---
title: "Enhancing Cloud Usage Forecasting, Monitoring & Optimizing"
description: "After Etsy completed its 2020 migration from an on-premise data center to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), the resulting FinOps team developed a global approach to forecasting, monitoring, and optimizing cloud spend. Costs are grouped into core infrastructure, machine learning and product enablement, data enablement, and Dev, with trailing Cost Per Visit (CPV) serving as the primary forecasting metric after regression tests found visits most correlated with costs. BigQuery and Looker dashboards, alerts, weekly Finance comparisons, and recurring cost-owner and leadership readouts support variance detection, while costs are tracked centrally without chargebacks to preserve flexibility. Optimization work combines FinOps, engineering, and Architecture collaboration, producing GCS storage reductions through monitoring, automation, TTLs, and Intelligent tiering, plus compute, model-deployment, and network compression improvements. The next priority is better visibility into shared machine learning platform spend to improve experiment ROI analysis and identify optimization opportunities."
---

# Enhancing Cloud Usage Forecasting, Monitoring & Optimizing

[Etsy](https://yomu.fyi/company/etsy) · Anthony Tambasco · Jun 17, 2024

**Type:** Explainer

## Summary

After Etsy completed its 2020 migration from an on-premise data center to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), the resulting FinOps team developed a global approach to forecasting, monitoring, and optimizing cloud spend. Costs are grouped into core infrastructure, machine learning and product enablement, data enablement, and Dev, with trailing Cost Per Visit (CPV) serving as the primary forecasting metric after regression tests found visits most correlated with costs. BigQuery and Looker dashboards, alerts, weekly Finance comparisons, and recurring cost-owner and leadership readouts support variance detection, while costs are tracked centrally without chargebacks to preserve flexibility. Optimization work combines FinOps, engineering, and Architecture collaboration, producing GCS storage reductions through monitoring, automation, TTLs, and Intelligent tiering, plus compute, model-deployment, and network compression improvements. The next priority is better visibility into shared machine learning platform spend to improve experiment ROI analysis and identify optimization opportunities.

## Context

After Etsy’s 2020 migration to GCP, its migration program-management team evolved into a FinOps team responsible for maximizing cloud value. The team uses forecasting to establish an expected spending baseline, detect deviations, and manage the effects of product launches, experiments, workflows, and other changes on cloud costs.

## Approach / What changed

The FinOps team categorizes spending, forecasts primarily with trailing Cost Per Visit, and periodically tests alternative variables including headcount, GMV, and revenue. It uses BigQuery and Looker dashboards, alerts, Finance reviews, cost-owner meetings, and leadership readouts to monitor variance. Optimization initiatives are selected by effort versus value and implemented through collaboration among FinOps, engineering, and Architecture teams.

## Takeaways

- Visits have consistently shown the highest correlation with costs among the tested forecasting variables, but CPV does not directly capture non-human traffic, some services, or Dev, data, and machine learning training costs.
- Cost increases are handled through source analysis, collaboration, validation, joint troubleshooting, assigned action items, and communication to Finance after confirmation or resolution.
- A dedicated GCS optimization squad introduced usage monitoring, Data engineering automation, access-pattern-based TTLs, and Intelligent tiering; Etsy’s GCS usage is now below its level from two years earlier.

**Tags:** [Cost Optimization](https://yomu.fyi/topic/cost-optimization), [FinOps](https://yomu.fyi/topic/finops), [Google Cloud](https://yomu.fyi/topic/gcp)

- Source: [Etsy](https://www.etsy.com/codeascraft/enhancing-cloud-usage-forecasting-monitoring--optimizing)
- Source URL: https://www.etsy.com/codeascraft/enhancing-cloud-usage-forecasting-monitoring--optimizing
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-09-09T16:03:14.794Z

[Read original post](https://www.etsy.com/codeascraft/enhancing-cloud-usage-forecasting-monitoring--optimizing)