The right cloud service partner can help navigate infrastructure challenges, maximise opportunities and mitigate risks!

The Future Of IaaS Is In The Cloud

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China Telecom Global: Cloud IaaS Is Not A Commodity

Technology Insight for Cloud Infrastructure As A Service

About China Telecom Global

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China Telecom Global: Cloud IaaS Is Not A CommodityHamlet famously pondered whether “to be or not to be.” However, when it

comes to enterprise IT, the burning question is no longer whether it should

be in the cloud. It’s what kind of cloud do we need, and how are we going to

get there.

Cloud adoption is clearly accelerating, which is making the market for

cloud infrastructure grow at a rapid clip. Gartner reports that “...the fastest-

growing segment of the market is cloud system infrastructure services

(infrastructure as a service or IaaS), which is forecast to grow 35.9

percent in 2018 to reach $40.8 billion.”1

What’s more, pundits predict that overall investment on cloud IT

infrastructure – including on-premises private cloud – will overtake spending

on non-cloud IT infrastructure within the next four years.

Evaluate Providers On Their Capabilities

While we see that cloud IaaS is increasingly popular, according to Gartner’s

report entitled ‘Technology Insight for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service’,

“…cloud IaaS is not a commodity and has an extremely fast innovation

cycle”.2 That is partly because the innovation cycle is swift. Which means

that enterprise innovation leaders responsible for cloud computing should

take care to evaluate providers on their capabilities, as well as their ability to

deliver new IaaS capabilities at a competitive cost rapidly.

While all cloud IaaS offerings will all contain the basic capability to

provision compute, storage and networking resources, there is dramatic

variance in the number of available options, quality of implementation, the

speed of provisioning, quality of user experience, infrastructure availability

and performance.

Cloud IaaS offerings may contain extensive additional functionality,

encompass a range of IT operations management capabilities, such as

monitoring and user-controlled orchestration, as well as capabilities for

deploying and managing middleware and applications in an automated

fashion.

Not All Cloud Providers Are Created Equal

Although IaaS is typically intended to reduce user concerns, as Gartner

points out, “...there is considerable variance in service provider design

goals, the quality of the technical implementations, and the cost-

effectiveness and value for money of those implementations”.3 Or, to put it

another way, not all cloud providers are created equal.

Source: China Telecom Global

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Making the right choice always matters. However, it is

especially crucial for enterprises looking for international and

global support. If their provider turns out to be lacking, then

the move to the cloud can end up being a massive bottle-neck

rather than enabling business growth.

That’s not a risk for CTG customers. We offer secure, dedicated,

worldwide network coverage through over 300+ domestic nodes

within China and more than 26 nodes across the globe. That

extensive footprint includes more than 10 internet data centres

(IDCs) across APAC, EMEA and the Americas.

These IDCs aren’t standalone facilities. They are interconnected

by a resilient, carrier-grade data network. Together, they enable

enterprises of all sizes to explore new opportunities in other

geographies, accelerate expansion plans and seize revenue

opportunities no matter where they arise.

We are focused on developing, not just a best-in-class network,

but also the data centre services to meet the requirements of

globalisation and digitisation. In practice, that means creating

a highly-scalable, secure and resilient offering capable of

supporting our customers’ strategic goals across the Asia

Pacific and beyond.

CTG is aggressively putting that philosophy into focus. For

example, CTG recently reinforced its position as an Asia Pacific

information hub by offering market-leading data centre services

at the new carrier-neutral, Tier III+ data centre in Hong Kong’s

Tseung Kwan O district.

That’s not all. Next year (2019) we will be adding even more

data centre resources in APAC, Europe and the USA to cater to

customer demand for global coverage.

CTG has also taken a pioneering step with software-defined

networking (SDN) and a software-defined wide area network

(SD-WAN), which provide customers with an all-new

network experience characterised by quick delivery, minimal

configuration and centralised control.

By virtually separating network device management and

centralising it, IT teams can optimise and streamline

management. It also allows companies to grow their network

faster and work more effectively with different networks based

on business requirements.

An Extensive Portfolio

The China Telecom Global portfolio is extensive. With an

emphasis on integration, we have designed our services for

full compatibility with all major cloud platforms in China and

overseas, including AWS, Azure, and Aliyun.

One significant benefit of this approach is that new cloud

adopters and start-ups can quickly ramp up their cloud

capabilities with these solutions. For more established cloud-

based and large enterprises, the high level of compatibility and

easy integration of network and public cloud services offer the

flexibility to choose the right cloud platform for their workloads,

where and when they need it.

CTG provides IaaS service on its cloud service portal. In

addition, diverse customised enterprise solutions with industry-

leading SLA commitment are also available for addressing

business needs, such as private cloud, email server, disaster

recovery (DR) site or managed services.

Abundant Advantages

CTG is already helping customers all over the world to host

both new and existing workloads. Certain workload patterns

may be better served by different cloud IaaS offerings to

achieve an optimal fit to virtually any use case.

For example, when it comes to development environments,

financial institutions worldwide are increasingly embracing

technology to make innovations in their operations and

enhance the customer experience. However, these fintech

projects could put pressure on DevOps teams to set up or take

down secured test environments quickly, while maintaining

fast and reliable interconnection among different internal and

third parties for effective collaborations. They also need to re-

configure workloads with no upfront cost.

CTG’s latest cloud-based SD-WAN solution can help

customers simplify their cloud connectivity, with robust

application identification, security, and policy enforcement. We

have also established a dedicated network of gateway nodes

to major public cloud platforms to ensure fast and agile public

cloud connections for customers transferring their applications

to the cloud.

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The result is much faster time-to-service, as what once took

days or weeks can now be done in minutes. Other benefits

include simpler DevOps infrastructure, lower administrative

burden and more effective cost control.

That’s not the end of the story. SaaS hosting is increasingly

important, and becoming an integral component of business

infrastructure. However, security and performance remain top-

of-mind for both SaaS providers and their customers, as service

availability is critical to their success.

China Telecom Global offers the tools that businesses need

to efficiently deliver internet-based content to geographically

distributed end-points across the world, including China. For

example, you could deploy your CDN network on dedicated

cloud servers managed by China Telecom, and deliver your

content to last mile networks without relying on third-party

transit providers and their routing policies.

When streaming low-latency content, such as software

downloads, CTG’s cloud-based CDN solution can help you

utilise caching to reduce hosting bandwidth. This helps to

prevent service interruptions and improves security. Which, in

turn, ensures superior content delivery performance when you

need it most.

Business-to-business organisations face a different set of

challenges compared to their consumer-facing counterparts.

One of them is quickly establishing reliable connections

between their trading partners, without deploying the proprietary

software at every end-point in their trading community. They

need an IaaS platform that helps enterprises to create agile

infrastructures, where partnerships can be quickly formed and

scaled to achieve efficiencies based on market demands.

As one of the world’s largest fixed and mobile service operators,

China Telecom is perfectly positioned to be a partner for

internet connectivity. Our network of 176 PoPs in 33 countries

and regions, offers easy access to your portal from every part

of the world. Our strong footprint in China, with a nationwide

network and over 510 IDCs, allows us to provide premium

China access, perfectly suited to multinational enterprises with

operations or partners in China.

It’s easy to overlook any shortcomings when things are going

well. However, enterprises and public sector organisations

can’t afford to take any chances when disaster strikes. With

CTG, they don’t have to.

In fact, disaster recovery becomes easier and less expensive,

as data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites within

CTG’s extensive network of IDCs all over the world. These

IDCs are equipped with multilateral security controls, and

protected by 24x7 environmental control monitoring and alerts,

dry pipe fire suppression systems, as well as global disaster

recovery solutions.

Don’t Go It Alone

As the Gartner report points out, “...cloud IaaS is one of the

fastest-growing areas of cloud computing adoption”.4 Moreover,

although today most organisations only use cloud IaaS for a

portion of their workloads, the percentage is growing.

Therefore, it is critical for enterprises to look at any potential

provider’s technical characteristics and business model, to

determine whether it is the right choice.

There is no reason to embark on a cloud journey alone. A

cloud service partner like CTG can help navigate infrastructure

challenges, maximise opportunities and mitigate risks, leaving a

company free to focus on its growth ambitions and strategies.

1Gartner Inc., Gartner Press Release, https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3871416, 12 April, 2018 2-4Gartner Inc., Technology Insight for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, 4 May 2017, G00319911

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Source: Gartner Research, G00319911, Lydia Leong, 4 May 2017

Technology Insight for Cloud Infrastructure as a ServiceCloud IaaS is not a commodity and has an extremely fast

innovation cycle.

• Adopt market-leading integrated IaaS and PaaS providers,

such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure,

when public cloud services are an option, in order to

maximize access to innovative capabilities and achieve

long-term cost-efficiency.

Analysis

Cloud IaaS is one of the fastest-growing areas of cloud

computing adoption. It is a maturing technology with

mainstream adoption. Although most organizations use cloud

IaaS for only a portion of their workloads, the percentage of

workloads in cloud IaaS is approximately 15% and growing

rapidly.

Definition

Cloud IaaS is a standardized, highly automated offering where

compute resources, complemented by storage and networking

capabilities, are owned by a service provider and offered to

the customer on demand. The resources are scalable and

elastic in near real time and are metered by use. Self-service

interfaces are exposed directly to the customer, including an

API and a graphical user interface (GUI). The resources may

be single- or multitenant, and are hosted either by the service

provider, or on-premises in the customer’s data center.

Description

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which scalable and

elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service using

internet technologies. Cloud IaaS is a type of cloud computing

service; it parallels the infrastructure and data center initiatives

of IT. It is part of a range of cloud deployment options, as

illustrated in Figure 1.

Gartner draws a distinction between cloud infrastructure as a service, and cloud infrastructure as a technology platform; we

call the latter “cloud-enabled system infrastructure” (CESI). In

cloud IaaS, the capabilities of a CESI are directly exposed to

the subscriber through self-service. However, other services,

including noncloud services, may be delivered on top of a

CESI; examples include cloud-enabled managed hosting, data

Cloud infrastructure as a service provides self-service,

on-demand access to infrastructure resources. Enterprise

architecture and technology innovation leaders can use it to

improve business agility and developer productivity, reduce

costs, and enable IT transformation.

Key Findings

• Cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provides self-

service, on-demand, near-real-time access to scalable

and elastic infrastructure resources. The service can be

delivered by an internal IT organization or by an external

service provider. The resources may be single-tenant or

multitenant, and can be hosted either on the customer

premises or in an external data center. The offering can be

industrialized or bespoke (custom-made). Cloud IaaS can

be used for a broad range of workloads and use cases; it is

a maturing technology with mainstream adoption.

• Cloud IaaS infrastructure resources are “self-managed”; that

is, the subscriber (customer) is responsible for the operating

system (OS) and the layers above, including the middleware

and application layers, and all associated security. The

subscriber may outsource this management; many IaaS

providers offer managed services that can be bundled with

their offerings. However, optimal use of cloud IaaS requires

somewhat different skills and disciplines.

Recommendations

Enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders

responsible for cloud computing should:

• Use cloud IaaS to gain access to new IT capabilities,

improve business agility, improve developer productivity and

drive IT transformation. Cost reductions are possible, but

should probably be a secondary consideration. Rethink the

application life cycle, across development and operations, to

maximize benefits.

• Evaluate providers (including internal IT organizations) on

their differentiated capabilities, as well as their ability to

rapidly deliver new IaaS capabilities at a competitive cost.

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center outsourcing and disaster recovery. (See “Technology

Overview for Cloud-Enabled System Infrastructure,” “Don’t

Be Fooled by Offerings Falsely Masquerading as Cloud

Infrastructure as a Service” and “Five Things That Private Cloud

Is Not” for more information on this distinction.)

Gartner also holds to a strict definition of what constitutes cloud

IaaS. This is important because of the division of responsibilities

between the provider and the customer (regardless of whether

the provider is internal IT or an external service provider), as

well as the benefits derived. We describe these distinctions

in greater detail in “Four Types of Cloud Computing Define a

Spectrum of Cloud Value.”

Components of Cloud IaaS

The “subscriber” is the entity that receives the service. A

subscriber may be an entire business, a business unit, a team or

(rarely) an individual. A subscriber may have multiple “end users”

– that are using the service. The “service provider” is the entity

that delivers the service; it may be the subscriber’s internal IT

organization, or it may be via an external service provider.

The following components are normally included in a cloud

IaaS offering:

• Data center. Unless the subscriber has chosen an

IaaS offering that is deployed in its own data center or a

third-party data center (such as a colocation facility), the

provider will host the infrastructure in its data center. The

provider may own or lease its data center, or it may use a

colocation facility; regardless of the mode of ownership, it

is responsible for ensuring that the physical environment

meets the service delivery commitments.

• Physical hardware. The service provider will operate all

the hardware associated with the offering, such as servers,

storage arrays and network devices. The provider normally

chooses all of the hardware used – unless it is building a

custom private cloud IaaS offering for a specific subscriber.

Source: Gartner (May 2017)

figure 1. Cloud Deployment Options

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The provider normally owns or leases all of the equipment,

although some providers may permit arrangements in which

the subscriber owns or leases the equipment.

• Compute instances. A compute instance can either be a

virtual machine (VM) or a bare-metal (nonvirtualized) server.

Cloud IaaS offerings are normally delivered on VMs, but

some offerings may also include an option for bare metal.

When VMs are offered, the service provider is responsible

for operating the virtualization management and hypervisor

layer. However, the subscriber is normally responsible for

everything at the OS layer and above. Some providers may

also offer a container service for OS containers; containers

typically run within a compute instance.

• Image catalog. When a compute instance is provisioned,

it needs an OS. An image catalog contains, at minimum,

OS images that are supplied by the provider – for instance,

Linux and Windows images. More advanced image catalogs

may contain images that are supplied by the subscriber or

third parties; images may include other software in addition

to the OS. If a provider supports a template mechanism

(blueprints that can automate the provisioning of an

entire solution), there may also be a template catalog; a

template may contain multiple images and infrastructure

configurations. When coupled with subscription and billing

mechanisms for third-party software, the catalog becomes a

marketplace.

• Storage. A compute instance needs access to files or

block storage; at minimum, it requires a boot volume with

an operating system. Storage may be associated with a

specific compute instance, or it may be independent of a

compute instance. This type of storage is distinct from what

is commonly known as “cloud storage,” which is object-

based, API-accessible storage. The provider is responsible

for storage operations. In most cases, however, the provider

is not responsible for activities such as data backup, which

remain the subscriber’s responsibility.

• Local-area network (LAN). There must be a LAN between

compute instances, as well as a LAN between compute

instances and any network-attached storage devices; this

may be two networks, or a single converged network. The

provider is responsible for LAN operations. Many providers

offer higher-level networking functions as well, such as load

balancing, network security and DNS.

• Wide-area network (WAN) connectivity. When the

offering is hosted in the provider’s data center, the provider

will normally offer internet bandwidth, as well as a means

of connecting the cloud IaaS offering to the subscriber’s

chosen telecommunications provider, so that the subscriber

can obtain private connectivity. The provider is responsible

for operating its network. If the offering is hosted in the

subscriber’s data center, the subscriber is normally

responsible for the WAN.

• Control plane and self-service interfaces. The provider

is responsible for all orchestration and automation for the

cloud IaaS offering itself. It will normally expose self-service

interfaces to the subscriber in the form of a web-based

portal and an API. (The subscriber can then use the API to

implement additional automation.)

• Identity and access management (IAM). The provider will

provide mechanisms for logging into the web-based portal,

and authenticating against the API. Most providers allow

multiple users to share a single account, with resource

permissions controlled via role-based access control

(RBAC). IAM feature sets and quality of security vary

widely.

• Technical support. A provider will normally offer customer

support (billing and administrative support), as part of

the offering. However, a provider may offer multiple

options for technical support, with higher levels of support

incurring larger costs. Note that technical support is distinct

from managed and professional services. For external

providers, the most basic form of technical support may be

“community” support, where customers can ask questions

in the support forums. We recommend that customers

elect to buy enterprise-grade support when using an

external provider.

Cloud IaaS is not a commodity. While cloud IaaS offerings will

all contain the basic capability to provision compute, storage

and networking resources, there is dramatic variance in the

number of available options, quality of implementation, speed

of provisioning, quality of user experience, infrastructure

availability and performance. Furthermore, cloud IaaS offerings

may contain extensive additional functionality, encompassing

a range of IT operations management capabilities, such

as monitoring and user-controlled orchestration, as well as

capabilities for deploying and managing middleware and

applications in an automated fashion.

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Many cloud IaaS providers also offer cloud software

infrastructure services, which typically exist somewhere on

the spectrum between IaaS and platform as a service (PaaS).

A common offering is IaaS+, where a customer can one-click

provision a VM with a certain software package preinstalled.

This may be part of a software marketplace, which makes it

easier for customers to obtain and license software for the cloud

IaaS environment.

An increasing number of cloud IaaS providers also offer a range

of PaaS capabilities. When IaaS and PaaS are offered in a

fully integrated environment, customers obtain much greater

value than with cloud IaaS alone. Integrated IaaS and PaaS

(IaaS+PaaS) are discussed in detail in “Technology Insight for

Integrated IaaS and PaaS.” In theory, it would be possible for an

IT organization to build such a service; future technologies such

as Microsoft Azure Stack may enable such internal offerings.

Cloud IaaS is normally a self-managed offering – that is, the

service provider is responsible for everything below the OS

layer, and the subscriber is responsible for managing the OS

and everything above it, such as middleware and applications. A

subscriber can choose to add managed services for the OS and

other components that are not part of the core IaaS offering; in

most cases, they can choose to obtain those managed services

from whatever provider they want, including potentially the cloud

IaaS provider. Some providers do bundle mandatory managed

services along with a cloud IaaS offering; this is particularly

common with internal private clouds. However, subscribers

often prefer managed services to be unbundled, particularly in

development environments where bundled managed services

may unnecessarily increase costs.

Public Versus Private Cloud IaaS

Unfortunately, the industry does not tend to use the terms

“public cloud” and “private cloud” in a consistent fashion. When

describing cloud IaaS, there are three important dimensions to

consider:

1 Who operates it? Cloud IaaS may be outsourced –

delivered by an external service provider; or it may be

insourced – delivered by an internal IT organization (in

which case that IT organization is the “service provider”).

The operator is responsible for everything below the

OS layer.

2 Where is it located? Cloud IaaS may be delivered on-

premises in the subscriber’s data center, in a third-party

data center of the subscriber’s choice, or in the cloud

IaaS provider’s data center. In other words, it can be on-

premises or off-premises.

3 What is shared? The data center, networking, storage

and compute resources can potentially be shared among

multiple subscribers. Unless cloud IaaS is being delivered

on the subscriber’s premises, all of these aspects are

typically shared – they are multitenant. However, many

service providers offer the option of single-tenant compute

(sometimes called “dedicated compute”) within an

otherwise multitenant offering.

Typically, “private cloud” refers to single-tenant offerings –

offerings that are on the subscriber’s premises, or offerings

that are delivered by an internal IT organization. “Public

cloud” refers to multitenant offerings; a special form of this

is the “community cloud,” a multitenant offering where the

subscribers have explicitly chosen to share the offering with

one another. Some providers will call an offering “private” if

the compute is single-tenant, even though all other aspects

are shared. However, Gartner does not consider any offerings

in which the data center, network and storage are shared to

be “private cloud,” regardless of whether or not single-tenant

compute is available.

Generally, external providers do not consistently (and

accurately) use the terms “public” and “private,” and likewise,

there is no consistency at all in the use of the term “virtual

private”; always ask providers to specify exactly what is

shared. Note that “virtual private cloud” is used in an arbitrary

way when providers brand offerings; do not assume that

offerings called “virtual private cloud” even belong to the same

general category of technology.

Table 1 summarizes the common situations and relevant

terminology as it is used in this research.

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Type Operated By Location Shared

Internal private cloud Internal IT Subscriber None

Outsourced private cloud Provider Subscriber None

Hosted private cloud Provider Provider Data center, network

Virtual private cloud Provider Provider No consistent use of terminology in industry

Public cloud with dedicated compute Provider Provider Data center, network, storage

Public cloud Provider Provider Data center, network, storage, compute

Community cloud Provider Provider Same as public, but community-only sharing

Table 1. Common Types of Cloud IaaS

Source: Gartner (May 2017)

Internal Private Cloud

True internal private cloud IaaS has all the attributes of cloud

infrastructure – but customers often call what they have a

“private cloud” even when it does not have all such attributes.

(A recent Gartner survey indicated that 42% of respondents

believed they had an internal private cloud, but only 7% said

they have all the attributes of cloud infrastructure.)

Cloud-inspired infrastructure provides some, but not all, of

the benefits of true cloud infrastructure, but does not have

all the attributes that are definitional to cloud computing.

Cloud-inspired infrastructure is typically used to modernize

infrastructure for an existing portfolio of applications,

thus serving a valuable function. However, cloud-inspired

infrastructure should not be confused with cloud IaaS.

Hybrid Cloud IaaS

Providers may use the word “hybrid cloud” in a variety of ways

– most often to refer to a combination of VMs and bare-metal

servers, or managed hosting on a cloud IaaS platform. Gartner

uses “hybrid cloud service” to mean a service that crosses

isolation and provider boundaries – a combination of multiple

services. (See “Get Past the Confusion Surrounding Hybrid

Cloud Computing” for our complete definition.)

Hybrid cloud orchestration occurs when the integration between

cloud automation domains involves a single control plane that

allows dynamic provisioning of workloads across the different

cloud automation domains. Some providers will offer such

solutions themselves. Such software must generally explicitly

support particular cloud IaaS providers.

Some providers offer a single platform that can be consistently

deployed and managed – regardless of whether it is multitenant

or single-tenant, and regardless of its location. These providers

may be considered as offering a hybrid cloud service if their

services are consumed both on-premises and off-premises.

Some internal IT organizations may create a hybrid cloud

service by combining one or more IaaS offerings, likely including

an internal private cloud, and offering unified self-service and

governance. (See “Successful Hybrid Cloud Deployment Requires

Maturity in Four Key Areas” for guidance.)

Industrialized Versus Bespoke IaaS Offerings

A public cloud IaaS offering is always industrialized – it is a

completely standardized offering where every subscriber receives

the exact same set of capabilities. A service provider may offer

additional customization options on top of the standardized

offering, but the core of the offering is always industrialized.

Private and community cloud IaaS offerings may be

industrialized, or they may be bespoke. An industrialized offering

is built and operated exactly the same for every customer; in

fact, it may simply be a single-tenant version of the provider’s

public cloud IaaS offering. However, many service providers

will build and operate a bespoke IaaS offering for a customer.

A bespoke offering may be custom-designed, custom-built, or

custom-operated, depending on what the provider is willing

to offer. A bespoke offering may be based on a reference

architecture, so that many customers have the same or

substantially similar implementations. Bespoke offerings can

typically be operated in a distinct fashion for each customer.

Bespoke offerings are often significantly more expensive than

industrialized offerings, and typically have a slower innovation

cycle than industrialized offerings.

Customer Responsibilities

In order to use cloud IaaS effectively, the subscriber needs to

provide the following functions:

• Vendor and sourcing management. The subscriber

needs to have an employee who is responsible for ensuring

that the provider delivers the promised service offering,

at the agreed-upon service levels. There must be a point

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of contact for personnel within the organization that want

to obtain access to the cloud IaaS offering. When using

an external provider, someone must be responsible for

managing the contract, whatever accounts are under that

contract, tracking the overall spend on the offering and

negotiating discounts against this consolidated spend.

The procurement department also needs to ensure that

the subscriber is in compliance with software licensing

agreements with any commercial software vendors whose

products are being used on the cloud infrastructure, even if

this is an internal private cloud.

• Subject matter expertise. The subscriber needs to have

a subject-matter expert on this cloud IaaS offering. This

is typically an architect who is able to advise users on the

best way to use the IaaS platform. This architect may create

policies, best-practice guidelines, reference architectures

and templates for the organization. Larger organizations

may want to build a cloud IaaS center of excellence (COE)

that contains these architects. Organizations that are new to

cloud IaaS may want to make use of consultants until they

develop their own internal expertise.

• IT administration. The subscriber is responsible for the OS

layer and above, responsible for security and compliance,

and responsible for their own data. The subscriber is

responsible for their application architecture, implementation

and operations, including application availability and

performance. Consequently, the subscriber must provide

IT administrators that will assume this responsibility. The

subscriber may choose to outsource this. Security is

always a shared responsibility between the subscriber and

provider (see “Staying Secure in the Cloud Is a Shared

Responsibility”). The cloud IaaS provider will normally

provide security at the physical data center, hardware and

virtualization layers. The provider may also offer some

additional security controls, particularly at the network level.

However, it is the responsibility of the subscriber to correctly

configure those controls, as well as add whatever additional

controls are necessary.

• Governance. The subscriber is responsible for controlling

its users. Most subscribers have two types of users –

administrators (normally IT operations personnel) and

technical end users (such as developers, scientists and

engineers). If only administrators use the offering, it might

be unnecessary to implement a governance tool. However, if

the subscriber has end users that directly consume the IaaS

offering, then a governance tool – which is used to control

and track what end users do – may be useful. Such tools,

known as cloud management platforms (CMPs), typically

offer a customizable portal and service catalog designed

for end users. Examples of CMPs include CliQr, Scalr

and ServiceMesh. (See “IaaS Cloud Management Tool

Selection Methodology” for more on management tools.)

• Capacity management. Capacity management is a

critical element for cost control and budget forecasting.

Organizations must take care to rightsize the infrastructure

to the application, in order to control recurring costs and

to eliminate infrastructure that is no longer being used.

In internal private clouds, financial management may be

built into the CMP or available as an add-on to the CMP;

capacity planning is much more critical for internal private

clouds and other IaaS environments where overall capacity

cannot be expanded on demand. Most customers of

external cloud IaaS providers will want a cost management

tool, such as Cloudyn, CloudHealth or RightScale Cloud

Analytics (see “Innovation Insight for Cloud Service

Expense Management Tools” for details).

Customers that do not want to be responsible for managing the

offering can use a third-party-managed service provider. See

“Getting Help With Implementing Cloud IaaS” for details.

Optimal use of cloud IaaS and extracting the maximum benefits

from cloud IaaS require the development of new skills, both in

development and in operations – and often, in the convergence

of those two disciplines in DevOps. Organizations should not

underestimate training needs, process impacts, requirements

for new management tools and the impact on career paths.

Note that these impacts are not confined to the IT organization;

they may impact finance, sourcing and procurement

organizations, legal and regulatory compliance functions, and

the interaction of business management with IT management.

See “Implementing Governance for Public Cloud IaaS and

PaaS” for initial guidance.

Pricing

In cloud IaaS, resources are typically metered on an hourly

basis, although the external provider market is moving toward

a per-minute metering increment. Providers normally charge

for compute resources provisioned, storage consumed and

network bandwidth consumed, and may also charge for

additional capabilities such as load balancing and monitoring.

The cost of internal private clouds varies significantly; see

“Calculating Per-VM Costs in Private Clouds” for guidance

on how IT organizations can price IaaS capabilities for the

purposes of chargeback or showback.

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It can be difficult to compare the relative value of multiple cloud

IaaS providers, because different offerings contain different

capabilities. Furthermore, performance varies enormously

between offerings, and providers may have multiple options for

compute, storage and networking performance. In particular, be

wary of a provider’s definition of a “vCPU” or “CPU core”; some

providers oversubscribe their CPUs, and some providers have

newer, higher-performing processors, so one provider’s CPU is

not necessarily equivalent to another provider’s CPU.

Comparing the cost of multiple solutions should be done

on an application-specific basis, since every application will

consume different capabilities of the cloud IaaS offering,

and some workloads may be a more cost-effective fit on

particular infrastructure configurations. Organizations that are

comparing the relative costs of multiple offerings – without

particular applications in mind – should choose a set of

common application patterns and price those patterns. Most

organizations do not choose the lowest-cost provider, but rather

the provider that delivers the greatest value.

Cost forecasting for cloud IaaS should be done on a scenario-

planning basis; see “Can You Save Money Migrating to Cloud

IaaS?” for guidance. To compare the cost of public cloud IaaS

to internal solutions, use “Calculating and Comparing Data

Center and Public Cloud IaaS Costs.”

Benefits and UsesCloud IaaS can be used to host both new and existing

workloads. Certain workload patterns may be better served

by different cloud IaaS offerings, and it is common for large

enterprises to have two to four cloud IaaS providers in order to

achieve optimal fit to each use case. Subscribers do not need

to rearchitect their applications to use cloud IaaS. However,

applications that are architected to be cloud-native, using cloud

transaction processing (TP) principles, are better able to take

advantage of the traits of cloud IaaS. (See “How to Architect and

Design Cloud-Native Applications” and “A Guidance Framework

for Architecting Highly Available Cloud-Native Applications.”)

Most applications that perform well within a virtualized

environment will perform well in cloud IaaS; use of bare-metal

servers within cloud IaaS can also address the needs of

applications that do not perform well under virtualization. Some

applications that have components that cannot be hosted in

cloud IaaS for technical reasons can be split between cloud

IaaS and dedicated equipment in cross-connected colocation,

allowing the components to communicate within LAN latencies.

For example, an organization might have the front end of

its e-commerce website entirely hosted in cloud IaaS, but

have its back-end Oracle RAC database cluster in a nearby

colocation data center that is cross-connected with the cloud

provider’s data center. For additional information, see “Hybrid

Architectures for Cloud Computing.”

As is true with all data center environments, when using cloud

IaaS, attention needs to be paid to performance, availability

and security when developing the system architecture – and

the right offering needs to be chosen to address these needs.

Common Use Cases

The following use cases are common:

• Development environments. Cloud IaaS is often used

for application development and testing, and may be used

for preproduction staging environments as well. Some

organizations that adopt cloud IaaS for this purpose simply

use it as a way to assist IT operations in provisioning

development infrastructure more rapidly. Most, however,

directly allow developers to self-service, either via the

offering’s native portal or API, or via a governance

tool. Most organizations first adopt cloud IaaS for the

development of new applications; over time, it becomes

an integral part of the full life cycle of those applications,

including production deployment.

• SaaS hosting. Many SaaS providers and vendors that

offer hosted software use a cloud IaaS offering from a

service provider. This can be one of the first ways that an

organization ends up adopting cloud IaaS. In some cases,

the IaaS contract is held by the subscriber, while in other

cases, it is held by the provider.

• Consumer-facing hosting. Cloud IaaS is often used

to host consumer-facing content and applications, such

as e-marketing, e-commerce, e-CRM and gaming. It

is frequently used to host social and mobile initiatives,

including the back end of mobile applications and Internet

of Things (IoT) applications. These use cases are often

mission-critical or otherwise highly visible. Nevertheless,

they are often among the initial use cases when

organizations adopt cloud IaaS, as the business often

considers these projects to be urgent – driving the use of

an external cloud IaaS provider in order to meet immediate

infrastructure needs. Digital marketing agencies also often

prefer to work with external cloud IaaS providers and

may be able to deliver projects more quickly when these

providers are used.

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• Business-to-business (B2B) hosting. Cloud IaaS is often

used to host B2B content and applications, similar to the

consumer-facing hosting use case. Extranet portals, such as

supply chain portals, are also common. B2B data services,

mobile applications and IoT applications are also common

use cases.

• Batch computing. Cloud IaaS is very useful for high-

performance computing (HPC), “big data” analytics and

other workloads that require large amounts of capacity

on demand. Internet of Things applications are also

increasingly common. Although this is a particularly

compelling use case for use of an external cloud IaaS

provider, it is also a common use for an internal private

cloud. For academic institutions and other scientific,

engineering and research organizations, batch computing

is often the initial cloud IaaS use case. An external cloud

IaaS provider is often used to augment existing internal

capacity; high-priority or “overflow” projects may be placed

on external cloud IaaS.

• General business applications. Cloud IaaS is increasingly

used to host general business applications – typically, the

kinds of applications that an organization would deploy into

an internal virtualized environment. There is an abundance

of these kinds of workloads in the internal data centers of

most businesses. These applications are typically web-

based, and built using modern architectures, frameworks and

architectures – they may be internally developed or from a

vendor. The application users are usually located within the

business. Many such workloads are small. Some of these

applications are mission-critical, but many are not. Examples

include intranet sites; collaboration and content management

applications such as wikis, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft

SharePoint; and many business process applications.

Many organizations adopt cloud IaaS for these kinds of

applications gradually, starting with new applications of this

type; over time, existing applications may be migrated onto

cloud IaaS. Large-scale migrations may occur during data

center or infrastructure consolidation projects.

• Enterprise applications. Cloud IaaS is occasionally used

to host mission-critical enterprise applications, usually in

the form of a complex software suite from a vendor. Such

applications typically consume large amounts of resources

in a scale-up fashion, are performance-sensitive and contain

highly sensitive data; they are a modest percentage of

the workloads found in the internal data centers of most

traditional businesses, but they are among the most critical.

SAP, Oracle E-Business Suite, Microsoft Dynamics and

other ERP solutions are the most common examples of

such applications. While some organizations run enterprise

applications in production on cloud IaaS – often using a

service provider that specializes in a particular application,

such as SAP – organizations are more likely to use cloud

IaaS for the development, testing and staging of these

kinds of applications.

• Disaster recovery (DR). Organizations that deploy

production applications in cloud IaaS are likely to perform

DR for those applications on cloud IaaS as well, usually

with the same provider. However, organizations may also

choose to use cloud-based DR for noncloud workloads.

Although this document does not cover use cases for stand-

alone, object-based cloud storage – such as backup and

archiving – it should be noted that many organizations adopt

object-based cloud storage as part of a more general adoption

of cloud IaaS.

Adoption Rate

The use of cloud IaaS is broadly mainstream, with usage

patterns closely correlated to organization size and technology

aggressiveness. It is moving up the Slope of Enlightenment in

Gartner’s “Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2016.”

Gartner uses a “Type ABC” classification framework for

technology aggressiveness for organizations:

• Type A focuses on competitive advantage.

• Type B focuses on improved productivity.

• Type C focuses on containing IT costs.

The typical adoption patterns, in late 2016, are:

• Type A enterprises have likely used cloud IaaS for at least

five years. They make extensive use of public cloud IaaS,

usually from an IaaS+PaaS provider, for digital business

initiatives. They have likely built private cloud infrastructure,

but might consider it to be a failure, usually because it has

not met developer needs; there are some, however, that

are very successful with private cloud services that are

purpose-built for particular needs. They may be considering

a long-term transformation to drive greater agility via public

cloud services, but if not, they typically expect to maintain

internal data centers for many years to come.

• Type A midmarket businesses and Type B enterprises have a similar adoption pattern to Type A enterprises, but

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they have not adopted as quickly or as aggressively. They

are likely to have used cloud IaaS for two or three years, and

to have digital business initiatives in public cloud IaaS. They

are less likely to have built a true private cloud, but may have

cloud-inspired infrastructure. They may be considering a

multiyear migration of a substantial percentage of their data

center infrastructure to public cloud IaaS; some will do so for

agility, while others will do so for efficiency.

• Type B midmarket businesses have typically done some

digital initiatives in public cloud IaaS, and have cloud-

inspired infrastructure internally. However, an increasing

number of these businesses are considering migrating

their internal data centers to public cloud IaaS, often in

conjunction with managed services – a form of cloud-

enabled outsourcing. This is typically done for classic

outsourcing reasons – cost-efficiency, quicker access to

new technology capabilities and access to skills.

• Type C midmarket businesses and enterprises have

been cautious about their entry into public cloud IaaS, and

are likely to only have virtualization internally (even if they

call it a “private cloud”). These organizations are increasingly

looking at migrating their data centers to public cloud IaaS

for cost-efficiency, although many may find that the cost

savings are minimal. They may also have some digital

initiatives that are a good fit for public cloud IaaS.

Guidance for getting started with public cloud IaaS is given in

“How to Begin Using Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service.”

RisksIT organizations considering cloud IaaS typically have a number

of concerns; some of these may be personal to individuals or

to the IT operations organization, while others represent actual

technical and business risks. Common concerns and risks

include the following:

• Loss of control. When cloud IaaS is used to provide self-

service infrastructure to technical end users, the IT operations

organization typically loses some degree of control over

the infrastructure, unless measures are taken to implement

governance and management. When the organization uses

an external provider for cloud IaaS, there is a further loss

of control. The organization must depend upon the provider

to ensure the IaaS platform’s availability, performance and

security; and furthermore, is dependent upon the provider to

continue to provide a competitive feature set at a competitive

cost. The provider needs to provide adequate transparency

to allow the subscriber to evaluate the quality of the solution

and any attendant risks. Furthermore, because there is also

a loss of insight – the lack of control over the platform also

means lack of visibility into issues and an understanding of

when any problems might be resolved – the provider needs

to offer rapid, transparent communications.

• Security. The underlying IaaS platform must be adequately

secured by the provider, but the subscriber needs to

configure the available security controls and may need

to add additional security controls. The subscriber is also

responsible for regulatory compliance. Data security can

potentially be addressed via encryption (see “Simplify

Operations and Compliance in the Cloud by Encrypting

Sensitive Data”); subscribers can implement this themselves,

but service providers are increasingly offering integrated

options for encrypting data at rest and in motion. The

subscriber also needs to manage IT operations and end-

user access to the offering. Internal private clouds need

security just as much as service provider IaaS offerings,

since the environment still needs to be fully protected against

any breach of internal security. “How to Make Cloud IaaS

Workloads More Secure Than Your Own Data Center”

provides some general guidance for transforming security.

• Data location. Regardless of the type of cloud IaaS, the

subscriber always chooses where the data resides. If an

external service provider is used, the exact address of the

data center might be unknown, but the provider will typically

specify which metropolitan area it is located in. The provider

typically does not have the right to move the data between

metropolitan areas without the customer’s permission, so the

customer always knows that the data will not cross country

boundaries. (Note that object-based cloud storage is an

exception; customers should determine the restrictions on

replication locations.) Customers may have specific location

requirements, or prefer to use a non-U.S. provider, but it may

be challenging to find high-quality IaaS offerings from local

providers.

• Availability and performance. Availability and performance

are functions of the subscriber’s chosen architecture, as

well as the underlying cloud IaaS offering. Some cloud

IaaS offerings offer greater infrastructure resilience, either

by default or as an option. Performance varies significantly

across cloud IaaS providers, and some providers also have

greater variability in performance than other providers.

Providers may offer more expensive options that provide

higher performance or greater performance consistency.

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• Network connectivity. Organizations are often concerned

about how they will connect their network to an off-premises

cloud IaaS offering, how they will secure that connectivity

and how they will mitigate any network latency issues.

Fortunately, most external cloud IaaS providers support

the use of private connectivity from the customer’s choice

of telecommunications carrier, and an increasing number

of carriers directly offer such network connections. It is

common for a customer’s cloud IaaS environment to simply

become a node on the customer’s Multiprotocol Label

Switching (MPLS) network. WAN optimization controllers

from vendors such as Riverbed can be deployed as virtual

appliances within the cloud, and carriers will increasingly

offer integrated acceleration as part of their cloud

connection offerings.

• Lock-in. IT managers are often concerned about becoming

“locked in” to a cloud provider, and want the ability to

move applications and data between environments.

Strictly speaking, while cloud IaaS can be treated like

rented virtualization and data gravity can be overcome,

the greatest driver of lock-in is differentiated capabilities.

Adopting an external cloud IaaS provider is not like adopting

a server hardware vendor; it is more akin to adopting an IT

operations management (ITOM) software vendor, or even

a middleware platform vendor. Customers who extensively

adopt the differentiated capabilities of a CMP or service will

be more locked-in, but they will also derive greater value

from the offering. The trade-off between lock-in benefits and

risks is discussed in detail in “Addressing Lock-In Concerns

With Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service.”

See “Take a Risk-Based Approach to Public Cloud IaaS” for

a more comprehensive assessment of cloud IaaS risks and

suggested mitigation mechanisms. See “How to Evaluate Cloud

Service Provider Security” to understand the risk implications of

choosing smaller providers.

Evaluation FactorsWhen evaluating a cloud IaaS offering, look at both its

technical characteristics and its business model to determine

its appropriateness for your needs. Remember that although

IaaS tries to remove many concerns from the user of the

service, the underlying implementation still strongly affects the

technical traits of the service. There is considerable variance

in service provider design goals, the quality of the technical

implementations, and the cost-effectiveness and value for

money of those implementations.

Gartner provides extensive evaluation guidance for cloud IaaS

providers in “Evaluation Criteria for Cloud Infrastructure as a

Service.” The evaluation criteria can be used to evaluate both

public and private cloud IaaS providers – including internally

built private clouds. We provide In-Depth Assessments,

using those criteria, of the market share leaders – Amazon

Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Our “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service,

Worldwide” provides an overall market assessment of the most

significant cloud IaaS providers. We assess providers and offer

a use-case-specific view of technical features and capabilities

in “Critical Capabilities for Public Cloud Infrastructure as a

Service, Worldwide.”

Cloud IaaS AlternativesNot all infrastructure requirements are best served by cloud

IaaS. Many needs are better served by a noncloud internal

data center capability, such as a virtualized environment

without self-service, a CESI used by the IT operations team

or a simple virtual lab automation solution. Other alternatives

include the following:

• On-demand hardware lease. Organizations that need a

more flexible model for procuring infrastructure, but are not

interested in self-service, should consider an equipment

lease as a possible alternative. Many hardware vendors

are now open to negotiating flexible leases that allow

customers to obtain hardware in a more elastic fashion,

including models where hardware is deployed on the

customer’s premises in advance of need, but the customer

does not pay until the resources are used.

• Dedicated hosting. Organizations that want to rent

servers by the month, and are willing to host them in an

external service provider’s data center (but do not need

cloud IaaS capabilities), should consider dedicated hosting

from a provider such as Internap, OVH, Cogeco Peer 1 or

SingleHop. These companies typically specialize in serving

small businesses that only have one or two servers, so

their sales, service and support approaches are designed

accordingly. However, they are a possible alternative for

larger organizations as well.

• Cloud-enabled managed infrastructure services. A

variety of managed service providers (MSPs), including

managed hosting and data center outsourcing (DCO)

providers, offer managed services on top of a CESI. These

offerings vary significantly in the degree of available self-

service, elasticity and automation within the CESI platform.

Some offerings are only available in the provider’s data

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center, while others are available in the customer’s choice of

data center. The financial models vary, including the contract

length and who owns the equipment. Customers that want

cloudlike traits, but do not want to manage the infrastructure

themselves, may find these offerings attractive.

• Infrastructure utility services (IUS). Some DCO

providers offer IUS – hosted, virtualized, usually multitenant

infrastructure that is designed to host a specific application

– most commonly SAP. There is usually some elasticity

in such offerings and they may be delivered using an

underlying CESI.

Consult “Toolkit: Decision-Making Model for Data Center

Service Sourcing Strategy” for a broader view of the range

of infrastructure outsourcing options. See “How to Select the

Correct Data Center Option for the Digital World” for a broader

look at infrastructure strategy. “15 Reasons Not to Migrate

Your Data Center to Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service”

provides a list of factors that suggest that public cloud IaaS is

the wrong solution.

RecommendationsEnterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders should:

• Use cloud IaaS to drive developer productivity and facilitate

innovation, and thus deliver faster time to value, especially

for Mode 2 projects. Use public cloud integrated IaaS+PaaS

to maximize access to innovative capabilities. Embrace the

differentiated capabilities of these providers, but thoughtfully

manage the lock-in risks.

• Create an internal cloud COE to provide oversight of

cloud computing policy, organizationwide governance,

best practices and cloud vendor management. The COE

should serve as a cloud service broker, and provide solution

architecture assistance to projects that desire to use cloud

services.

• Use public-cloud-integrated IaaS+PaaS to maximize agility

and efficiency for IT modernization and transformation

projects. Use market-leading providers to minimize risks.

However, do not assume that migrating to IaaS will reduce

costs unless a shift is made to greater standardization

and automation.

• Explore the use of cloud-inspired infrastructure on-premises

for Mode 1 projects that are not a good fit for public cloud

IaaS, rather than building private cloud infrastructure.

Cloud-inspired infrastructure is often sufficient to achieve

I&O’s goals of reducing costs, simplifying operations, and

improving operational reliability and efficiency. If you do

decide to use private cloud IaaS, compare its capabilities

to market-leading integrated IaaS+PaaS providers; ensure

that your private cloud IaaS fully meets the needs of end

users, such as developers, researchers and engineers.

Representative ProvidersCloud IaaS providers typically fall into the following categories:

• Internal IT organizations. These often provide internal

private cloud IaaS to users within their business. However,

central IT organizations may also provide cloud IaaS

to other businesses, such as subsidiaries, partners,

other organizations within a community (for instance, a

government agency may provide cloud IaaS to another

agency), or customers who are purchasing something else

from this business and are also interested in cloud IaaS.

• Cloud-native service providers. Some cloud IaaS

providers have directly entered the cloud IaaS business

without a previous significant history in hosting or IT

services. AWS, Google and Microsoft are cloud-native

service providers – as are many startups. Cloud-native

providers typically have an industrialized offering, but may

have bespoke offerings as well.

• Hosters. Many cloud IaaS providers have a genesis in

the colocation, mass-market hosting, dedicated hosting,

or managed hosting businesses. Several such providers

still retain their original business and have expanded into

cloud IaaS. There are many independent hosters, such as

Rackspace, but there are also many communications service

providers who have entered this market, either directly or

through acquisition; examples include CenturyLink, Interoute

and NTT. Hosters typically have an industrialized offering,

but may also build bespoke private clouds.

• Data center outsourcers. Many DCO providers, such as

CSC, Fujitsu and IBM, have entered the cloud IaaS market

with industrialized offerings. Most DCO providers, including

Dell, HCL Technologies, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services

(TCS) and Wipro, will build bespoke private clouds.

• System integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs) and MSPs. SIs, VARs and MSPs may build bespoke

private clouds for customers. Some VARs and MSPs

have also entered the market with industrialized offerings;

notable examples include CDW and Dimension Data.

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China Telecommunications Corporation (“China Telecom”),

as one of the world’s largest providers of integrated

telecommunication services has been striving to enhance

its capabilities in managing global operation, so as to keep

pace with changing times. In November 2000, China Telecom

established a representative office in America, an initial

step in growing its international business. Since then, China

Telecom has expanded its international footprint rapidly with

the establishment of China Telecom (Hong Kong) International

Limited, China Telecom Americas Corporation, China Telecom

(Europe) Limited and China Telecom (Africa and Middle East)

Limited. Today, China Telecom has branches and affiliates in

39 countries and regions, as well as 176 overseas PoPs, and

owns more than 42T capacities in international connectivity

bandwidth and intercontinental capacity. By tapping into its

network resources of 39 submarine cables (China Telecom was

involved in the construction of more than 10 of those cables)

and leveraging direct connection to more than 10 neighbouring

countries and regions via terrestrial cables, China Telecom has

forged its global layout of service network and network capacity

Driven by our determination to serve the ever growing demands

from integrated operation of international telecommunication

business, and to enhance our global service quality as well as

to accelerate the overseas business expansion, China Telecom

resolved to integrate our international business resources and

human resources to establish China Telecom Global Limited

(“CTG”) which is headquartered in Hong Kong since 2012.

About China Telecom Global Limited

Leveraging on its abundant resources in mainland China, CTG

connects the Asia Pacific region and the world. It has gradually

become a world-class integrated information service provider.

Targeting international carriers, multinational corporation

clients and overseas Chinese, CTG provides customised

and cost-effective integrated communication solutions and

diversified telecom services to cater to their global business

needs. Its services include internet direct access, internet

transit, data services, broadband, unified communications,

internet data centre, cloud computing, ICT services, fixed and

mobile voice and value-added services, professional services

and industry solutions, telecom operation consultancy and

service outsourcing.

Please contact your CTG sales representative for more details.

Or, you may send an email to: cs@chinatelecomglobal.com.

To learn more about us, you may visit our corporate website:

www.chinatelecomglobal.com

The Future Of IaaS Is In The Cloud is published by China Telecom Global. Editorial supplied by China Telecom Global is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is © 2018 by Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. All Gartner materials are used with Gartner’s permission. The use or publication of Gartner research does not indicate Gartner’s endorsement of China Telecom Global’s products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity” on its website.