Private cloud deployments lose luster as enterprises lean toward public, multi-cloud approaches, says RightScale

Private cloud adoption is waning as more enterprises are going with public cloud options. Microsoft Azure is digging into Amazon Web Services' lead with Google gaining at No. 3. And companies are running most workloads in the cloud as adoption matures, according to RightScale's annual State of the Cloud survey.

Those high-level takeaways are notable in the 2017 RightScale survey, but there are nuances. RightScale surveyed 1,002 tech pros across multiple industries and company sizes. Consider:

• The strategy for most companies is to have multiple clouds. Those strategies highlight how Azure can gain adoption even as AWS market share holds relatively steady.

• Enterprise private cloud adoption fell from 77 percent in 2016 to 72 percent in 2017.

• Hybrid cloud strategies are still preferred, but more companies are looking to public-only options.
• Cloud users are running applications in an average of 1.8 public clouds and 2.3 private clouds.
• 41 percent of workloads run in the public cloud and 38 percent in the private cloud.

• Central enterprise IT groups are getting more control of cloud choices. For instance, 65 percent of central IT groups pick public clouds.
• However, 41 percent of business respondents say they are less likely to delegate authority to central IT for public clouds. Tug of war anyone?

• 24 percent of mature cloud users cited managing costs as their biggest challenge.
• Microsoft Azure adoption grew from 20 percent in 2016 to 34 percent in 2017. AWS was flat at 57 percent on the adoption scale. Google was No. 3 at 15 percent of adoption in 2017, up from 10 percent last year.

• VMware vSphere leads with 42 percent adoption for private cloud deployments with OpenStack at 20 percent.

• Cloud architect has become a big role at enterprises with 56 percent of them saying they have one.

More: Integrating the Hybrid Cloud | Cloud TV