Last updated March 30th, 2021

At Gartner, I cover cloud computing and related topics. (I used to also cover managed hosting, colocation, and content delivery networks [CDNs], so older entries on this blog, they touch on those topics as well.)

I am primarily focused on cloud infrastructure and platforms, especially services delivered by hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.  I am extremely broad in my coverage. I follow not just the market spaces themselves, but also the adjacent markets and the value chain. For instance, I don’t only cover cloud IaaS, but I cover the vendor ecosystem that feeds into IaaS, cloud-native IT operations and applications and the DevOps philosophy, and cloud management tools. I also used to cover (but stopped covering in 2019) cloud managed and professional services, and cloud contracting. Going beyond IaaS and PaaS, I also cover the broad swathe of things necessary for organizations to successfully adopt cloud computing and drive cloud-enabled business transformation.

I help three types of client organizations:

• End-users (IT buyers, usually architects and executive management up to the CIO level)
• Vendors (technology companies, usually executives, strategists, CTOs, and product managers)
• Investors (buy-side analysts and PMs, sell-side analysts, investment bankers, private equity, venture capitalists)

Here’s a sampling of the sorts of questions that they ask me.

End-users:

• What should my cloud strategy be?
• What’s the right operating model for cloud computing?
• What skills does my organization need to effectively adopt cloud?
• How should cloud computing intersect with my agile and DevOps initiatives?
• How should I think about multicloud strategy, management, and workload placement?
• How do I effectively manage cloud risks?
• How do I choose the right cloud provider for me?
• How do specific cloud providers compare to one another?
• How to I effectively govern and manage cloud costs?
• Is this a good architecture for this application that I want to put in the cloud?
• What will I need to do in order to get this application to run in the cloud?
• How should I get started with cloud adoption?
• How should I plan, structure, and execute a cloud migration?
• What should I think about when considering putting a project in the cloud?
• What best practices can I learn from cloud vendors?

Vendors:

• What do users care about when purchasing a cloud service?
• What does the competitive landscape look like?
• What should I be thinking about in my three-year roadmap?
• What are the technologies that I should be exploiting?
• What opportunities are there for partners in the cloud ecosystem?
• How is the shift in the cloud buying landscape impacting the ecosystem?
• Who should I acquire for competitive advantage?

Investors:

• What are the trends in cloud adoption?
• What are the implications of the cloud shift, and what’s the timeline?
• Which vendors do current trends benefit? Who is threatened? Who loses?
• What is fill-in-the-blank-company‘s cloud strategy, and how good is it?