AWS Dominates Cloud Infrastructure Report for 9th Year This year’s report on cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) from research firm Gartner Inc. is a lot like last year’s report, further cementing the dominance of the “big three” in all things cloud computing, led by Amazon. The 2019 “Magic Quadrant Report” names Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), Microsoft, and Google as the leaders. All others (Alibaba Oracle and IBM) are relegated into “niche player” status, which is the exact same grouping that was last year. AWS was awarded the top ranking for the ninth consecutive year. Gartner believes that the cloud IaaS story was one of consolidation in 2017 and 2018, and maturation in 2019. In its 2019 report, Gartner stated that both AWS (and Microsoft) are general-purpose providers capable supporting a wide range of workloads. While Google is making steady progress in enterprise adoption, it still ranks third in terms of overall revenue and interest from Gartner’s enterprise clients. Due to the size and momentum of AWS/MSFT, all other vendors in this market must focus on niche workloads or regional dominance. The 2019 report is almost identical to the 2018 report. However, it is also very similar to the 2017 report. Google, which was grouped with Oracle, Alibaba, and IBM in the “visionary”, quadrant, moved to “leaders” while the three other vendors in the second-tier moved from “visionary to “niche player” status. A whole lot of former “niche” players were dropped altogether. This is all easier to understand graphically. Here are the past three quadrant graphics. [Click on image to see a larger view.] Gartner 2019 IaaS Magic Quadrant (source Gartner). [Click image for larger view.] Gartner 2018 IaaS Magic Quadrant. [Click here for a larger view.] Gartner 2017 IaaS Magic Quadrant (source: Gartner) Gartner defined its market definition/description thusly: Cloud computing is a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service using internet technologies. Cloud infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), is a type cloud computing service that complements the infrastructure and data centers initiatives of IT. Cloud IaaS, as it is known in the Magic Quadrant, is a highly automated, standardized offering that includes compute resources and storage capabilities. These resources are then offered to customers on demand. The resources can be scaled and elastic in real-time, and are metered according to use. The customer has direct access to self-service interfaces, including a web-based user interface and an API. The resources can be multitenant or single-tenant and hosted by the service provider, or on-premises at the customer’s data centre. This Magic Quadrant includes both public and private cloud IaaS offerings. AWS has been dominant in this market for nine consecutive years. The research firm listed its strengths, including:

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  • AWS is a hyperscale provider that allows enterprises to make greater financial commitments each year and to deploy more mission-critical workloads.
  • AWS offers a wider range of customer profiles than any other provider in this market, including startups, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and large enterprises.
  • AWS is the most mature and enterprise-ready provider. It has the best track record of customer success, as well as the most useful partner network.

The research firm stated that AWS should be considered under “cautions”.

  • AWS frequently announces the number of price cuts it has made. These proclamations are often interpreted by customers as being applicable to all services. However, this is not true. Despite falling prices, AWS’s compute service’s default and most commonly provisioned storage has not seen a price drop since 2014.