Gartner defines cloud financial management (CFM) tools as tooling that provides the ability to collect, organize, display, optimize and manage the investments in cloud computing infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). They leverage algorithms, statistical models and/or AI/machine learning (ML) in support of cost reports, dashboards and/or other mechanisms/interfaces that provide capabilities to monitor cost, utilization and value indicators. This allows users to identify trends, anomalies and misaligned expectations, as well as opportunities to increase the efficiency of cloud configurations, architecture and contracts. CFM tools enable enterprises to collect and analyze public cloud cost and usage information and apply controls to define budget and cost policies to optimize spending on a continuous basis.
Cloud management tooling enables organizations to manage hybrid and multicloud (that is, on-premises, public cloud and edge) services and resources. This includes providing governance, life cycle management, brokering and automation for managed cloud infrastructure resources across multiple functional areas. The tooling can be procured and operated by central IT organizations, such as I&O, cloud center of excellence (CCOE) and platform engineering/operations, or within specific lines of business. It can be deployed on-premises, in a customer’s public cloud account or purchased as a SaaS.
Digital platform conductor tools coordinate hybrid digital infrastructure management tools used to plan, implement, operate and monitor underpinning technology and services for applications and digital products. They may be delivered as on-premises, SaaS or platform as a service (PaaS) solutions, and provide a unified view of digital infrastructure and dependent applications. They enable I&O leaders to get an overarching view of the infrastructure and evaluate the infrastructure’s contribution to business value, regardless of the environments used or their owner. This provides input into strategic I&O decision making to get better value from infrastructure.
IT Infrastructure and IoT refers to the products and services that support the deployment, management, and optimization of core technology systems and connected devices across enterprise environments. This category includes markets that focus on enabling organizations to build and operate resilient, scalable, and intelligent infrastructure. It encompasses solutions for data center management, network infrastructure, and IoT connectivity—spanning on-premises, cloud, edge, and hybrid models.
Productivity and Collaboration refer to products and services that enhance how teams work together, manage projects, and drive innovation across the enterprise. This category includes markets that focus on enabling organizations to streamline resource planning, improve cross-functional collaboration, and boost employee engagement through integrated tools for communication, task management, and workflow optimization.
Gartner defines SaaS management platforms (SMPs) as software tools that aim to help organizations discover, manage, optimize and automate the SaaS application life cycle from one centralized console. Core SMP capabilities include discovery, cost optimization, employee self-service via an application store, insights to increase adoption and automation of onboarding/offboarding activities. As SaaS adoption accelerates, IT leaders will struggle to discover and support SaaS-hosted applications in accordance with company, market or geographic policies and regulations. Increased SaaS costs — combined with limited visibility into the entire SaaS portfolio (including unapproved SaaS) and high levels of overdeployed and underconsumed licenses — result in significant financial, operational and cybersecurity risk.
Software asset management (SAM) tools aim to decipher the complex and ever-changing world of software licensing. Organizations now have a diverse set of SAM tool requirements to meet. Core capability of SAM tools include discovery, normalization, reconciliation, optimization and reporting. SAM tools are third-party solutions that provide some level of automation to support tasks required to produce and maintain compliance with independent software vendor (ISV) license use rights. SAM tools provide organizations with a means to manage software throughout its life cycle and centralize the view of software within the organization. SAM tools provide data on software utilization, identify over deployed and under consumed licenses, reharvest and reallocate licenses, track renewals and financials for purchased software, and proactively identify software misconfiguration. SAM tools offer integration with third-party tools, and can provide out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and produce management dashboards. The reporting and dashboards recommend areas for optimization.
Gartner defines software supply chain security (SSCS) tools as those that enable the building of secure software by protecting against compromises during development and delivery. These protections extend to source code, developer identities, development tools, delivery pipelines, and postdeployment patches. SSCS tools reduce third-party risks through policy-based curation of dependencies, software composition analysis (SCA) and software bill of materials (SBOM) inspection. They ensure artifact provenance and traceability with signing and verification as they pass through development and delivery pipelines. SSCS tools support SaaS and hybrid deployment models, and complement DevOps platforms in improving the organization’s DevSecOps maturity.
VA solutions identify, categorize and prioritize vulnerabilities as well as orchestrate their remediation or mitigation. Their primary focus is vulnerability and security configuration assessments for enterprise risk identification and reduction, and reporting against various compliance standards. VA can be delivered via on-premises, hosted and cloud-based solutions, and it may use appliances and agents. Core capabilities include: - Discovery, identification and reporting on device, OS, software vulnerabilities and configuration against security-related criteria - Establishing a baseline for systems, applications and databases to identify and track changes in state - Reporting options for compliance, control frameworks and multiple roles Standard capabilities include: - Pragmatic remediation prioritization with the ability to correlate vulnerability severity, asset context and threat context that then presents a better picture of true risk for your specific environment - Guidance for remediating and configuring compensating controls - Management of scanner instances, agents and gateways - Direct integration with, or API access to, asset management tools, workflow management tools and patch management tools