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Report IDs Top Managed Service Providers for Major Cloud Platforms
Research firm Gartner has published a new Magic Quadrant report on the top professional and managed services providers who help organizations implement and operate solutions on big cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
Note that the report doesn't cover those cloud computing platforms, which Gartner describes as offering public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) capabilities, both of which, along with other services, are included in Gartner's umbrella term: cloud infrastructure and platform services (CIPS). Rather, the report covers third-party firms that offer assistance for organizations using those cloud platforms -- or CIPS, or "hyperscale providers" -- because those organizations often lack cloud expertise and want to optimize their operations or seek to scale their staffing.
"An ecosystem of professional and managed service providers (MSPs) has arisen to provide services on top of public CIPS offerings," Gartner explains.
In the context of the Magic Quadrant, Gartner said a public cloud infrastructure MSP offers both professional and managed services related to infrastructure and platform operations for hyperscale CIPS providers including: Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud.
"Hyperscale cloud infrastructure and platform services (CIPS) providers offer a wide array of self-service capabilities, but leveraging these capabilities in an optimal fashion requires expertise -- more expertise than most organizations possess," Gartner said. "Even when a business can maintain the necessary expertise, demand for those internal experts often exceeds what can be fulfilled by the organization's employees. Consequently, professional and managed services from MSPs are a vital part of cloud success for a growing number of businesses."
Noting that the field of professional and managed services for hyperscale providers is diverse, the research firm focuses on MSPs with deep technical expertise with hyperscale providers, effective cloud management platforms (CMPs), and managed services that leverage automation.
And, along with being diverse, that field is crowded at the top, with the Magic Quadrant graphic showing the following in the "Leaders" section of the quadrant: Deloitte, Wipro, Accenture, Cognizant, Capgemini, Rackspace, Tata Consultancy Services, Logicworks, Smartronix and Bespin Global. Thus those 10 providers equal the number of other firms included in the report in the Challengers, Niche Players and Visionaries quadrants.
[Click on image for larger view.] Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure Professional and Managed Services (source: Gartner).
In its market overview, Gartner emphasized the importance of hybrid IT capabilities: "Gartner defines hybrid IT 'as the blending of traditional services, public cloud services and private cloud services into a singular IT environment.' Hybrid IT subsumes the concept of hybrid cloud computing. Cloud computing is now solidly mainstream, and traditional enterprises are moving forcefully to broadly adopt the public cloud. However, putting everything into public cloud is not advisable, especially without some degree of transformation. Since nearly every organization needs it, hybrid IT use-case requirements have become more common among Gartner clients. MSPs that do not provide or partner to provide hybrid IT services are finding themselves servicing more limited or specific use cases."
Other highlights of the market overview include:
- Global system integrators require end-to-end ownership of the customer problem to deliver maximum value as an MSP.
- MSPs are highly variable in their willingness to make public their SLAs.
- The industry is amid a massive M&A wave for MSPs.
- The best MSPs are increasing their investment in employees.
- MSPs are starting to bring their own tools to market as a software business.
- Knowledge transfer is becoming a key requirement for MSPs.
- ServiceNow is a key player in the MSP market, even though it isn't an MSP.
- MSPs are talking about site reliability engineering (SRE) more.
- MSPs are working hard to explain their value proposition for managed PaaS.
The report is available from a number of vendors featured in the report, and more information on the report is available in a Peer Insights site.
Gartner previously published research reports on cloud management platforms and cloud AI developer services.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.