Cloud Commitment Management for Technical and Customer Teams

Module 1: Rate Optimization in the FinOps Framework

Learning objective: Place Archera within the broader FinOps landscape.

Key concepts:

• FinOps is the practice of bringing financial accountability to cloud spending through cross-functional collaboration (Engineering, Finance, Business)
• Two levers: Rate optimization (what you pay) and Usage optimization (how much you use)
• Rate optimization operates at the billing/metering layer — no engineering involvement required
• Archera is a rate optimization platform — this distinction matters when positioning to customers with active engineering optimization programs (they're complementary, not competitive)
• The Effective Savings Rate (ESR) = discount realized / potential discount available. This is the KPI Archera helps improve.

{% hint style="info" %} Key message: Archera doesn't compete with right-sizing tools. {% endhint %}

Module 2: How Insured Commitments Work — The Mechanics

Learning objective: Understand the mechanics well enough to explain and manage Archera for a customer.

{% stepper %} {% step %} How it actually works (under the hood)

• Archera analyzes customer cost and usage data
• Archera recommends an optimal commitment plan
• Customer approves; Archera purchases 1- or 3-year commitments in the customer's account
• Archera overlays the moneyback guarantee with its own Archera term (30 days or 1 year)
• If the customer's usage drops and the commitment goes underutilized after the Archera term, Archera bears the cost {% endstep %}

{% step %} The guarantee mechanism (varies by cloud and commitment type)

• Marketplace Transfer (Azure): Archera facilitates transfer of the commitment via marketplace
• Billing Transfer (AWS): For commitments isolated to a single account with no running infrastructure, the remaining payment obligation transfers to Archera (AWS only)
• Refund (AWS, Azure, & GCP): Archera refunds the cost of the underutilized commitment — either as a credit toward future Archera premiums (default) or via wire transfer. This refund is issued by Archera directly and does not appear on the cloud invoice. {% endstep %}

{% step %} Term structure

• 30-day insured term → 35 months of flexible coverage after
• 1-year insured term → 24 months of flexible coverage after
• Customer does NOT need to take action after the lock-in period unless they want to exercise the guarantee {% endstep %}

{% step %} Premium model

• Premium charged only on Insured Commitments — the ones Archera is guaranteeing
• Native cloud commitments Archera manages are free
• Premium reflects the risk Archera is taking on (shorter term = higher premium, longer term = lower premium) {% endstep %}

{% step %} Multi-cloud coverage

• AWS: EC2, RDS, Lambda, Fargate, SageMaker, ECS, EKS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, OpenSearch, Redshift (GRIs and GSPs)
• Azure: Virtual Machines, SQL DB, Cosmos DB, AKS, Azure OpenAI, and many more (GRIs and GSPs)
• GCP: Compute Engine (GCUDs) {% endstep %} {% endstepper %}

Module 3: Deployment and Setup

Learning objective: Know how to onboard a customer and what permissions are involved.

Deployment overview:

• AWS/GCP: IAM role created in customer account
• Azure: Enterprise App registration in customer's Azure tenant
• Two deployment modes:
  • Visibility Role: Read-only; unlocks cost visibility and forecasting (free forever)
  • Commitment Management Role: Enables Archera to purchase and manage commitments on customer's behalf

What Archera can and cannot do:

• ✅ Read cost and usage data
• ✅ Purchase and manage commitments
• ✅ Create cost and usage reports/exports
• ❌ Cannot modify running infrastructure
• ❌ Cannot impact applications
• ❌ Does not take over billing or become a reseller

Onboarding time: ~5 minutes. Dashboard available in 24 hours (AWS) or 48 hours (Azure/GCP).

Key prerequisite: AWS requires the Management Account. If the customer doesn't have one, they'll need to enable AWS Organizations first.

Under a reseller's consolidated billing? Usually still works. Most reseller configurations are supported including TD Synnex & Ingram Micro.

Module 4: Using Archera as a Customer Relationship Tool

Learning objective: Understand how to use Archera to build trust, demonstrate value, and protect net retention.

For SAs — running the platform:

• Archera's recommendation engine analyzes usage data and produces a commitment plan
• Review recommendations with the customer before purchasing — they always have final approval
• Set up automation rules for recurring purchases once the customer is comfortable
• Monitor commitment utilization in the dashboard (note: data is delayed ~1.5 days, a cloud provider limitation) or set up notifications for underutilization
• Use segments to organize commitment strategy by instance type, family, region, tag key/value pais, etc.

For AMs and CS — the retention and expansion motion:

In QBRs & Meetings:

• Lead with savings realized: "Since we deployed Archera, you've saved $X on cloud commitments"
• Show coverage improvement: "Your Effective Savings Rate moved from X% to Y%"
• Use the moneyback guarantee as proof of customer protection: "If anything changes in your infrastructure, you're covered"
• Flag optimization opportunities: services or accounts with low commitment coverage

Building trust:

• The moneyback guarantee is a tangible proof point that your partnership protects them, not just optimizes them
• Customers who see regular savings reporting stay — they have a quantified reason to keep the engagement
• No infrastructure changes = no risk of "you broke something" conversations

Expansion signals:

• New AWS accounts or Azure subscriptions being added → new commitment coverage opportunity
• Workload migration completing → time to commit the newly stable infrastructure
• Growth in spend in specific services → higher commitment coverage possible

{% hint style="info" %} Every month Archera is saving a customer money, that's a number on a slide in your QBR. {% endhint %}

Module 5: Objection Handling

Learning objective: Handle the five most common objections with confidence.

Module 6: Putting It Together

Learning objective: Know when to recommend which product and how to position Archera in a broader solution.

Decision framework:

Customer has stable baseline workloads for 1+ year?
  → Recommend 1-year Insured Commitment (better savings than native 1-year)

Customer uncertain about 12-month workload stability?
  → Recommend 30-day Insured Commitment (only 30-day lock-in)

Customer has existing native commitments?
  → Archera manages those free; can layer Insured Commitments on top for new coverage

Customer using a right-sizing / usage optimization tool?
  → Archera is complementary — rate optimization + usage optimization = full picture

Customer on credits?
  → Archera's credit burndown dashboard is valuable; credits can be used to purchase Insured Commitments

{% stepper %} {% step %} How to introduce Archera in an active customer engagement

• Start with visibility role (free, no commitment) — let the data do the talking
• Run the recommendation engine and show the potential savings
• Start with one or two commitments to build confidence
• Expand coverage over time as trust builds {% endstep %} {% endstepper %}