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.
Platform-native consumption services (PNCS) are multidomain, consumption-based, as-a-service offerings for enterprise mission-critical infrastructure. PNCS vendors’ platform and product capabilities provide API-centric control planes for SLA-based IT operations life cycle management and support. PNCS offerings include storage as a service (STaaS), compute as a service (CaaS), network as a service (NaaS), and data protection service offerings, including backup, archive and ransomware detection. PNCS vendors use artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) infrastructure telemetry, software and automation tools to provide proactive SLA management. IT outcomes include improved productivity, cyber-resilience and continuous workload infrastructure cost optimization. PNCS provides a hybrid IT operations platform approach to on-premises consumption-based as-a-service offerings in lieu of centralizing mission-critical infrastructure on the public cloud. PNCS vendors provide as-a-service offerings such as STaaS, CaaS and NaaS to enable IT operations to shift from capital expenditure (capex) to consumption for the benefits of an on-premises hybrid platform operating model. Major benefits that PNCS solutions provide include asset cost optimization, productivity improvement, sustainability and cyber-resilience SLAs that substantially improve IT operations. As a result, customers enjoy a more flexible usage model that meets business and IT operations demands. Other benefits include asset financing and management capabilities that favorably alter the economics of asset utilization. Use case examples include STaaS, CaaS, NaaS, data protection as a service such as ransomware protection or recovery, and higher levels of platform as a service (PaaS) services such as database as a service (DBaaS).
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.