Gartner defines container management as offerings that enable the deployment and operation of containerized workloads. Delivery methods include stand-alone software or as a service. Delivery methods include cloud, managed service and software for containers running on-premises, in the public cloud and/or at the edge. Container management automates the provisioning, operation and life cycle management of containerized workloads at scale. Centralized governance and security policies are used to manage container workloads and associated resources. Container management supports the requirements of modern applications (also refactoring legacy applications), including platform engineering, cloud management and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. Benefits include improved agility, elasticity and access to innovation.
Gartner defines file and object storage platforms as software and/or hardware platforms that offer object and distributed file system technologies for storing and managing unstructured data over NFS, SMB and Amazon S3 access protocols. File and object storage platforms store, secure, protect and scale an organization’s unstructured data with access over the network using protocols such as NFS, SMB and Amazon S3. Use cases include analytics, workload consolidation, backup and archiving, hybrid cloud, object-native applications, cloud IT operations, and high-performance files.
Gartner defines ICS as a hybrid, multidomain (i.e., on-premises, colocation, edge and public cloud), consumption-based as-a-service offerings for enterprise mission-critical infrastructure such as storage, compute and networking. In this case, multidomain reflects the characteristics of a multicloud hybrid environment. ICS vendors combine their unique capabilities to provide API-centric control and vendor-managed data services planes for infrastructure onboarding, provisioning and SLA-based life cycle management and support. ICS offerings include software-defined infrastructure solutions and appliances for storage as a service (STaaS), compute as a service (CaaS), networking as a service (NaaS), and other data services offerings. Data services include backup, disaster recovery (DR) and ransomware recovery, optionally managed by IT staff and/or service providers.
The primary storage platform (PSP) market addresses the need of I&O leaders to operate and support standardized enterprise storage products, along with platform-native service capabilities to support structured data applications. PSP products like primary enterprise storage arrays provide mandatory and common enterprise-class primary storage features and capabilities needed to support the platform. Platform-native services like storage as a service (STaaS) and ransomware protection, with PSP product capabilities, are required to support platform-native services. The PSP market has emerged at the convergence of two major enterprise storage market developments: the evolution of the PSP product market in conjunction with the demand for hybrid, multidomain platform-native storage services, extending on-premises services to public cloud, edge and colocation environments.