With the refresh of the Magic Quadrant for Cloud IaaS, and the evolution of the regional Magic Quadrants for Managed Hosting into Magic Quadrants for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, I am following my annual tradition of highlighting researching that myself and others have published that’s important in the context of these MQs. These notes lay out how we see the market, and consequently, the lens that we’re going to be evaluating the service providers through.

As always, I want to stress that service providers do not need to agree with our perspective in order to rate well. We admire those who march to their own particular beat, as long as it results in true differentiation and more importantly, customer wins and happy customers — a different perspective can allow a service provider to serve their particular segments of the market more effectively. However, such providers need to be able to clearly articulate that vision and to back it up with data that supports their world-view.

This updates a previous list of foundational research. Please note that those older notes still remain relevant, and you are encouraged to read them. You might also be interested in a previous research round-up (clients only).

If you are a service provider, these are the research notes that it might be helpful to be familiar with (sorry, links are behind client-only paywall):

Magic Quadrant for Cloud IaaS, 2013. Last year’s Magic Quadrant is full of deep-dive information about the market and the providers. Also check out the Critical Capabilities for Public Cloud IaaS, 2013 for a deeper dive into specific public cloud IaaS offerings (Critical Capabilities is almost solely focused on feature set for particular use cases, whereas a Magic Quadrant positions a vendor in a market as a whole).

Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting, North America and Magic Quadrant for European Managed Hosting. Last year’s managed hosting Magic Quadrants are likely the last MQs we’ll publish for traditional managed hosting. They still make interesting reading even though these MQs are evolving this year.

Pricing and Buyer’s Guide for Web Hosting and Cloud Infrastructure, 2013. Our market definitions are described here.

Evaluation Criteria for Public Cloud IaaS Providers. Our Technical Professionals research provides extremely detailed criteria for large enterprises that are evaluating providers. While the customer requirements are somewhat different in other segments, like the mid-market, these criteria should give you an extremely strong idea of the kinds of things that we think are important to customers. The cloud IaaS MQ evaluation criteria are not identical (because it is broader than just large-enterprise), but they are very similar — we do coordinate our research.

Technology Overview for Cloud-Enabled System Infrastructure. If you’re wondering what cloud-enabled system infrastructure (CESI) is, this will explain it to you. Cloud-enabled managed hosting is the combination of a CESI with managed services, so it’s important to understand.

Don’t Be Fooled By Offerings Falsely Masquerading as Cloud IaaS. This note was written for our end-user clients, to help them sort out an increasingly “cloudwashed” service provider landscape. It’s very important for understanding what constitutes a cloud service and why the technical and business benefits of “cloud” matter.

Service Providers Must Understand the Real Needs of Prospective Customers of Cloud IaaS. Customers are often confused about what they want to buy when they claim to want “cloud”. This provides structured guidance for figuring this out, and it’s important for understanding service provider value propositions.

How Customers Purchase Cloud IaaS, 2012. A lifecycle exploration of how customers adopt and expand their use of cloud IaaS. Important for understanding our perspective on sales and marketing. (It’s dated 2012, but it’s actually a 2013 note, and still fully current.)

Market Trends: Managed Cloud Infrastructure, 2013. Our view of the evolution of data center outsourcing, managed hosting, and cloud IaaS, and broadly, the “managed cloud”. Critical for understanding the future of cloud-enabled managed hosting.

Managed Services Providers Must Adapt to the Needs of DevOps-Oriented Customers. As DevOps increases in popularity, managed services increasingly want their infrastructure to be managed with a DevOps philosophy. This represents a radical change for service providers. This note explores the customer requirements and market implications.

If you are not a Gartner client, please note that many of these topics have been covered in my blog in the past, if at a higher level (and generally in a mode where I am still working out my thinking, as opposed to a polished research position).