I’m Lydia Leong, a Washington DC-based technology analyst at Gartner, where I cover cloud computing and a variety of related topics, including the ecosystem that feeds into (or is disrupted by) the cloud. I focus on infrastructure as a service (IaaS), as well as platform as a service (PaaS) as it intersects with IaaS, along with a range of emerging cloud and cloud-enabled services. I also cover topics such as the cloud operating model (and the cloud center of excellence [CCOE]), cloud governance, cloud operations, cloud economics, cloud skills, DevOps (and DevSecOps), and using the cloud to empower developers and drive digital business transformation. I’m a Distinguished VP Analyst in our Gartner for Technical Professionals practice.

I spend about 85% of my time advising our “end-user” clients (mid-sized businesses, enterprises, and tech company buyers of all sizes) on technology strategy and sourcing, about 10% with vendors (client and non-client) listening to what they have to say and providing advice and feedback, and about 5% with investors seeking to understand my space and the companies in it. I also do all of the forecasting and quantitative research in the spaces that I cover.

I spent most of my pre-Gartner career in Internet operations and engineering, with a touch of product marketing. I’ve been hands-on as well as management up to the director level, handling millions of customers, dozens of people, tens of millions in capital budget, and hyper-growth startup environments. I’ve worked in systems administration, systems programming, Web development, Web hosting, business and consumer Internet access (from dial-up through broadband and enterprise networks), and the Internet portal space. I’ve done DevOps since long before the term existed.

While I have a deeply technical early-career background, I’ve been mostly hands-off in my job at Gartner, and trying to keep up with my hands-on skills in my free time. In my spare time, I’m usually reading, gaming, coding, or making music.

While this blog focuses on technology topics, it is strictly personal. It does not represent official Gartner opinion, nor is it intended to represent the substantive analysis and peer-reviewed positions that would characterize my professional analysis work.

All posts that cover topics directly related to my analyst coverage are also mirrored at the Gartner Blog Network. If you are interested in a broader spectrum of my thoughts on technology, as well as linkblogging of other articles of interest, you’ll probably want to read this blog rather than that one. If you’re purely interested in my coverage area, you’ll probably want to read the Gartner mirror, which is a focused subset of this CloudPundit blog.

You can find my official Gartner research on Gartner.com; most of it can only be accessed by clients.

You can contact me in the following ways:

• Email: LWL at cloudpundit dot com
• Twitter: @cloudpundit
• Schedule a briefing: Gartner scheduling
• Schedule an inquiry call (clients only): Gartner’s Ask an Analyst