This blog piggybacks off of my last post regarding the management evaluations I’ve been working on in 2022. As previously noted, they take a lot of effort but deliver high value — a lot of which can’t be captured in a single report. I already shared my tidbits of advice for the cost management evaluation. For my latest Forrester Wave™ evaluation, The Forrester Wave™: Hybrid Cloud Management, Q4 2022, keep reading!

This report is a refresh on our previous version in 2020. There were many of the same faces, with some new ones appearing. The eight vendors we evaluated were BMC Software, Cisco, CloudBolt Software, Micro Focus, Morpheus Data, Nutanix, Snow Software, and VMware. These vendors were evaluated across 36 different criteria.

Distinct from 2020, we omitted infrastructure automation capabilities such as orchestration and provisioning since these capabilities are evaluated in our infrastructure automation Wave (a refresh is due in 2023). We placed a heavier focus on governance, added in AI-powered operations, and added artifact creation.

  • Multicloud and cloud cost management rise as demand for private cloud lowers. Decreasing product revenue, increased public cloud adoption, and decreased vendor participation indicate that the hybrid cloud management is contracting in favor of tools that are focused more on multicloud management (public cloud focus with some on-premises capabilities) and less on building out fully functioning private cloud and managing heavy and complex hybrid cloud environments. The more complex, full feature suites are finding it difficult competing with the lighter-weight, less expensive solutions that take less time and resources to use and run. Although private clouds are still kicking, often they have morphed into infrastructure automation journeys, agile-plus-DevOps transformations, multicloud container platform development, and hyperconverged infrastructure solution powered.
  • The value of asset management is obvious, but it’s still early days. We’ve seen an uptick in interest around cloud operations and IT asset management in the cloud. Customers are asking for better coordination in cost and data between cloud and on-premises assets. Enterprises want to see all their assets together to avoid duplication and license violations and to discover shadow IT. A few leading vendors provide asset management capabilities, but most offer these as separate products that you must pay an additional amount for.
  • Continuous improvement doesn’t necessarily mean continually better. Software vendors are expected to manage their products using modern development techniques. Many cloud management vendors have made the switch from multiweek or monthly major updates to biweekly — but this journey hasn’t been well received. Customers mentioned higher disruption of service with multiple bugs being introduced. In fact, they noted multiple working days lost trying to fix upgrades. But this journey is typical of any new agile-plus-DevOps journey. There’s always pain moving to a faster process where aspects of legacy processes and technology still remain. Customers are all too willing to point out inadequacies and slow to notice improvements. It is important to note that customers with the largest issues were customizing the product more where their deviation from the standard product led to upgrade challenges.

Use the hybrid cloud management Wave to help select the vendor that best suits your strategy and needs. As always, keep in mind that the upper-right corners won’t always be the best fit for your business. Forrester clients can read the full report on the Forrester website. Download the Excel spreadsheet to see the specific criteria in order to understand why a vendor received a specific score — and to customize your results.

If you’d like to discuss these findings or the hybrid cloud management landscape at large, please schedule an inquiry (inquiry@forrester.com). In the meantime, happy reading, and perhaps I’ll see you at re:Invent next week!