RightScale Research Finds Inefficient Use of Cloud Results in 35 Percent Waste in Cloud Spend


SANTA BARBARA, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 15, 2016) - RightScale® Inc., a demonstrated leader in enterprise universal cloud management, today announced the anonymized results of its Cloud Cost Optimization Service, a professional services offering that leverages the RightScale platform and expertise from RightScale professional services to help reduce the current and ongoing cloud spend of RightScale enterprise customers.

The RightScale Cloud Cost Optimization Service helps recommend and implement actions to save money based on analyzing more than 37 aspects of cloud spend including instance utilization, storage waste, tagging, and a review of discounting options such as AWS Reserved Instances.

"RightScale works closely with its enterprise customers to leverage the RightScale platform as well as our deep experience optimizing cloud usage," said Kim Weins, vice president of marketing at RightScale. "We reviewed data from our recent cost optimization projects and found that cloud users can reduce their cloud spend on average by 35 percent. By leveraging all the power of the RightScale platform, customers can identify waste, take automated action, and implement policies to prevent waste going forward."

Based on the past three months of data from the RightScale Cloud Cost Optimization Service, RightScale found:

  • Compute represents 76 percent of spend: Despite incredible growth in the breadth of new services from cloud providers, compute resources were the single largest area of cloud spend. Database services represented 15 percent of cloud spend.
  • The number of instances is growing quickly: RightScale found that instance spending continues to rise -- up 76 percent from the beginning of the year -- making it critical for enterprises to optimize this portion of spend.
  • Enterprises run instances 24x7: RightScale found clear evidence that enterprises continue to run the majority of instances 24x7, which can be a source of waste. On average, RightScale found only 31 percent variability between the highest and lowest number of instances running over a month. Enterprises should implement auto-scaling for production workloads as well as automated scheduling for development environments to run only during working hours or when needed.
  • Over-provisioned instances: 39 percent of instance spend is on VMs that are running at under 40 percent of CPU and memory utilization, with the majority of those running under 20 percent utilization. This represents an opportunity to downsize and significantly reduce costs.
  • Lack of Reserved Instance use: Reserved Instances (RIs) are the primary discounting method for AWS instances, yet only 19 percent of AWS instances are covered by Reserved Instances. Increasing RI coverage will result in significant savings. RightScale advises customers on strategies for buying and managing RIs, even when their instance usage may be changing.
  • Old storage: Many enterprises neglect to clean up storage that is no longer being used, resulting in 7 percent of all cloud spend wasted on unattached storage volumes and old snapshots.

RightScale offers the following capabilities for its customers to optimize cloud spend:

  • Governed provisioning: Provide governance over which instance sizes are launched in which clouds and regions.
  • Utilization management: Track which instances are underutilized and leverage RightScale to help automate the downsizing process.
  • Automated scheduling for temporary workloads: Leverage instance schedules and end dates to automatically shut down when done.
  • Auto-scaling of workloads: Scale workloads up and down based on demand instead of provisioning to peak usage.
  • Storage policies: Implement automation to find and delete old storage and terminate unused instances.
  • AWS RI planning and management: Monitor RI coverage and utilization.

For more information, please see the RightScale Blog post, AWS Costs: How Much Are You Wasting?

About RightScale
RightScale Universal Cloud Management enables leading enterprises to accelerate delivery of cloud-based applications that engage customers and drive top-line revenue while optimizing cloud usage to reduce risk and costs. With RightScale, IT organizations can deliver instant access to a portfolio of public, private, and hybrid cloud services across business units and development teams while maintaining enterprise control. RightScale Consulting Services help companies develop cloud strategies, deliver cloud projects, and optimize cloud usage. RightScale was named a "100 Best Places to Work in 2015" by Outside Magazine and was listed in "The Best Enterprise Cloud Computing Startups to Work For in 2015" by Forbes. Since 2007, leading enterprises including Audi and Yellow Pages Group have launched millions of servers through RightScale.

Contact Information:

Contact:
Bret Clement