Research: Rivals Pressure IaaS AWS

According to 451 Research, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), is still the number one choice for infrastructure as a service. There are two options for providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), with Microsoft Azure close behind.
According to the survey of more than 1,500 IT professionals featured in the 451 Research Vendor Window, VMware Inc. leads the pack among on-premises cloud platform providers. The research firm measured the enterprise adoption rates and subjective customer ratings for various vendors.
AWS performed well in both measurements. It was chosen by 57 per cent of enterprise customers and was named the “most important IaaS vendor” by 35 percent of those who responded.
451 rated AWS as “Highest Rated” in the ratings department. This was mainly due to its ability to satisfy customer needs, especially in terms of Technical Innovation and Experience.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] The Leaders (source : 451 Research). However, this survey shows that AWS, the long-standing cloud leader, is now facing increasing competition from rivals like Microsoft and its Azure platform.
Michelle Bailey, exec, stated that AWS is the clear leader in 2015 Vendor Window for IaaS based on multiple metrics. However, Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, and VMware’s vCloud Air have become competitive challengers. “As more mainstream customers migrate business-critical workloads into cloud environments, the criteria for evaluating potential vendors changes relative to early cloud adopters. In turn, this affects the vendors being considered.”
42 percent of enterprises used Azure, making it the most likely choice for organizations looking to find their next IaaS provider.
Redmond’s software giant scored poorly on Experience and Support for Open Source Software. This is surprising given Microsoft’s much-ballyhooed move towards openness and interoperability.
Rackspace received the highest rating for Guaranteed Service Level Agreements and was matched by AWS in meeting customer requirements.
VMware is the clear leader in the on-premises cloud datacenter space with a high 70% enterprise adoption rate.
“While VMware continues to dominate the market and receives excellent ratings from their existing customers, the survey results show that over 70% of VMware customers have also used an alternative cloud platform such OpenStack, CloudStack, or Microsoft Cloud OS,” stated Dr. Scott Ottaway, a 451 executive. “Vemberian’s dominance is under threat, especially for cloud-native and mobile applications, as open-source-based solutions continue receiving investment from major hardware-software vendors like HP, IBM, Red Hat, and Citrix.”