Distributed hybrid infrastructure has become a strategic cloud foundation

Organizations want the flexibility to run cloud services where their workloads require them, in public cloud regions, their own data centers, colocation facilities, edge locations, sovereign environments, and other clouds. At the same time, they want to reduce the operational complexity that often comes with managing infrastructure across these locations.

We feel the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure evaluates the providers addressing this challenge. Gartner defines distributed hybrid infrastructure (DHI) as infrastructure that can be deployed and managed, delivering cloud services wherever the customer chooses, including on-premises, at the colocation, at the edge or in the public cloud. This flexibility sets DHI apart from traditional public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which typically relies on a centralized approach. For the fourth consecutive year, Oracle is a Leader in this evaluation. In the 2026 Magic Quadrant, Oracle is also positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision among all vendors evalua

Why this report matters now

The DHI market is changing quickly. Gartner projects that by 2029, 55% of enterprises will initiate proofs of concept for alternative DHI products to replace VMware-based deployments and embrace hybrid cloud infrastructure delivery, up from 25% in 2026.
We believe three shifts make this decision increasingly strategic:

  1. Infrastructure modernization now spans virtual machines and cloud-native workloads. Organizations need a path that supports existing VM estates while preparing for containers, Kubernetes, automation, and new operating models.
  2. Sovereignty now extends beyond data residency. Organizations are evaluating jurisdictional control over data, AI models, infrastructure, and daily operations. This is increasing demand for disconnected and air-gapped cloud environments.
  3. AI is moving closer to enterprise data. Training, fine-tuning, and inference can require high-performance compute, large datasets, advanced networking, and local control. DHI can help organizations deploy this infrastructure where their data and operational requirements demand it.

What we feel Gartner recommends that infrastructure leaders evaluate

The report encourages infrastructure and operations leaders to take a workload-led approach to DHI. Key actions include:

  • Develop a hybrid platform strategy that connects on-premises, public cloud, and edge environments while supporting both virtual machines and containers.
  • Analyze workloads and AI requirements, including performance, capacity, service-level objectives, data location, GPUs, storage, and networking.
  • Assess security and compliance needs, including digital sovereignty and resilience requirements.
  • Evaluate the management and control plane for distributed operations, heterogeneous infrastructure, and AI resources.
  • Test the deployment model, including how applications, identity, and local operations behave during extended cloud disconnections.

These considerations help organizations move beyond a feature checklist and select a platform and operating model suited to their long-term requirements.

A long-term decision deserves a long-term view

Distributed hybrid infrastructure is becoming the foundation for infrastructure modernization, sovereign cloud, edge computing, and AI outside centralized public cloud regions. Choosing a provider therefore affects more than the next hardware refresh. It shapes how teams operate, secure, modernize, and scale workloads across environments.

Oracle is excited to be named a Leader for the fourth consecutive year and positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure. We believe this recognition reflects OCI’s focus on delivering cloud services where customers need them, with deployment choice across public, dedicated, hybrid, edge, isolated, partner, and multicloud environments.

Read the Gartner report

Read the report for the complete Gartner market analysis, evaluation criteria, and assessment of the vendors in the Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure market.

View the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure

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