Gartner defines strategic cloud platform services (SCPS) as standardized, automated, public cloud offerings integrating infrastructure services (for example, computing, network and storage), platform services (for example, application, data and value-added services such as AI/ML) and transformation services (resources to help customers adopt cloud-oriented IT delivery models). Although owned by the service provider, infrastructure and platform services may be hosted in providers’ infrastructures or customers’ data centers. Services should be elastically scalable, metered by use and consumable via web-based interfaces and programmable APIs. Transformation programs may be delivered by automated, self-service interfaces, and managed interactions facilitated by account teams/partners.

Strategic Cloud Platform Services

Generative AI (GenAI) Infrastructure providers are infrastructure vendors (such as cloud platforms and hardware manufacturers) that offer underlying technology, tools and hardware that other companies and developers use to build and deploy specific generative AI applications in production. Generative AI refers to technologies that can generate new derived versions of content, strategies, designs and methods by learning from large repositories of original source content. These providers offer scalable, reliable and cost-effective solutions for generative AI projects, which can be complex and expensive to train and deploy. Generative AI infrastructure providers focus on research and developing the foundational AI techniques, while application developers focus on building products using those foundational technologies. Please note that this market is based on Beta research and is continuously evolving. We will be making changes as and when there are new updates.

Generative AI Infrastructure Providers (Transitioning to Generative AI Specialized Infrastructure)

Generative AI Infrastructure Providers

Gartner defines network security microsegmentation — also referred to as zero-trust network segmentation — as an effort that can create more granular and dynamic access policies than traditional network segmentation (often north-south traffic segmentation). It allows the insertion of a security policy between any two workloads in the same broadcast domain — with microsegmentation technologies narrowing fine-grained network zones down to individual assets and applications. Microsegmentation tools support the implementation of finer-grained zoning across public, private and hybrid cloud infrastructures. Security and risk management (SRM) leaders must understand the key features, use cases, and role of microsegmentation in their environment, as well as determine which model is the best fit for their needs.

Network Security Microsegmentation

Threat modeling automation tools automate the creation of security requirements and threat models. They can integrate with software development life cycle (SDLC) tools to manage requirements and perform validation. Threat modeling automation tools dynamically highlight potential security ramifications of application architecture and recommend secure coding practices or architectural countermeasures. These tools significantly decrease the effort required to create and maintain threat models, security requirements and risk assessments. This tool automatically identifies potential threats based on predefined criteria, seamlessly integrates with development tools like JIRA, Jenkins etc., and checks for coding standards, potential bugs, and security vulnerabilities. Typical users include security teams, developers, DevOps teams, product owners, and risk management professionals, who use it to efficiently identify and mitigate security risks.

Threat Modeling Automation

Microsoft Azure Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer Insights

Evaluation and contract negotiation

Evaluation & Contracting

Ability to understand your organization's needs

Timely and complete response to product questions

Pricing and contract flexibility (pricing and terms)

Integration and deployment

Integration & Deployment

Availability of quality 3rd-party resources (integrators, service providers, etc.)

Ease of integration using standard APIs and tools

Quality and availability of end-user training

Ease of deployment

Service and support

Service & Support

Timeliness of vendor's response

Quality of technical support

Quality of peer user community

Product capabilities

Product Capabilities

User Management

Security

Developer Capabilities

Middleware Capabilities

Architecture Flexibility

Big Data Enablement

Operations Management

Resiliency

Public Cloud Architecture

Distributed Cloud Architecture

Edge Architecture

Environmental Sustainability

Pre-Integrated Solutions

Modernization

Transformational Capabilities

AI/ML Capabilities

Additional Context

Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Microsoft Azure

Microsoft

Google Cloud Platform

Google

IBM Cloud

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Oracle

Huawei Cloud

Huawei

Alibaba Cloud

Tencent Cloud

ZStack Cloud

ZStack

OVHcloud Public Cloud

OVHcloud

50M - 250M USD

<50M USD

250M - 500M USD

1B - 3B USD

500M - 1B USD

3B - 10B USD

30B + USD

10B - 30B USD

Gov't/PS/ED <5,000 Employees

Gov't/PS/ED 5,000 - 50,000 Employees

Gov't/PS/ED 50,000 + Employees

Partnerships Manager.

Microsoft Azure is an excellent cloud platform, it is a highly reliable platform with high availability.
I use Microsoft Azure to manage my virtual machine remotely from any location and for data storage management.
Moreover, I can deploy applications easily and quickly and modify the resources according to my needs.


SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Largely positive experience. Offers an extensive range of services for computing, storage, networking and AI making it suitable for both small and large scale deployments. I appreciate the strong integration with other Microsoft products, the robust security features and extensive documentation. Pricing can be complex and their is a steep learning curve for beginners but ultimately, it is a reliable and scalable solution.

Broadcom (VMware)

Other...

Rackspace Technology

Lumen

Virtustream

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

NTT Communications

Verizon

DXC Technology

Joyent

GTT (Interoute)

Dimension Data

Cloudflare

Skytap

DigitalOcean

Fujitsu

V2 Cloud

VEXXHOST

Ace Cloud

Extreme Compute

HEAD OF INFORMATION & CYBER SECURITY

Azure provides scalable and resilient cloud support. Azure is continuously improving and changing. This can lead to challenges in some ways as name changes and free services become extra costs or dashboards and menu changes. 

Software Developer

Super difficult to set up for some use cases, not very straightforward to use

ENGINEER

Our experience with Microsoft was good! All the services that they provided us enabled our company to build, deploy and manage applications and services with ease. ALl the services regarding storage, networking, analytics, AI, and IOT help us to leverage our business value.

Manager, IT Security and Risk Management

Microsoft provide a myriad of functions across there platform. What they do lack is the ability to interact with the SME. 

IT Associate

Microsoft Azure has done well with integrating to our specific business use cases. While most things go well, Azure sometimes lags a little bit behind other providers; however, it is usually for a good reason as offerings are related with business and security needs first. Support from Microsoft is sometimes difficult; however, Azure support tends to be better than other support groups within Microsoft.

It Services Associate

Mi experiencia con Microsoft Azure ha sido positiva, me gusta la estabilidad y la escalabilidad que ofrece para manejar diferentes cargas de trabajo, La Integridad con otros servicios de Microsoft es muy conveniente y facilita la administración.

WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MANAGER

Microsoft Azure made my experience pretty good as its security is pretty good which provides me peace of mind and I can manage multiple servers and apps using one dashboard.

Chief Information Officer

It is easy to use and configure different stuff. However, getting details like logs, costing can be tricky at times.

Active

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50M-1B USD

1B-10B USD

10B+ USD

Gov't/PS/Ed

NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR

My overall experience with Microsoft Azure has been good because it has great security such as threat detection and compliance standards which is very helpful for me. It also has support from global infrastructure.

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER

Powerful cloud tools that can feel complex and overwhelming, but strong performance and reliability

IT Services Associate

It is a good, stable service, but it is not clear when changes are being made or when things break; the tech team that works for them is not much of an expert.  

CUSTOMER SUPPORT REPRESENTATIVE

Microsoft Azure has the ability to handle large projects easily. It supports multiple languages which makes it more valuable. It has a secure framework which is great for managing data.

ANALISTA SOC

Tem um bom suporte para o cliente, a integração com outras ferramentas é muito ágil e tem uma boa documentação.

VP, DATA AND ANALYTICS

This is my favourite cloud service providers and easy to use or search services with strong security, availiblity with region, easy to integrate with in-built training or official documents.

Director Of It

We use Microsoft Azure as our primary cloud platform to support our mission-critical applications, infrastructure and workloads. Our experience with Azure has been positive especially in terms of integration and scalability.

MANAGER IS - CYBERSECURITY

Reliability, strong security features, ease of use, scalability, and an industry-leading cloud offering. I am satisfied with the product.

DATA ANALYST

I started out with a free account to get acquainted with the software. The software provides a number of resources to give background and education regarding the services they provide. I focused on the cloud services, as I wanted to understand what they could offer in terms of management.

Data Engineer

It is very easy to use with a great community support, as well as customer support

Like the breadth of services available on the Azure platform

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing software that offers a range of services including virtual machines, databases, networking, storage, artificial intelligence, and analytics. The software enables organizations to build, deploy, and manage applications across a global network of data centers. It allows users to scale resources as required and supports multiple operating systems and development frameworks. Azure provides tools for security, compliance, and disaster recovery to help address business continuity challenges. It is designed to support workloads from simple web hosting to complex data analysis, allowing businesses to optimize infrastructure management and operational efficiency.

Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft is dedicated to advancing human and organizational achievement.

Microsoft Security helps protect people and data against cyberthreats to give peace of mind.


Every company has a mission. What's ours? To empower every person and every organization to achieve more. We believe technology can and should be a force for good and that meaningful innovation contributes to a brighter world in the future and today. Our culture doesn’t just encourage curiosity; it embraces it. Each day we make progress together by showing up as our authentic selves. We show up with a learn-it-all mentality. We show up cheering on others, knowing their success doesn't diminish our own. We show up every day open to learning our own biases, changing our behavior, and inviting in differences. When we show up, we achieve more together. 

Microsoft operates in 190 countries and is made up of more than 220,000 passionate employees worldwide.