ISG to Publish Study on Container Services

ISG Provider Lens™ report will focus on ways container services providers are helping enterprises lower costs and improve customer experience

Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, has launched a research study examining providers of container services, the cloud-native approach to building applications.

The study results will be published in a comprehensive ISG Provider Lens™ report, called Container Services & Solutions, scheduled to be released in September. The report will cover a range of container services offered by providers, including managed container services, Kubernetes platform solutions and hyperscale cloud container platforms.

Enterprise buyers will be able to use information from the report to evaluate their current vendor relationships, potential new engagements and available offerings, while ISG advisors use the information to recommend providers to the firm’s buy-side clients.

The new report will look at ways container services providers are helping enterprises lower costs and improve customer experience through the faster development of new products and services, said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research.

“By decoupling applications from the underlying infrastructure, container solutions offer some major advantages over traditional on-premises applications,“ he said. “These benefits include light-touch updating of applications, faster scaling of compute and other resources to accommodate peaks in demand, and the freedom to work in web-based programming languages.“

ISG has distributed surveys to more than 180 container services providers. Working in collaboration with ISG’s global advisors, the research team will produce five quadrants representing the services and products the typical enterprise customer is buying in the container space, based on ISG’s experience working with its clients. The five quadrants that will be covered are:

• Managed Container Services, analyzing service providers that offer a suite of capabilities to assist enterprises with the creation and operation of container platforms, along with the development of applications atop those platforms. Service providers in this quadrant must offer a structured methodology to help enterprises containerize existing applications. These offerings assist enterprises with setting up Kubernetes, service mesh, observability and security functionality.
• Kubernetes Platform Solutions, focused on independent software vendors that offer enterprise software distributions of Kubernetes. These distributions should be based on the upstream open-source project and provide additional capabilities necessary for enterprises to maximize their Kubernetes use, such as multi-cluster management, compliance management and patching. This software should be able to run under a hybrid cloud model.
• Hyperscale Cloud Container Platforms, including hyperscale cloud providers that offer managed public cloud platforms for containerized applications. Players in this space own globally distributed infrastructure with datacenter regions available in the relevant geographies for this study. They also offer fully automated managed services dedicated to deploying and operating Kubernetes on this infrastructure on the customer’s behalf.
• Cloud Native Observability Solutions, covering software vendors that provide dedicated solutions for observability of containerized applications. Understanding the behavior of these applications can be more complex than with a traditional monolith. Developers and operators must understand the behavior of each containerized app or service as well as how they communicate with one another.
• Kubernetes Training Services, focused on companies that offer bespoke training in the skills needed to safely deploy, scale and manage containerized applications and Kubernetes. Typically, these companies are certified by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation for training purposes. As new technical skills and cultural changes within an enterprise are required to effectively use Kubernetes, some businesses may opt to work with external training providers.

The report will cover the global container market and examine products and services available in the U.S. and Europe. ISG analysts Blair Hanley Frank and Mark Purdy will serve as lead authors of the report.

A list of identified providers and vendors and further details on the study are available in this digital brochure. Companies not listed as container providers can contact ISG and ask to be included in the study.

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 Europe, as well as in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., France, the Nordics, Brazil and Australia/New Zealand, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

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.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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