IBM Cloud Satellite Gives CxOs More Choices for Running Next-Gen Apps

Executive Summary

This report provides an overview of how IBM Cloud Satellite (Satellite) has changed the market for next-generation computing platforms. Although in the recent past, next-generation computing platforms were characterized by bringing cloud stacks on-premises, with Identicality between the clouds and on-premises being the key success criterion, Satellite is giving enterprises new options with a strong presence across clouds—multicloud and at the edge—where enterprises can choose to run their next-generation applications. 

With Satellite’s launch into general availability March 1, 2021,  IBM entered the market for next-generation computing platforms, significantly extending the on-premises capabilities that previously were offered via IBM Cloud Private. Satellite enables enterprises to run a substantial number of next-generation application use cases at the edge, on-premises, and in multiple public clouds. With the support for multicloud, IBM added another level of operational platforms managed by a next-generation computing platform. Besides Google, IBM is the only vendor covered in Constellation’s underlying Market Overview of next-generation computing platforms that offers a vendor-supported software platform on a variety of competitive vendors’ cloud platforms. Thanks to the underlying Red Hat OpenShift technology, IBM provides the widest range of supported cloud platforms. More choice for different workloads is good news for enterprises. 

IBM also is expanding Satellite’s functional capabilities with the addition of the IBM Cloud Pak family as a service, starting with IBM Cloud Pak for Data as a Service. 
The other vendor offerings covered in this Constellation Market Overview are (in alphabetical order), AWS Outposts , Google Anthos,  Microsoft Azure Stack,  and Oracle Cloud@Customer.  Also of note in this context may be the recent Offering Overview of Mirantis Docker Enterprise Container Cloud.