-01-01 \
  --end-date 2024-01-31 \
  --group-by service

# Filter by tags
finfocus cost actual \
  --plugin vantage \
  --filter "tag:environment=production" \
  --start-date 2024-01-01 \
  --end-date 2024-01-31

Cost Forecasting

Retrieve forecast snapshots:

# Get forecast data
finfocus-vantage forecast \
  --config config.yaml \
  --out forecast.json

Incremental Synchronization

Daily sync with bookmark tracking:

# Incremental sync (captures D-3 to D-1 for late postings)
finfocus-vantage pull --config config.yaml

# Backfill historical data
finfocus-vantage backfill --config config.yaml --months 12

Tag Filtering

Filter by specific tag prefixes:

params:
  tag_prefix_filters:
    - 'user:'
    - 'kubernetes.io/'
    - 'cost-center:'

Output Formats

Table: Human-readable formatted table
JSON: Single JSON object
NDJSON: Newline-delimited JSON stream

Limitations

Known Limitations

1. Read-Only Access

Description: Plugin cannot create or modify Vantage resources
Impact: Cost optimization requires manual actions in cloud provider
Workaround: Use Vantage console or cloud provider tools for changes

2. Data Latency

Description: Cost data lags 12-48 hours from actual usage
Impact: Real-time cost tracking not possible
Workaround: Account for lag in reporting; use 3-day window for incremental syncs

3. Rate Limiting

Description: Vantage API enforces rate limits (varies by subscription)
Impact: Large data syncs may require retry with backoff
Workaround: Plugin automatically retries with exponential backoff (configurable via max_retries)

4. Tag Cardinality

Description: High tag cardinality increases record count dramatically
Impact: Performance degradation, increased API page count
Workaround: Use tag_prefix_filters to limit included tags

5. Forecast Limitations

Description: Forecasts require Cost Report tokens (not Workspace tokens)
Impact: Forecast functionality unavailable with Workspace tokens
Workaround: Use Cost Report tokens for production deployments

6. No Direct Cost Optimization

Description: Plugin retrieves cost data but doesn’t provide recommendations
Impact: Optimization analysis must be done separately
Workaround: Use FinFocus analyzers or Vantage console for recommendations

7. Provider Metric Availability

Description: Not all metrics available for all providers
Impact: Some cost types may return null values
Workaround: Verify metric availability in Vantage console for target providers

Feature Roadmap

Current Version (v0.1.0)

✅ Multi-cloud cost retrieval
✅ Daily and monthly granularity
✅ Tag-based filtering
✅ Incremental sync with bookmarks
✅ Forecast snapshots
✅ FOCUS 1.2 compatibility
✅ Multiple output formats (table, JSON, NDJSON)

Planned Features

Q1 2025

🔄 Cost Anomaly Detection: Automatic identification of cost spikes
🔄 Budget Alerts Integration: Sync Vantage budgets with FinFocus
🔄 Enhanced Tag Management: Advanced tag normalization rules

Q2 2025

📅 Cost Allocation Rules: Custom cost allocation logic
📅 Multi-Workspace Support: Query multiple Vantage workspaces
📅 Commit Discount Tracking: Detailed RI/SP utilization metrics

Q3 2025

📅 Real-Time Streaming: WebSocket-based cost updates (if Vantage supports)
📅 Cost Optimization API: Programmatic recommendation retrieval
📅 Custom Metric Definitions: User-defined calculated metrics

Future Considerations

Enhanced Kubernetes cost allocation
Multi-region cost aggregation with currency conversion
Integration with FinFocus policy engine
Advanced filtering with VQL (Vantage Query Language) support

API Version Compatibility

Current Protocol Version

Plugin Version: v0.1.0 Vantage API Version: v1 FinFocus Protocol: v0.1.0 FOCUS Spec: 1.2

Compatibility Matrix

Plugin Version	Vantage API	FinFocus Core	FOCUS Spec
v0.1.0	v1	v0.1.0+	1.2
v0.2.0 (planned)	v1	v0.2.0+	1.2

Breaking Changes

None in current version (v0.1.0)

Future breaking changes will be announced with:

Major version bump (e.g., v1.0.0 → v2.0.0)
Migration guide in release notes
Deprecation warnings for 90 days minimum

Deprecation Policy

Minor deprecations: 90-day notice
Major deprecations: 180-day notice
Critical security fixes: Immediate (with migration path if possible)

Performance Characteristics

Throughput

Page Size: Configurable 1,000-10,000 records (default: 5,000)
API Requests: ~1-5 requests/second (rate limit dependent)
Typical Sync Duration: 1-5 minutes for 30 days of data

Resource Usage

Memory: ~50-200 MB during sync (depends on page size)
CPU: Low (mostly I/O bound)
Network: ~1-10 MB per sync (depends on data volume)

Optimization Tips

Use Cost Report Tokens: Better performance than Workspace tokens
Reduce Dimensions: Fewer group_bys = faster queries
Increase Page Size: For large syncs (but watch memory)
Filter Tags: Use tag_prefix_filters to reduce cardinality
Monthly Granularity: Use for long historical ranges

Supported Use Cases

Cost Reporting

✅ Generate monthly/quarterly cost reports
✅ Track cost trends over time
✅ Compare actual vs projected costs

Cost Allocation

✅ Allocate costs by team, project, or environment
✅ Tag-based cost distribution
✅ Multi-cloud cost rollups

Cost Optimization

⚠️ Identify high-cost resources (data only, no recommendations)
⚠️ Detect cost anomalies (manual analysis required)
❌ Automated optimization actions (use Vantage console)

Compliance & Governance

✅ FOCUS 1.2 compliant cost records
✅ Audit trail with bookmark tracking
✅ Read-only access (no modification risk)

Feature Comparison

Vantage Plugin vs. Other Plugins

Feature	Vantage	Kubecost	AWS Cost Explorer
Multi-Cloud	✅ Full	❌ K8s only	❌ AWS only
FOCUS Compliance	✅ Yes	⚠️ Partial	❌ No
Tag Filtering	✅ Advanced	✅ Basic	✅ Basic
Forecasting	✅ Snapshot	❌ No	✅ ML-based
Real-Time	❌ 12-48h lag	✅ Near real-time	❌ 24h lag
Optimization	❌ No	✅ Yes	✅ Yes

Additional Resources

Vantage API Documentation
Vantage Feature Matrix
FinOps FOCUS Specification
Setup Guide - Installation and configuration
Authentication Guide - API key management
Cost Mapping Guide - Data transformation details
Troubleshooting Guide - Common issues