Category Archives: Cloudyn

Cloudyn, Financing, hybrid cloud, News & Analysis

Cloudyn gets $11 million to take cloud monitoring global

Cloud monitoring service Cloudyn has raised $11 million to fund global expansion, brand raising and service integration from a Series B round of financing.

The latest cash injection comes 15 months after it was awarded for $4 million as investors noted how it had grown to monitor 8% of all Amazon Web Services. With cloud computing operators now generating $321billion a year, according to 451 Research, the monitoring of both infrastructure and platform services (IaaS and PaaS) is becoming increasingly critical.

The popularity of hybrid clouds, which straddle both public and private premises, has added complexity to the management task, creating a need for specialist monitors such as Isreal-based start up Cloudyn. A study conducted by 451 Research predicts that many companies plan to spend up to 50% of their cloud budget on these services.

Since 2014, when Cloudyn received $4 million in funding, the company says it has focused on winning clients among Fortune 1000 enterprises and managed service providers. Cloudyn has tripled its revenue for three consecutive years while doubling its head count. It currently monitors 200,000 virtual machines and 12,000 concurrent applications.

The new round of venture funding was led by Carmel Ventures and included contributions from previous investors Titanium Investments and RDSeed. Ronen Nir, General Partner at Carmel, will join Cloudyn’s board of directors.

There’s growing need for enterprises to perfect their resource allocation, boost performance and cut reducing cloud spend, according to Ronen Nir, the cloud specialist at Carmel Ventures. “Cloudyn’s technology provides meaningful and actionable data which has both operational and financial metrics,” said Nir.

“The funding will allow us to build on this momentum and increase our market share in North America and global markets,” said Sharon Wagner, CEO of Cloudyn.

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Study Finds Enterprise Cloud Focus Shifting From Adoption to Optimization

Cloudyn together with The Big Data Group has released the latest AWS customer optimization data, reinforcing the positive growth trend expected for the year ahead.

“We set out to evaluate whether the projected 2013 ‘year of cloud optimization’ is on course and discovered that we are well into the public cloud adoption life cycle. In 2011 and 2012 the conversation centered around how and when to move to the cloud. Now it is all about companies looking for efficiencies and cost controls,” commented David Feinleib, Managing Director of The Big Data Group.

The study, based on over 450 selected AWS and Cloudyn customers, highlights a more mature approach to cloud deployments reflected by a deeper understanding of where inefficiencies lurk and how to optimize them. EC2 makes up for 62% of total AWS spend, with more than 50% of customers now using Reserved Instances in their deployment mix. However, On-Demand pricing remains the top choice for most, accounting for 71% of EC2 spend. Even for customers using reservations, there is still opportunity for further efficiency.

For example, Cloudyn’s Unused Reservation Detector has assisted customers in finding a startling 24% of unused reservations. These can be recycled by relocating matching On-Demand instances to the availability zone of the unused reservation.

There is also a shift away from large instance types to medium, where two medium instances cost the same as one large, but can produce 30% more output. However, with the low 8-9% utilization rates of the popular instance types, there is certainly more work to be done on the road to cloud optimization.

Cloudyn and The Big Data Group host a webinar on May 1, 2013 at 9:00 am PT focused on deployment efficiency.

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Cloudyn Power Tools Aim for Increased Efficiency, Savings for AWS Customers

Cloudyn has released new Amazon Web Services optimization Power Tools, aiming for increased efficiency and savings for AWS cloud deployments.

“The power tools were developed in response to what we perceive as the market’s growing need for clarity and control over cloud capacity, cost and utilization. The market is ripe for a significant overhaul with companies no longer able to ignore the fluctuating costs associated with the dynamic use of their cloud. Our data shows that 29% of customers spend $51,000-250,000 annually with AWS; only 6% of  customers spend $250,001 – $500,000, but this is the group with the largest saving potential with an average of 46%. All AWS customers Cloudyn monitors have cost optimization potential of between 34% – 46%,” commented Sharon Wagner, CEO of Cloudyn.

The popular Reserved Instance Calculator, which launched in October 2012, is being complemented with the release of the EC2 and RDS reservation detectors. Moving beyond optimal reservation pricing, Cloudyn now recommends which On-Demand instances can be relocated to unused and available reservations. When On-Demand instances don’t match any idle reservations, sell recommendations for the unused reservation are generated.

“Nextdoor’s growing social network relies heavily on AWS and managing cost is a priority for us,” comments Matt Wise, Senior Systems Architect at Nextdoor.com. “Cloudyn gives us clarity into all our cloud assets and ensures that we utilize them fully. Additionally, Cloudyn’s sizing and pricing recommendations enable us to use the cloud in the most cost-effective way possible.”

A new S3 Tracker analyzes S3 usage tracked by bucket or top-level folders and highlights inefficiencies together with step-by-step recommendations on how to optimize. A shadow version detector reveals otherwise hidden shadow S3 versions which inflate the monthly bill.

“We were surprised to learn how many companies simply don’t know what’s going on inside their S3 storage. The new tool splits S3 across buckets and allocates cost per usage providing crystal clear visibility. Interestingly, the most expensive ‘Standard’ storage type is also the most widely used, dominating with 84%. Post-optimization, this can be reduced to 60% and redistributed to the Reduced and Glacier storage alternatives,” continued Mr. Wagner.