Press Release

RightScale Customers' Cloud Usage Grows Over 1,000% in One Year

Dramatic Increase in Number of Servers in Use, Server Runtime and Deployment on Larger Servers Indicates Growing Use of Cloud Computing for Production Applications

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – August 4, 2010 – RightScale®, Inc., the leader in cloud computing management, today announced that its customers’ use of cloud computing increased by over 1,000 percent in one year, from June, 2009 to June, 2010.  This increase, which is based on spending by RightScale customers for cloud infrastructure, reflects three trends: an overall increase in the number of cloud servers in use by RightScale customers, cloud servers running for longer periods of time, and customers using larger servers.  These changes are indicative of the growing use of cloud computing for production applications. Further underscoring industry momentum, RightScale also reports a significant increase in enterprise customers.

“We are amazed to see how much has changed in the past year, both in terms of the overall amount of cloud computing as well as the applications being deployed,” said Thorsten von Eicken, RightScale CTO.  “For example, our customers’ average server runtime has increased 146 percent, and the number of servers running full time has increased 310 percent, which are indications of not only more production applications, but also increasing cloud stability. Our customers are also launching more powerful servers in support of more users, increasing amounts of data, and additional services offered. 

“RightScale has now launched over 1.3 million servers in the cloud, and we are in a unique position to track customer behavior as a reflection of market trends,” von Eicken continued. “While the cloud market is still in its infancy, we believe the dramatic changes we’ve seen in the past year among our customers are strong indicators of technology maturation and increasing market momentum.”

In the past year, the overall number of cloud servers in use by RightScale customers grew 277 percent, with the share of “extra large” servers – or instances – growing from 12 percent to 56 percent. Larger servers typically reflect support for more users, larger databases, and additional services being made available.  During this same time period, the average runtime of customers’ cloud instances, or the amount of time each cloud server was used, grew 146 percent.  Furthermore, the number of servers running full time increased 310 percent.  Longer server runtimes point to more serious, production applications being deployed on the cloud.  

From June, 2009 to June, 2010, RightScale also experienced a marked increase in deployments among enterprise organizations. Among the enterprise applications deployed are highly scalable websites for marketing promotions and social games, grid computing-based applications for scientific research and media transcoding and rendering, as well as a host of web-based business and consumer services.  Industries experiencing the most significant increase in cloud use were healthcare, pharmaceuticals, financial services, telecommunications and social gaming.

PBS, the non-profit organization that produces iconic shows like Sesame Street, NOVA, and the PBS NewsHour, has turned to cloud computing to keep up with the growing demands of maintaining thousands of web properties. Today, the development and production of a growing number of PBS online programs is hosted on the Amazon Web Service (AWS) public cloud infrastructure and managed by the RightScale Cloud Management Platform. With AWS and RightScale, the PBS system availability and performance is much higher, and PBS can automatically scale up or down to meet demand.

“RightScale has been instrumental in enabling PBS to realize the tremendous benefits – including cost savings and increased flexibility – offered by the Amazon EC2 cloud computing solution,” said Jon Brendsel, Vice President of Product Development, PBS Interactive.

The RightScale Cloud Management Platform lets any organization tap the power of cloud computing for scalable, cost-effective IT infrastructure on demand, with complete control and portability. RightScale is offered in a number of editions to support a wide range of cloud projects.  The latest version of the RightScale Enterprise Edition features enhanced support for cloud computing in an enterprise environment, including user access controls, cost management, and the ability to leverage best practices for virtual cloud deployments across an organization.

About RightScale
RightScale is the leader in cloud computing management. Founded in 2006, the company offers a fully automated cloud management platform that enables organizations to easily deploy and manage business critical applications across multiple clouds with complete control and portability. The RightScale Cloud Management Platform is delivered as "software as a service" (SaaS) and is available in a range of editions. To date, thousands of deployments and over one million servers have been launched on the RightScale platform for leading organizations such as PBS, Harvard University, Zynga and Sling Media. To learn more about RightScale, please go to http://www.RightScale.com.

Note to Editors: For graphics that illustrate RightScale customers’ cloud usage increase, server size distribution change or runtime increase from June, 2009 to June, 2010, please contact Lisa Sheeran at press@rightscale.com or 510-724-2267.
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RightScale is a registered trademark of RightScale, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.

Press Contacts:
Lisa Sheeran
Sheeran/Jager Communication for RightScale
510-724-2267
press@RightScale.com

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