28/05/2026

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | MAY 28, 2026

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FinOps: Cutting cloud costs at internet exchanges

R UNNING cloud environments effi ciently is no longer just a technical challenge – it is a financial one. FinOps, short for Financial Operations, has therefore become a strategic focus among Malaysian enterprises as they scale their cloud and digital capabilities. The latest FinOps Foundation survey underlines this shift: Organisations are prioritising more efficient workload placement, more accurate internal cost allocation and better cost forecasting. These three objectives ranked highest among the roughly 1,200 large enterprises surveyed in the Foundation’s 2026 report, whose combined cloud budgets exceed US$80 billion (RM314 billion). In markets such as Malaysia, this trend is reinforced by exceptionally strong cloud adoption. As more organisations adopt multi cloud strategies and expand into AI-driven workloads, these priorities are becoming essential to ensure cost efficiency while supporting sustainable digital growth. According to IDC, Malaysia’s public cloud services market is experiencing strong double digit growth, driven by increasing enterprise adoption of cloud, AI and digital transformation initiatives. As organisations scale their cloud usage across multiple platforms and regions, managing costs effectively is becoming increasingly complex. In this environment, ensuring transparency, predictability and financial control over cloud spending is emerging as a critical competitive advantage for Malaysian enterprises as they continue to expand their digital capabilities. At its core, FinOps aims to minimise unnecessary expenses while maximising business value. The discipline focuses on making cloud usage and investments visible, traceable and accountable. This goes beyond technical optimisation: FinOps clarifies who is responsible for which costs and why they occur. Highly variable and complex cloud expenses are documented and broken down by teams, products and business units. Invoice data is enriched with tags and metadata, then analysed using data and analytics tools to identify usage patterns, inefficiencies and optimisation opportunities across compute, storage and network resources. Clear ownership is essential here. Sustainable cost reduction is only achievable when engineering, platform and finance teams work closely together and share a common understanding of budgets and business priorities. This shift is especially relevant in Malaysia’s growing cloud ecosystem, where collaboration between engineering, platform and finance teams is essential. Sustainable cost

video editing, email marketing, and providing virtual assistance. This shift forces companies to rethink retention strategies while simultaneously creating new opportunities for collaboration with independent professionals. The rise of skilled side-gig workers signals not the erosion of the traditional workforce, but the emergence of a hybrid model where employment and entrepreneurship coexist. For policymakers, educators, and corporate leaders, the implications are clear. Side gigs are no longer peripheral to the economy. In fact, they are central to how modern careers are built. They represent not only a way to supplement income but also a pathway to achieving real financial goals, time freedom, location freedom, dignity, and real control in uncertain times. The challenge ahead is not whether this shift will continue, but how individuals and institutions alike will adapt to it. The future of work is not a question of choosing between stability and independence. It is about recognising that stability itself is being redefined. And in this new definition, side gigs are not a risk. They are an opportunity. FinOps is not a one-off initiative but a continuous transformation – one that aligns finance, IT and business objectives. Industry analysts from Gartner estimate that on average, network-related costs such as egress account for around 10% to 15% of total cloud spending. In Malaysia’s rapidly expanding cloud and digital economy, proactively managing these costs through improved architecture design can deliver meaningful financial benefits while supporting sustainable digital growth. This article is contributed by DE-CIX Global customer success management head Harald Kriener ( pix ). locations while maintaining performance and security – and to turn previously “hidden” network related fees into a managed, optimised part of their cloud cost strategy. Experience shows that the greatest savings potential often lies in architectural choices made early on. As enterprises increasingly adopt multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments under initiatives such as MyDigital and broader digital transformation efforts, centralised and software-defined routing solutions are becoming an effective way to simplify connectivity across platforms. Companies can avoid investing in their own networking hardware to interconnect cloud environments and instead consume connectivity as a service. These routing services integrate directly into enterprise IT environments via APIs and can be provisioned automatically. This supports continuous optimisation, aligns technical design with financial governance and reduces operational complexity. Full cost transparency ultimately strengthens competitiveness. Malaysian organisations that adopt FinOps best practices early are better prepared to keep spending under control as workloads grow and business processes scale. By analysing data flows and leveraging private interconnection where appropriate, they eliminate hidden charges and improve efficiency. As Malaysian enterprises modernise their infrastructure under national initiatives such as MyDigital and increasingly adopt multi cloud strategies, greater visibility into data flows and cloud spending is becoming essential.

With the right training and guidance, they are within reach of students, stay-at-home parents, and even retirees seeking renewed purpose. In this way, the gig economy is no longer defined by age, background, or gender – but by willingness to learn and deliver value. Still, scepticism remains. Freelancing has long carried the perception of instability. Yet, experience shows that when approached strategically, freelancing can be one of the most reliable and empowering ways to work. The key lies in building credibility, cultivating long-term client relationships, and showing up with professionalism in a crowded digital marketplace. When freelancers prioritise quality and ethical delivery over shortcuts and gimmicks, they not only earn repeat business but also position themselves as trusted partners in a fast changing economy. Businesses, too, are paying attention. As talent becomes more mobile and employees increasingly pursue flexible alternatives, organisations are beginning to rely on freelancers for specialised expertise and agile support. With the rise of social media platforms, influencer marketing, and other trends – the focus is now on hiring and retaining freelancers who possess skills in writing, website design, spending in a structured manner, reflecting the need to manage token-based and usage-driven costs that can rise unexpectedly when environments are left running unnecessarily or enabled to scale automatically. One commonly underestimated cost driver in cloud environments is data egress. Hyperscalers charge fees when data is transferred out of their platforms – and charge even more if the data is extracted via the public internet. These charges apply globally including in Malaysian cloud regions. Depending on volume, outbound data transfer typically costs several US cents per gigabyte. For data-heavy workloads such as AI, analytics and streaming services, these outbound data transfers can accumulate into substantial monthly costs for enterprises. As Malaysia accelerates its digital transformation and cloud adoption, driven by initiatives such as MyDigital and growing investments from global hyperscalers, enterprises are becoming increasingly exposed to these less visible network-related costs. Internet Exchanges provide a proven alternative. They enable private, direct connections between enterprises, clouds and networks. Instead of routing traffic unpredictably across the public internet, data is exchanged via dedicated paths with defined performance and service levels, enhancing performance and reducing costs. Software-defined routing services offered at Internet Exchanges such as the Cloud Router from DE-CIX make this approach scalable and transparent. By dynamically steering traffic between multiple clouds and on-premises infrastructures using private and software defined connectivity, they help avoid unnecessary public egress. Workloads do not need to traverse local data centres or the public internet, and traffic flows become visible and controllable in real time. This allows enterprises to place applications and data where they are most cost-effective, while maintaining performance and security. In Malaysia, sectors such as IT services, fintech, e commerce and media are increasingly adopting multi cloud strategies to balance performance, compliance and cost – enabling enterprises to place applications and data in the most cost effective

THE nature of work is shifting more rapidly than ever before. Once, stability was defined by a steady job, incremental promotions, and the promise of retirement after decades of service. Today, that model no longer feels secure for many professionals. Rising living costs, economic uncertainty, and an increasingly competitive job market have prompted individuals to rethink what security and success truly mean. In this evolving landscape, side gigs have moved from the margins into the mainstream. What was once seen as supplementary income or a stopgap measure is now being embraced as a serious and sustainable way to build a real, thriving business, even from the ground up. Across Malaysia and beyond, professionals are discovering that side gigs and side hustles not only provide financial buffers but also open doors to flexibility, growth, and limitless opportunities – leading to long-term reinvention. The appeal lies in accessibility. Digital tools and global platforms have democratised opportunities once reserved for niche industries. Skills such as digital marketing, funnel design, content creation, and copywriting are no longer the domain of specialists in large firms. At the same time, the entry of global hyperscalers and the expansion of local data centre capacity are driving increased usage of pay-as-you-go cloud services, which require stronger financial governance and visibility. As a result, AI workloads, SaaS subscriptions and software licensing models are now becoming central considerations within FinOps strategies. In the FinOps Foundation survey, nearly all respondents said they assess AI-related cloud align on business priorities. The scope of FinOps is expanding rapidly as Malaysian enterprises increasingly adapt cloud native and AI-driven architectures, including containers, microservices and GPU-intensive workloads. They rely heavily on consumption based pricing. Pay-as-you-go models provide flexibility, but they also replace predictable, depreciable capital expenditure with dynamic operating costs that can fluctuate significantly. This is particularly relevant in Malaysia, where AI initiatives and digital transformation are accelerating across both the public and private sectors. National initiatives such as the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDigital) and the government’s push to position Malaysia as a regional digital hub have encouraged wider adoption of cloud, SaaS, and AI technologies across industries.

optimisation can only be achieved when all stakeholders share visibility of budgets and The rise of side gigs: Redefining work, stability and economic freedom

This article is contributed by Side Gig Accelerator founder Kristy Ting ( pix ).