Gartner Research

Navigating the
Omnipresent Cloud Era
Dennis Smith, David Smith

4 January 2023
Navigating the Omnipresent Cloud Era
Published 4 January 2023 - ID G00778486 - 9 min read

By Analyst(s): Dennis Smith, David Smith

Cloud computing is a core underpinning of the business and IT

needs of an organization today. However, the manner in which
cloud computing is being leveraged is changing, compelling I&O
leaders to reexamine the role of cloud in their day-to-day decisions
in multiple ways.

Additional Perspectives

■ Summary Translation + Localization: Navigating the Omnipresent Cloud Era

(30 June 2023)

Overview
Key Findings
■ Selection of a strategic cloud provider is not the final step for an organization toward
meeting their digital business outcomes and transformational needs.

■ There are multiple paths to the adoption of a cloud operating model beyond the
public cloud alone. These varying paths will increase the complexity for enterprises
to define a cloud strategy and associated deployment.

■ Complex technologies will continue to proliferate in the world of multicloud,

distributed cloud, hyperscale edge, sovereign cloud and industry clouds. This will
create severe navigation challenges for I&O leaders.

Recommendations
To navigate the evolving cloud computing landscape:

■ Meet your digital requirements by engaging vendors besides your traditional

strategic cloud provider(s).

■ Identify complementary vendors by mapping possible partners against deployment

and operational considerations within your cloud strategy.

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■ Weigh technology decisions in light of the cooperative and competitive relationships
of the vendors you are considering.

Introduction
Traditional public cloud activity has mostly centered around foundational infrastructure
elements (i.e., compute, storage, networking). Here vendors are exceeding enterprise
requirements. Additionally, the industry has been successful in migrating “easy”
workloads — those that represent the majority of enterprise workloads that have moved to
the public cloud. However, a big challenge going forward will be addressing the remaining
on-premises workloads, building new applications and implementing activity at the edge.

Future cloud activity will be focused on leveraging multiple clouds. This will include
specialized clouds such as sovereign clouds and contextualization of standard cloud
platforms for specific industries, as well as adding industry-specific capabilities to
standard cloud platforms to meet industry needs. This activity will build on traditional
cloud foundational technologies, while adding technical capabilities.

Finally, enterprises will make cloud computing an explicit element of their business
strategies. This will build not only on the foundational cloud technology elements but also
technology that enhances the base technology.

These dynamics will change the technology offered and the competitive vendor
environment (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1: The New Cloud Era

Analysis
Engage Providers Outside Traditional Public Cloud
We are reaching the end of the beginning chapter in the initial cloud adoption, and style
and usage scenarios now include on-premises deployments; multi, regional, sovereign and
industry cloud; and activity at the edge. Competition is rapidly increasing in these areas.
Most enterprises will need to, at least, evaluate separate vendor partners within these
domains.

This evolving cloud computing environment can be categorized across three distinct
layers of focus, as shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Cloud Competitive Dynamics

The layers of focus:

■ Technology core, which is technology pioneered and still heavily influenced by the
hyperscaler cloud providers. This is traditional infrastructure components (i.e.,
compute, storage, networking). There will be increasingly fewer vendors here as it
requires a major investment in infrastructure.

■ Capabilities enhancement, which leverages the technology core but adds additional
functionality (e.g., Kubernetes software vendors can run their software across
multiple public cloud infrastructures). Other examples are infrastructure services.
Numerous multicloud networking and cloud management tooling vendors also
operate here. Some technologically mature enterprises may also provide capabilities
here that they open source and provide to the market. Hyperscaler cloud providers
also offer services within this category (e.g., container and/or Kubernetes,
application and data services).

■ Value enhancement, which leverages the technology core and the capabilities
enhancement layers to provide services used directly by the users. These solutions
could be consumer oriented and/or vertical-industry focused.

I&O leaders must consider these categories as they form strategic alliances and make
technology decisions. This will expand their pool of possible vendors and technology
choices.

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Map Strategic Vendors Against Your Cloud Strategy
Vendors approach the market in various ways. The evolving vendor environment mapped
against the previously discussed three layers is illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Evolving Vendor Environment

The letters in Figure 3 denote specific types of vendors:

■ A. Vendors that provide base infrastructure services, such as bare metal services,
specialized storage and/or networking.

■ B. Vendors that provide integrated core infrastructure and platform services (CIPS).

■ C. Vendors that provide platform services but not core infrastructure and use the
hyperscalers for infrastructure. In many cases, these vendors compete with services
that the hyperscalers provide.

■ D. Vendors that provide platform and cloud application services, but use
hyperscalers for underlying technology.

■ E. Vendors and/or companies that provide end-user services using infrastructure and
platform services from other vendors.

■ F. Vendors that provide core infrastructure, platform and some cloud application
services.

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The arrows in Figure 3 illustrate that some vendors will change focus. One example is a
vendor that is not gaining traction with its traditional cloud services may decide to focus
more on technology and services that leverage core services provided by other vendors.
Another example is a vendor expanding by adding SaaS offerings to its technology core
and capabilities enhancement offerings. Gartner expects that, over the next three to five
years, vendors will be categorized based on the profiles shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Evolving Vendor Profiles

This has enterprise implications and requires that enterprises are attuned to vendor
roadmaps and their strategic focus. Note that the vendor focus can and will change over
time.

Another evolving aspect is the competitive product/services environment. Figure 5 shows

the evolving competitive product environment. A single product evaluation can involve a
mix of vendors with differing strategies.

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Figure 5: Evolving Competitive Product Environment

The bar in the figure denotes an area where different types of vendors might compete (for
example, Kubernetes services). Here an enterprise would, for example, need to choose
between hyperscalers they are using along with third-party software providers. The key is
to understand that the vendors providing a specific set of solutions mapping to your
requirements could be rather large.

Rationalize Your Technology Decisions

Figure 6 shows a sampling of various technologies mapped against the previously
discussed three layers of focus. Both open-source and proprietary technologies will be
used.

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Figure 6: Evolving Technology

Among these are:

■ Industry cloud. Industry cloud platforms combine all three layers shown and offer
enterprises cloud capabilities directly relevant to their specific vertical industry.

■ Sovereign cloud. Sovereign cloud, also leveraging aspects of all three layers, is the
provision of cloud services within a single geography, meeting data residency,
operational autonomy and legislative requirements of the jurisdiction the cloud is
offered in. Contrast this with industry cloud and the heavier focus on technology
core aspects and less on value enhancement that can be addressed by other
vendors.

Multicloud is a major focus in this new cloud era. Among the multicloud offerings are:

■ Networking. Software that abstracts the complexity of cloud-specific networking

elements, enabling cross-cloud connectivity.

■ Operations. Software that enables various aspects of operationalizing multiple

cloud environments (for example, provisioning, cost optimization, security,
governance).

■ Container management frameworks. Software that allows Kubernetes clusters to be

deployed and/or managed in a uniform way across different cloud environments.

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■ Application and/or data and analytics platforms and services. Platforms that are
used to uniformly deploy applications across multiple cloud environments. Other
platforms allow users to craft data and analytics solutions that span multiple
clouds. Additional examples are, services that provide the user consistent
application and/or data services across multiple cloud environments, such as
curated services from vendors that also offer platforms.

■ SaaS offerings. Applications that span multiple cloud environments.

These services leverage different aspects of the underlying technology core elements (see
Figure 7). Additionally, see Notes 1 through 4 for depictions of multicloud services for
networking, operations, Kubernetes and data platforms mapped against this layout.

The multicloud services referenced in the Notes highlight the key decision points where
enterprises must vet the different vendor offerings. They also highlight that vendors must
choose what level of collaboration (for example, integration with what native cloud
services) and/or competition they engage with other vendors. For I&O leaders, this
presents a major decision point. Do they take a vertical orientation (i.e., use the full cloud
provider stack) or a horizontal orientation (i.e., use common software that runs in multiple
clouds and replaces or enhances native cloud provider services). This will be a major
decision IT leaders face over the next few years.

Figure 7: Multicloud Technologies — Conceptual Integration

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Solution selection is rooted in your technology alignment (vertical or horizontal) as well as
shifts in your vendor partner strategies. Table 1 highlights the general strategy/profile for
each orientation, along with the advantages and disadvantages to the approaches.

Table 1: Elements of Vertically and Horizontally Aligned Enterprise Focus

(Enlarged table in Appendix)

The next few years will pose challenges to enterprises that need to navigate the cloud
computing environment. Aligning your vendor partners and technology decisions against
a framework centered around the layers of technology core, capabilities enhancement and
value enhancement will help your navigation.

Evidence
This research is based on over 500 Gartner inquiries and client interactions over the past
year.

Note 1: Multicloud Networking

To enable multicloud networking, the solution will abstract networking and security
aspects unique to each environment, bringing commonality to network administrators
(see Figure 8).

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Figure 8: Multicloud Networking

Note 2: Multicloud Operations

To enable multicloud, the solution will allow the use of common blueprints/templates,
enabling easier provisioning and orchestration across the different environments (see
Figure 9).

Figure 9: Multicloud Operations

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Note 3: Multicloud Kubernetes
There are two separate approaches. One allows common container management across
different cloud environments (e.g., common orchestration, container network interface
[CNI], container storage interface [CSI], registry, security). The other allows common
provisioning and life cycle management of native clusters on the cloud environment (see
Figure 10).

Figure 10: Multicloud Kubernetes

Note 4: Multicloud Data Platform

The solution allows the use of the core cloud components for storage and compute but
performs processing on the stored data (see Figure 11).

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Figure 11: Multicloud Data Platform

Recommended by the Authors

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services
Critical Capabilities for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services
The Future of Cloud Computing in 2027: From Technology to Business Innovation
Quick Answer: What’s the Difference Between a Cloud Strategy and a Cloud
Adoption Plan?

Gartner, Inc. | G00778486 Page 13 of 14

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Table 1: Elements of Vertically and Horizontally Aligned Enterprise Focus

Technology Alignment Strategy Pros Cons

Vertically Aligned Enterprise Focus ■ Selected a strategic cloud provider ■ Easy access to the strategic cloud ■ Hyperscaler vendor lock-in
provider’s suite of services
■ Limited selection of tactical cloud ■ Possible not best-in-class
providers for one-off requirements ■ Less operational toil as they are functionality for certain
mostly dealing with their strategic requirements (most/all services
cloud vendor from a single strategic cloud
provider)

Horizontally Aligned Enterprise Focus ■ Wants to commoditize aspects of ■ No hyperscaler vendor lock-in ■ Tough to operationalize (actually
the cloud providers’ services (e.g., lock-in with vendors that enable
■ Able to select best-in-class
infrastructure) multicloud)
technology at each layer
■ Seeks best-in-class technology ■ Tough to integrate from an
throughout engineering standpoint

■ Strong preference for open-source

offerings, preferred over vendor-
specific solutions

Source: Gartner (January 2023)

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