#### 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.

**Key message:** Archera doesn't compete with right-sizing tools.

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#### Module 2: How Insured Commitments Work — The Mechanics

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

1. **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.

2. **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.

3. **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.

4. **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).

5. **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).

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#### 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.

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#### 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 pairs, 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.

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#### Module 5: Objection Handling

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

| Objection | Response |
|---|---|
| "How does Archera make money if the commitment goes unused?" | Insurance model — Archera charges a premium for taking on the risk. Like any insurer, they price it so most commitments are used, but when they're not, they honor the guarantee. |
| "Doesn't this encourage wasteful over-committing?" | No — Archera's recommendations are based on actual usage data. And the guarantee removes the downside of being wrong. The result is actually _better_ commitment hygiene. |
| "We have a PPA/EDP — does this still work?" | Usually yes. The exception is if the customer has a shortfall clause in their agreement — committing more could make that worse. Otherwise, Insured Commitments complement existing agreements. |
| "How does billing look?" | Two line items: the commitment itself (same as any native commitment) and a separate Archera premium. If the guarantee is exercised, Archera refunds the unused commitment cost — either as a credit toward future Archera premiums (default) or via wire transfer. This refund does not appear on your cloud invoice. |
| "Does this require any infrastructure or code changes?" | Zero. Archera operates entirely at the billing/commitment layer. Your engineering team never needs to touch anything. |

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#### Module 6: Putting It Together

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

**Decision framework:**
```markdown
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
```

1. **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.

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#### Ready for the quiz?

Cloud Commitment Management for Technical and Customer Teams Quiz

Cloud Commitment Management for Technical and Customer Teams Quiz

~7 minutes, 10 questions. Get over 80% and we'll send you some swag!