RightScale State of the Cloud 2019: Azure gains again, cost optimisation key, PaaS explodes

Microsoft Azure continues to eat into Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) dominance in the enterprise market, while managing cloud spend and governance continues to be the primary concern, according to the 2019 RightScale State of the Cloud report.The study, a yearly benchmark assessing cloud adoption and which polled almost 800 executives with a relatively even spread between enterprise and SMB respondents, found cloud cost management was the primary concern for the third consecutive year. For the enterprise sector, optimising costs (84% this year, 80% in 2018) and governance (84% this year, 77% in 2018) are notably on the rise.The study noted how organisations may be wasting more than even they expect on their services – hence the need for optimisation. Survey respondents estimated they wasted 27% of their uptake this year, yet Flexera – which bought RightScale last year – assesses it to be nearer 35%.It’s fair to say that using the biggest cloud vendors can be a complex experience with the sheer number of features available. Yet organisations are not helping themselves, with only a handful of companies polled using automated policies to shut down unused workloads, or rightsizing instances. Indeed, less than half (47%) of AWS users are aware of and utilise AWS Reserved Instances, while Azure’s Reserved Instances (23%) pales further into insignificance.