RightScale Inc., a demonstrated leader in enterprise cloud management, today announced RightScale Cloud Analytics, the first multi-cloud cost management solution that integrates with a cloud management platform to enable users to take action on insights and implement budget controls.  

Cloud Analytics is a new enterprise-grade cost management solution from RightScale that provides sophisticated cloud usage and cost analysis as well as forecasting and scenario planning across major public and private clouds. Cloud Analytics is integrated with the RightScale Cloud Management platform, providing a mechanism for enterprises to quickly execute optimizations to their cloud portfolio.

Together, RightScale Cloud Management and RightScale Cloud Analytics comprise the first in a new category of applications, cloud portfolio management (CPM), that provides an integrated solution to manage applications and optimize usage across a portfolio of public and private clouds. With RightScale Cloud Portfolio Management, enterprises can easily deploy applications in any cloud and seamlessly move applications between clouds in order to meet technical requirements or optimize costs.

“RightScale Cloud Analytics promises to help us quickly understand our current cloud usage, accurately forecast and optimize our future cloud spend, and identify and eliminate undesirable costs” said Scott Mills, principal IT infrastructure engineer at Progress Software. “The combination of Cloud Analytics with RightScale Cloud Management promises to be a game changer – Cloud Analytics will enable us to close the loop and take action on the insights we gain.”

“The importance of cloud analytics will be critical in 2014 as enterprises look to better manage their cloud spending and usage,” said Dr. Owen Rogers, cloud economist at 451 Research. “A survey of cloud providers recently conducted by 451 Research, found the market is rife with confusing models and metrics. Integrated cloud analytics and management tools such as those from RightScale can help consumers understand this complex landscape, and take actions to manage their cloud expenditure.”

Holger Mueller, vice president and principal analyst for cloud computing at Constellation Research, said, “Beware the false analytics of vendors who offer data on cloud costs and usage, but don’t tie that data to a derived action or guidance. RightScale Cloud Analytics is an important first step in integrating cloud analytics with cloud management across public and private clouds – a true analytics platform for cloud computing.”

“The vast majority of enterprises today have a multi-cloud strategy that encompasses public, private, and hybrid clouds. Our vision for acquiring PlanForCloud.com was to provide organizations with a complete solution to effectively and efficiently manage their portfolio of applications across their portfolio of clouds,” said Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale. “With Cloud Analytics, we are extending our suite of products to address the business need for optimizing cloud usage. Cloud Analytics enables technical, business, and financial managers to get actionable information that enables successful and cost-effective cloud adoption.”

Key things to know about Cloud Analytics:
· Integration with Cloud Management: Cloud Analytics offers tight integration with RightScale Cloud Management to close the loop between technical management of applications and optimization of cloud usage and costs. Cloud Analytics can be purchased separately or bundled with Cloud Management.
· Multi-Cloud Visibility: Cloud Analytics provides visibility into usage and costs across public and private clouds. Users can slice and dice costs by cloud, application, department, and team; and drill down to lists of individual servers so that technical teams can take action.  
· Forecasting and Scenario Planning: Cloud Analytics provides sophisticated forecasting that combines current usage and historical trends with growth patterns based on your business plans and expectations. Users will be able to define alternate scenarios to evaluate projected costs based on different clouds, instance sizes, regions, or reserved instance purchase options.
· Cost Optimization: Cloud Analytics enables users to identify waste and find opportunities to reduce costs with reserved instances or alternate purchase options.  Based on insights from Cloud Analytics, companies can implement enterprise budget controls using RightScale Cloud Management.
· Governance: Cloud Analytics incorporates enterprise-grade access controls to enable different users to access information relative to their roles and responsibilities.

RightScale Cloud Analytics is now in limited beta release. To request a beta account, please fill out this form. Pricing will be announced when Cloud Analytics becomes generally available in 2014.