Microcity Inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Yuichiro Yamazaki) is pleased to announce that Akihiro Kadohata, former Senior Business Development Manager at AWS, author of "AWS Cost Optimization Guidebook" (KADOKAWA), and translator of "Cloud FinOps, 2nd Edition" (O'Reilly Japan), has been appointed as a technical advisor for "srest (Suresuto)," a Government Cloud FinOps tool provided by the company, effective July 2026. This appointment will accelerate the evolution of "srest" into a service that provides end-to-end support from visualization to optimization, by combining the data accumulated while supporting cloud cost visualization for approximately 400 local governments nationwide (as of June 2026) with Mr. Kadohata's expertise in cost optimization. △ From left: Gen Ten Nago (Senior Sales Engineer), Changgyu So (Head of Business), Naomichi Yamakita (Product Owner), Akihiro Kadohata (Technical Advisor), Hikaru Isozaki (Business Development Leader), Yuhi Noda (Sales Engineer) ◼︎ Background Local government core business systems have been migrating to the Government Cloud, with the transition deadline generally set for the end of March 2026. However, operational expenses are expected to increase post-migration. According to estimates by the Digital Agency, the operational expenses for systems migrating by the end of fiscal year 2026 are projected to increase from approximately 140 billion yen before migration to about 250 billion yen (approximately 1.8 times) (*1). Against this backdrop, the Digital Agency released the "Continuous Operational Expense Optimization (FinOps) Guide" for Government Cloud users, outlining methods for visualizing, analyzing, and continuously optimizing cloud usage fees (*2). The flow from cost "visualization" to "optimization" is becoming a new theme in the Government Cloud. To actually implement such optimization, specialized knowledge in cloud design and operation is essential. "srest" has so far supported the establishment of F