Various challenges complicate the process of researching, evaluating, purchasing, and deploying integrated solutions from strategic vendor partners. Research by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group found that current users encounter unique challenges in each stage—and for each stage, only about one-fifth of survey respondents said they didn’t experience any challenges. The often self-guided education that occurs during the research stage of the buyer’s journey is critical not only for solution selection, but also for project success and follow-on investments with the providers of the integrated solution. Buyers need to push solution vendors to address common challenges, while partnering vendors must take a unified approach in doing so.
Infrastructure, Cloud & DevOps
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Cloud & IT Operations
“Cloud-first” organizations have the most aggressive spending plans, but they also are looking for cost efficiencies through cloud cost management and FinOps.
The democratizing forces of cloud are changing the dynamics by which businesses compete.
ESG’s research shows that Cloud ranks 3rd among broad IT initiatives that have become significantly more important to organizations’ futures in the past two years.
Businesses are moving toward a hybrid blend of private and multi-public cloud consumption. The cloud purchase research we observe is focused on cloud migration, cloud security, monitoring and observability across multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments, and digital transformation. Enterprise Strategy Group’s Cloud & IT Operations analysts and demand-side research cover all facets of cloud and IT operations and observability, including:
- AIOps
- Cloud infrastructure management
- ESG/Sustainability
- FinOps
- IT asset management
- IT operations management
- IT service management
- Observability
- Systems management
Research Brief
Industries Dive Headfirst Into AI-enhanced Observability
Observability vendors are in a race to leverage AI to automate root cause analysis, enable self-healing, optimize resources, reduce alert noise, automate log analysis, and deliver contextualized actionable insights to end users. Organizations across industries recognize that implementing AI-enhanced observability tools can give them strategic insights that optimize the economics of their application development and […]
Analysts Covering Cloud & IT Operations
Jon Brown
Senior Analyst, Data Protection, Ops & Sustainability
Areas of Expertise
- AIOps
- Backup
- Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery
- Data Protection
- DRaaS
- FinOps
Aaron Tan
Regional Director, Analyst Services, APAC
Areas of Expertise
- Application Modernization & DevOps
- Business Applications
- Cloud Computing
- Cybersecurity
- DevOps
- IaaS/Cloud
Recent Operations Insights
Research Brief | July 14, 2025
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0: Consolidating the Private Cloud
Research Brief | May 13, 2025
Saturated Application Environments Push AI-led Observability to Its Early Limits
Research Brief | May 13, 2025
Industries Dive Headfirst Into AI-enhanced Observability
Infographic | May 8, 2025
The State of DevSecOps and Cloud Security Platforms
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Infrastructure
On premises as-a-service, simplifying hybrid cloud operations, and the rise of edge infrastructure are surging topics for buyer research as organizations balance cloud-native architectures for digital transformation with a focus on modernization investments on and off premises.
The cloud experience has been too beneficial to be isolated to off-premises public cloud services alone.
ESG’s latest research shows that building an enterprise hybrid cloud infrastructure is a top IT initiative for organizations
Enterprise Strategy Group’s Infrastructure analysts and demand-side research cover every aspect of an organization’s infrastructure strategy and technology framework, including:
- Cloud-native storage
- Composable
- Computational storage
- Data storage (block, file, object)
- Hybrid cloud
- Converged/Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI)
- Infrastructure as a Service
- Intelligent/Automatic infrastructure
- Kubernetes
- Server/Compute
Research Brief
Container Orchestration Deployments Show Penchant for Wide Variety
Thanks to the well-known portability and efficiency benefits they offer, containers are a mainstay in many organizations’ IT strategies today. Recent research by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group revealed that as teams turn their attention to container orchestration deployment and look to match the right approach with their specific operating requirements, they display a penchant for […]
Analysts Covering Infrastructure
Simon Robinson
Principal Analyst, Storage & Converged Infrastructure
Areas of Expertise
- Cloud-attached Storage
- Cloud-native Storage
- Flash-based Storage
- Hybrid Cloud
- Hyperconverged infrastructure
- Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Scott Sinclair
Practice Director, Infrastructure, Cloud & DevOps
Areas of Expertise
- Cloud-native Storage
- Composable
- Computational Storage
- Data Storage
- Hybrid Cloud
- Hyperconverged (HCI)
Aaron Tan
Regional Director, Analyst Services, APAC
Areas of Expertise
- Application Modernization & DevOps
- Business Applications
- Cloud Computing
- Cybersecurity
- DevOps
- IaaS/Cloud
Recent Infrastructure Insights
Research Brief | June 30, 2025
AWS Shield Network Security Director Provides Mapping for Contextual Understanding to Mitigate Risk and Speed Response
Infographic | June 18, 2025
Wi-Fi Evolution: WLAN in the Age of AI
Research Report | June 18, 2025
Wi-Fi Evolution: WLAN in the Age of AI
Survey Results | June 18, 2025
Wi-Fi Evolution: WLAN in the Age of AI
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Application Modernization
Delivering code quickly across multiple platforms and cloud environments is increasingly important in the distributed cloud ecosystem.
Cloud-native applications and modernized infrastructure are a de facto prerequisite for successful transformation projects.
Keeping up with advances in technology on top of maintenance means developers have a lot on their plates.
Our latest research shows increasing focus on improving efficiency via automation and using low-code/no-code to enable developers and citizen developers to deliver apps faster.
Enterprise Strategy Group’s Application Modernization analysts and demand-side research cover all aspects of the application modernization ecosystem, including:
- Application build, delivery, release, testing
- Application integration & development
- Application modernization & observability
- Cloud-native technologies
- Content management systems & digital experience platforms
- Continuous integration/Continuous delivery (CI/CD)
- DevOps, site reliability engineering (SRE) & platform engineering
- Digital transformation
- Infrastructure modernization
- Integration & orchestration
- Kubernetes & containers
- On-premises, cloud & hybrid infrastructure
- Open-source software
Research Report
Application Modernization and the Role of Platform Engineering
Platform engineering is the foundation of digital transformation success, as this discipline directly affects an organization’s ability to rapidly, continuously, and cost-effectively deliver high-quality software in anticipation of and in response to complex and dynamic market requirements. Today’s landscape of cloud-native tools, technologies, infrastructure resources, and application development paradigms ultimately define optimal platform engineering strategies, […]
Analysts Covering Application Modernization
Aaron Tan
Regional Director, Analyst Services, APAC
Areas of Expertise
- Application Modernization & DevOps
- Business Applications
- Cloud Computing
- Cybersecurity
- DevOps
- IaaS/Cloud
Torsten Volk
Principal Analyst, Application Modernization
Areas of Expertise
- Application Modernization
- Cloud-native Applications
- DevOps and CI/CD
- Hybrid & Multi-cloud
- Infrastructure-as-Code & GitOps
- Observability, Monitoring & APM
Recent Application Modernization Insights
Blog | June 7, 2025
The Growing Role of AI in Endpoint Management and Security Convergence
Research Brief | June 6, 2025
The Imperative to Involve Security Starting Early in Application Development Processes
Research Brief | June 6, 2025
IT Roles Show Discrepancies in Application Development Perspectives
Research Brief | April 29, 2025
Open Source LLMs for Everyone at Scale: Red Hat Acquires Neural Magic
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Networking
Distributed IT and hybrid work create network complexity, which is driving adoption of new network technologies and operational frameworks.
Networking infrastructures and operations continue to evolve to keep pace with changes in data centers, remote/branch offices, and endpoint devices.
Data growth, virtualization, AI, cloud consolidation, and next-gen web applications are driving the need for enhanced networking infrastructure performance, elasticity, and scalability.
Our Networking analysts and demand-side research cover every aspect of an organization’s networking strategy and technology framework, including:
- 4G/5G private networks
- AIOps & network automation
- Campus networks
- Cloud-based network management
- Convergence of IoT, IT & OT
- Data center networks
- Multi-cloud networking
- Network performance management
- Network as a Service (NaaS)
- Remote work
- SASE/SD-WAN
- Telecommunication networks
- Unified network management
- WiFi
Research Brief
Convergence and Collaboration Efforts in Application Security
Securing applications against exploit, denial of service, and other forms of cyberattack is a mission-critical goal for many cybersecurity teams today. However, due to the distributed nature of most IT environments, responsibility for application security involves a range of roles and teams such as those supporting cloud computing, on-premises technologies, networking, fraud, application development, and […]
Analysts Covering Networking
Jim Frey
Principal Analyst, Networking
Areas of Expertise
- AI in Networking
- Cloud Networking
- Datacenter Networking
- Network Automation
- Network Management & Observability
- Network-as-a-Service (NaaS)
Aaron Tan
Regional Director, Analyst Services, APAC
Areas of Expertise
- Application Modernization & DevOps
- Business Applications
- Cloud Computing
- Cybersecurity
- DevOps
- IaaS/Cloud
Recent Networking Insights
Research Brief | June 30, 2025
AWS Shield Network Security Director Provides Mapping for Contextual Understanding to Mitigate Risk and Speed Response
Infographic | June 18, 2025
Wi-Fi Evolution: WLAN in the Age of AI
Research Report | June 18, 2025
Wi-Fi Evolution: WLAN in the Age of AI
Survey Results | June 18, 2025
Wi-Fi Evolution: WLAN in the Age of AI
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As organizations continue to adopt multiple public cloud providers, maintain multiple data centers, and scale edge and colocation environments, IT decision makers must consider a wealth of locations to deploy new workloads and migrate existing workloads.
Learn more about these trends with the infographic, Multi-cloud Application Deployment and Delivery Decision Making.
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About
Senior Analyst Jon Brown has 20+ years of experience in IT product management as well as a passion for marketing and product positioning.
Jon was formerly Vice President, Market Insights at TechTarget, Enterprise Strategy Group’s parent company, and Publisher of TechTarget CIO, TechTarget IT Operations, and TechTarget Sustainability & ESG.
Prior to joining TechTarget and Enterprise Strategy Group, Jon held product, sales, and business management leadership roles at a variety of enterprise software firms. He holds a BA from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts and an MBA from The Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Sustainability is rising as a purchase decision factor, and all IT vendors must be able to demonstrate their commitment to these principles or face potential elimination from purchase consideration by multinational organizations.”
Jon Brown
Senior Analyst, Data Protection, Ops & Sustainability
Research Report
Reinventing Backup and Recovery With AI and ML
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world of backup and recovery, bringing new opportunities and challenges for organizations that want to protect and leverage their data assets for business value. AI can help automate backup and recovery processes, improve data security and resilience, enable data reuse and insights, and optimize costs and performance. However, AI […]
Jon Has Appeared In
Latest Insights from Jon
Research Brief | January 23, 2025
AI Is Transforming Application Development Amid High Expectations
Research Brief | January 23, 2025
Container Orchestration Deployments Show Penchant for Wide Variety
Research Brief | January 23, 2025
Large Enterprises Keep a Critical Eye on AI’s Impact on Sustainability
Research Brief | January 23, 2025
Unique APJ Sustainability Perceptions Create Both Opportunity and Adversity
See Jon’s Content on TechTarget
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About
Practice Director Scott Sinclair leads ESG’s analyst team focused on infrastructure, cloud and DevOps.
Scott a proven history with 25+ years of experience in the server and storage industries. He uses his keen understanding, which he leveraged while investigating new technologies and designing business strategies for Fortune 500 technology companies, to solve unique problems for his clients.
Prior to joining Enterprise Strategy Group, Scott held senior product management and marketing roles at enterprise storage vendors Dell Technologies and EMC Corp.
Scott holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and an MBA from the Texas McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.
The cloud experience has been too beneficial to businesses for it to be isolated to off-premises public cloud services alone; the mission of contemporary IT is to extend the cloud experience everywhere.”
Scott Sinclair
Practice Director, Infrastructure, Cloud & DevOps
Research Brief
Navigating the Edge Data Deluge Is No Small Feat
Edge computing locations are important and often mission-critical sites for business transactions and operations. As such, they can be the point of ingress for large volumes of data with varied processing and storage needs. Recent research by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group examined the storage profile of edge sites for further insights into this landscape. Already […]
Scott Has Appeared In
Latest Insights from Scott
Research Brief | July 14, 2025
VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0: Consolidating the Private Cloud
Blog | May 15, 2025
Nutanix Delivers Choice for a VM and Kubernetes-based Future
Research Brief | March 26, 2025
IBM Announces IBM Storage Ceph as a Service
Research Brief | February 28, 2025
HPE ProLiant Compute Gen12 Enhances Security and Efficiency for the AI Era
See Scott’s Content on TechTarget
