U.S. Enterprises Embracing Container Technology and Service Providers
ISG's 2021 Provider Lens Report reveals that U.S. enterprises are increasingly adopting cloud-native container technologies to improve application workflows. Companies are evolving from small pilot projects to utilizing hyperscale cloud services. The report highlights the importance of both in-house development and partnering with service providers. Popular trends include multicloud strategies and the necessity of observability solutions as container usage grows. Leading providers and Rising Stars in the container services space are identified, including Accenture and ServiceNow.
- Increased adoption of cloud-native container technologies indicates growing market demand.
- Successful providers help clients evolve software development approaches, enhancing operational efficiencies.
- Paid Kubernetes platforms are considered a worthwhile investment due to reduced complexity in management.
- Many enterprises struggle to complete their transition to DevOps, posing challenges in fully embracing containerization.
- Potential operational inefficiencies may arise from companies attempting to maintain their own Kubernetes platforms.
ISG Provider Lens™ report finds many companies moving from small container pilots to cloud-based container platforms
The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Container Services and Solutions Report for the
“Many companies start with the use of a small cluster on a developer’s computer, then graduate to hyperscale cloud container services,” said
In addition to new technical skills, the use of containers often means significant cultural and organizational changes within an enterprise, the report adds. In some cases, developers will be responsible for writing and maintaining containerized applications, while another team is charged with keeping the container platform up and running.
This split in duties is an expansion of the DevOps approach that many enterprises have been adopting in recent years, but many companies have not yet completed their transition to DevOps, creating challenges for companies embracing containers.
The most successful container service providers are not only able to bring advanced skills to their clients, but they also help clients evolve their approaches to software development, the report says. Leaders in the container space are able to provide training resources to help clients best use containers.
In the area of managed container services, providers are offering a wide spectrum of services to meet enterprise demands, the report says. In some cases, a managed services provider simply deploys and maintains a container platform on behalf of a client, and on the other end of the spectrum, providers are both operating the platform while building and maintaining applications inside containers.
In addition, the report finds that paid Kubernetes container platforms are worth the investment for most enterprises. While it may be tempting for enterprises to operate their own Kubernetes platform, the amount of time spent on maintaining those platforms can be significant. Commercially available Kubernetes platforms offer features such as simplified management, role-based access controls and improved graphical interfaces.
The report also sees multicluster and multicloud Kubernetes platforms as the future, because enterprises using Kubernetes need their software to handle the full breadth of possible approaches to using the technology. These platforms must streamline the process of deploying and managing workloads across multiple Kubernetes clusters in different cloud environments, and enterprises are operating multiple clusters in production to help with workload isolation.
As more enterprises use containerized applications in production, the need for observability solutions is growing, the report says. Many application performance monitoring providers have integrated observability approaches into their platforms. Dedicated observability players are being acquired by these providers or are moving into the application monitoring space themselves.
The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Container Services and Solutions Report for the
The report names Accenture, AWS, Cognizant, Datadog, Dynatrace, Google Cloud, HCL, HPE, IBM, Microsoft,
In addition, ServiceNow, Rancher (SUSE) and UST were named Rising Stars—companies with “promising portfolios” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition—in one quadrant.
A customized version of the report is available from Dynatrace.
The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Container Services and Solutions Report for the
About ISG Provider Lens™ Research
The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across
A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.
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FAQ
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