Microsoft Azure’s revenue may be lagging that of Amazon Web Services (AWS), but according to new research from IT management firm Flexera, adoption of Azure’s cloud computing options may now have overtaken AWS in some cases.
Flexera’s new State of the Cloud report gathered feedback from 753 people, surveyed at the end of 2021. It reveals that Azure is the only public cloud provider whose adoption has increased significantly during the year elapsed.
As a result, today 80% of enterprises use Azure, up from 73% last year, while AWS’s share has grown from 79% to 77% over this period.
Microsoft is catching up with SMEs
Google Cloud isn’t profitable yet, but it sits in a comfortable third place, with 48% adoption, up from 49% last year, while adoption of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure jumped 32% last year last at 27% today. IBM Cloud’s share remains stable at 25%.
The report also looked at whether users were running heavy workloads, a few workloads, or just experimenting with one vendor. Azure and AWS are tied for important workloads (47%), while 33% of enterprises use certain workloads on Azure, compared to 33% in this category on AWS.
The good news for Google Cloud, which is looking to gain market share, is that 23% of respondents are experimenting with it, indicating potential revenue growth in the future.
AWS still leads Azure among SMBs. However, even in this area, Microsoft is catching up. AWS’s 69% share among SMBs is down from 72% last year, while Azure’s is 59% today, down from 48% last year. Google Cloud’s share grew from 39% to 43% year over year. Oracle Cloud also captured more SMBs and gained a 28% share, up from 15% previously, while IBM jumped from 20% to 24%.
The rise of multicloud
Today, of course, few are locked into a single cloud provider. Multicloud continues to grow and is practically becoming the norm. Flexera finds that 79% of enterprises use multiple public clouds, while 60% use more than one private cloud.
Despite this, 45% of applications are siled across different clouds, i.e. even though they use multiple clouds, each application is locked to a single provider. Some 44% use multiple providers for failover in the event of a major cloud outage. This seems reasonable, considering that over the past couple of years, AWS, Azure, and Google have suffered multiple hour-long outages.
The challenge of managing security in a multicloud environment prompted Microsoft’s recent decision to bring Defender for Cloud to Google Cloud and AWS. It also necessitates projects like Cloud Security Notification Framework (CSNF). Among large enterprises with more than 10,000 employees, multicloud security tools are now the #1 tool organizations use at 41%, followed by multicloud cost management tools at 37%. Governance tools and management tools are used by 34% and 33% of large companies, respectively.
Cost management tools are essential as the survey reveals that respondents believe their organizations waste 32% of cloud spend. However, wastage is likely higher, notes Flexera.
Although Azure may close the gap in some areas, AWS remains by far the largest cloud provider: according to data from Synergy Research, Amazon, Microsoft and Google continue to account for more than half of global cloud spending , with market shares of 33%, 20% and 10% in the third quarter of 2021.
Source: ZDNet.com