Executive Summary
Synyega, a FinOps consultancy delivering maturity assessments and training to enterprise clients, needed to practice what they preach. Managing their own multi-cloud environment across AWS and Azure while keeping a lean team required automation that could scale without constant maintenance.
After deploying OpenOps, Synyega transformed their cloud governance from semi-automated, distributed oversight to automated & centralized compliance. The platform now serves as their de facto compliance standard—policies are enacted in OpenOps first, with documentation following. Today, 100% of Synyega’s infrastructure is reviewed by OpenOps, with tagging compliance exceeding 95% and untagged resources flagged within 24 hours.
About Synega
Synyega is a FinOps consultancy specializing in maturity assessments, training, and strategic advisory services for organizations optimizing their cloud spend. Known for their practical, process-focused approach to FinOps, Synyega helps clients move beyond simply finding recommendations to actually implementing and sustaining cloud optimization initiatives.
The company operates a multi-cloud environment spanning AWS and Azure, designed around serverless architecture and clear separation of concerns. Their philosophy of “do something three times, then automate it” is a consistent driver of their automation efforts and pays dividends in the long term.
Cloud Operations at Scale
As a consultancy focused on helping others optimize cloud operations, Synyega faced a unique challenge: demonstrating cloud governance and FinOps excellence while maintaining focus on rapid client delivery:
- Resource Management Complexity: With environments spanning AWS and Azure, manually tracking scheduling, tagging, and compliance across multiple subscriptions consumed time better spent on client work.
- Tagging Discipline: Maintaining consistent tagging across a growing infrastructure requires constant attention and care. Without automation, untagged resources would slip through and complicate cost allocation.
- Environment Provisioning: Creating standardized sandbox environments for testing and development required manual setup, introducing inconsistency and delays.
- Engineering Fatigue Prevention: Synyega understood firsthand that sending engineers long lists of small optimizations ($5-$20 items) leads to fatigue and inaction. They needed to automate the “long tail” of recommendations.
Previous Approaches
Before OpenOps, Synyega relied on manual processes and native cloud tools for compliance monitoring. While functional, these approaches didn’t scale:
- Manual tagging audits were time-consuming and reactive
- Environment provisioning required repeated manual configuration
- Scheduling rules varied across accounts without centralized governance
The OpenOps Solution
Synyega deployed OpenOps in their AWS environment, leveraging single sign-on integration to connect seamlessly with their Azure subscriptions. The implementation focused on three core capabilities that transformed their cloud operations:
Intelligent Resource Scheduling
OpenOps automated the scheduling of non-production resources across both clouds:
- EC2 and Compute Scheduling: Any resource not tagged “Always On” is automatically scheduled, running only when needed.
- Boilerplate Customization: Synyega started with OpenOps template workflows and customized them for their specific needs—getting 80% of the work done out of the box.
- Self-Scheduling OpenOps: In a testament to their optimization mindset, Synyega even schedules the OpenOps platform itself, spinning it up for scheduled runs and turning it off when idle.
Automated Tagging Compliance
The tagging workflow became the backbone of Synyega’s governance model:
- Overnight Detection: Every night, OpenOps identifies any newly created resources missing required tags and routes them to the appropriate team.
- Intelligent Routing: Resources created by known team members are automatically tagged based on owner metadata. Others are flagged for manual review.
- Value Validation: Beyond checking for tag presence, Synyega validates that tag values are correct— ensuring resources are tagged with appropriate values for their actual owners.
Standardized Sandbox Provisioning
OpenOps streamlined environment creation:
- One-Click Provisioning: Engineers request sandbox environments through OpenOps, receiving a standardized set of resources with appropriate guardrails.
- Consistent Governance: Every sandbox automatically inherits the organization’s tagging and compliance policies.
- Reduced Friction: Developers get what they need quickly without compromising on governance standards.
See What OpenOps Can Do For You
Implementation Experience
Rapid Deployment
OpenOps deployment was straightforward, with Synyega’s AWS familiarity making the initial setup simple. Cross-cloud connectivity to Azure proved seamless, enabling unified governance from day one.
Policy-First Approach
Synyega adopted a unique operational model: OpenOps workflows are enacted before formal documentation. The platform serves as the source of truth for compliance standards, with written policies following implementation. This approach ensures policies are immediately actionable rather than aspirational.
Advanced Capabilities in Development
Building on their success, Synyega is developing advanced tagging validation that cross-references resource creators with tag values—flagging cases where someone from one team tags a resource as belonging to another team. This capability, enabled by OpenOps’ customizable metadata Tables, represents a maturity level beyond typical tagging compliance.
Measurable Results
Complete Coverage
- 100% Infrastructure Review: Every resource across AWS and Azure is monitored by OpenOps
- 95%+ Tagging Compliance: Near-complete tagging coverage with validated values
- <24 Hour Remediation: Untagged resources identified and addressed within one business day
Operational Excellence
- Eliminated Manual Audits: Automated overnight scans replaced periodic manual reviews
- Standardized Provisioning: Sandbox creation reduced from manual configuration to a few clicks
- Sustainable Governance: Compliance is maintained continuously, not achieved through periodic cleanup campaigns
Strategic Value
- Client Demonstrations: Synyega uses their OpenOps deployment to demonstrate multi-cloud automation capabilities to prospective clients
- Practice What You Preach: In addition to customer-facing work, Internal excellence strengthens credibility when advising clients on FinOps best practices
- Focus on High-Value Work: Automation handles the “long tail” of small optimizations, freeing the team to focus on strategic client engagements
Client Advisory Applications
Synyega leverages OpenOps insights in their client work on a daily basis.
Handling the Long Tail
Synyega advises clients on a key principle: while engineers should focus on high-impact optimizations, automation should handle the bottom-up work—small savings that individually don’t justify human attention but collectively add up.
Campaign Sustainability
A core Synyega philosophy: campaigns that don’t mature into guardrails are just creating “ups and downs in spend.” OpenOps enables their clients to transform one-time cleanup efforts into permanent governance—ensuring problems stay fixed.
Multi-Cloud Readiness
When demonstrating to clients planning multi-cloud expansion, Synyega showcases how OpenOps provides unified visibility and automation across AWS, Azure, and GCP from a single platform.
Looking Forward
Synyega’s OpenOps implementation demonstrates how FinOps consultancies can leverage automation to embody the practices they recommend to clients. By achieving 100% infrastructure coverage and industry-leading tagging compliance, Synyega has created a reference architecture for sustainable cloud governance.
Their advanced work on creator-tag validation represents the next frontier in compliance automation—moving beyond “is it tagged?” to “is it tagged correctly?” This capability will further differentiate their advisory services and provide a template for clients seeking mature FinOps operations.
About OpenOps
OpenOps is an open-source cloud operations automation platform that helps organizations implement systematic FinOps practices through no-code workflow automation and human-in-the-loop controls. By combining customizable workflow templates, safe execution with approval gates, and seamless integration with tools like Slack and GitHub, OpenOps enables continuous cost optimization without risking production stability.
Learn more at openops.com or explore the documentation at docs.openops.com.
