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IDC Survey Spotlight: What Are the Drivers and Impact of Workload Repatriation?

Adam Reeves — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines the drivers and impact of workload repatriation, highlighting that cloud movement is increasingly bidirectional. According to the IDC's March 2026 PaaS Decision-Maker and Business Value Survey, organizations report repatriating ~18% of application workloads from public cloud PaaS to on premises over the past year. The leading drivers are workload/application performance (36%) and security (30%), making predictable performance, stronger security controls, and hybrid operating models critical for PaaS retention.

MariaDB to Acquire GridGain to Strengthen Real-Time Data Infrastructure for Agentic AI

Devin Pratt, Stewart Bond — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

MariaDB has announced a definitive agreement to acquire GridGain, the in-memory computing company behind Apache Ignite. MariaDB is positioning the deal as a way to combine its relational database, integrated vector search, and AI capabilities with GridGain’s in-memory data grid and real-time processing to create a unified platform for transactional, analytical, and AI workloads across hybrid environments. IDC views this announcement as part of a broader shift in the DBMS market toward converged data platforms that bring transactional, analytical, and AI capabilities closer together to reduce latency and minimize data movement. IDC is also seeing vendors embed vector search, real-time analytics, and automation more directly into core database platforms as AI use cases move closer to production.

MariaDB announced a definitive agreement to acquire GridGain Systems, the in-memory computing company behind Apache Ignite. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and financial terms were not disclosed. Both companies are privately held. MariaDB became privately held after K1 acquired 100% of its shares in 2024 and last publicly reported quarterly revenue of $13.6 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2024. GridGain’s public materials highlight strong revenue growth and cash-positive operations, but the company has not publicly disclosed revenue.

MariaDB has been assembling a broader AI-ready platform through integrated vector search, the MariaDB Exa partnership for high-performance analytics, and the reacquisition of SkySQL to strengthen cloud delivery. The GridGain acquisition extends that strategy into in-memory and real-time data processing, which may appeal to buyers seeking a more open alternative to fragmented or proprietary data stacks. The key question is whether MariaDB can integrate these assets into a coherent platform with consistent operations, governance, and performance in production.

Enterprise Linux in 2026: Five Operational Gaps That Will Shape Vendor Differentiation

Shahin Hashim, Ryan Caskey, Phil Goodwin — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective explores five areas where enterprise expectations of their Linux platforms are evolving faster than vendor operating models. Spanning AI operationalization, hypervisor migration, mutable/immutable coexistence, compliance continuity, and multi-distribution management, this document examines where operational gaps are emerging and where vendors have the clearest opportunities to differentiate over the next 12 to 18 months.

“Enterprise Linux vendors are shipping more platform capability than ever. The gap isn’t in what technology can do. It’s in how much of the operational burden still falls on the customer. That’s where differentiation will be decided in the near term to midterm,” says Shahin Hashim, associate research director, Storage and Compute Infrastructure Software Platforms, IDC.

HPE Financial Services 90/9 Offer Enables Customers Time to Achieve ROI

Lara Greden, Leslie Rosenberg — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

HPE Financial Service's (HPEFS) 90/9 Advantage financing program is a timely response to market uncertainty and the capital-intensive nature of AI infrastructure investments. By lowering near-term financial barriers and supporting portfoliowide modernization efforts, HPE strengthens its value proposition to enterprises seeking both accelerated technology adoption and financial flexibility.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Industrial DataOps Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment

Jonathan Lang — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study uses the IDC MarketScape methodology to provide a comprehensive assessment of the technology vendors offering industrial DataOps platforms. The intent of this IDC MarketScape is to inform technology buyers on the capabilities and strategies of select offerings to support industrial data life-cycle management processes. While there are numerous methodologies for managing industrial data life-cycle processes, IDC has identified strategies that include purpose-built industrial DataOps platforms as a highly scalable and effective approach.

“As the total volumes of operational data have increased and organizations fall under increasing pressure to utilize this data for advanced analytics and AI initiatives, they are really struggling from a technical perspective,” says Jonathan Lang, research director, Worldwide IT/OT Convergence Strategies, IDC. “What I’ve seen over time is that companies that adopt agnostic, purpose-built platforms for building and managing the data foundation have been particularly successful in scaling up and out and getting real value from their operational data.”

IDC PlanScape: The Intelligent Collaborative Workspace: Disruption as a Partner

Wayne Kurtzman — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Intelligent collaborative workspaces differ from other suites or workspaces (such as integrated employee workspaces) as they lead with enterprise collaborative functionality at their core. They are centered on the human activity of collaboration, which IDC defines as working together for a common goal. Arguably, not just the human-to-human collaboration, but also the human-to-AI (co-collaboration) and AI-to-AI collaboration, or substrate collaboration. The latter refers to the autonomous, coordinated interactions among multiple AI agents operating beneath the visible layer of human workflows, collectively optimizing, mediating, or automating processes to enhance collaborative outcomes without direct human awareness or intervention.

Levelpath LevelUp 2026: A Bold Coming Out Party

Patrick Reymann — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Levelpath’s inaugural LevelUp conference, held March 3–5, 2026, in San Francisco, spotlighted the company’s AI-native vision for autonomous procurement. The event showcased Levelpath’s 'Procurement OS', anchored by its Hyperbridge orchestration layer that unifies workflows and enables AI agents to manage tactical tasks while procurement teams focus on strategic value creation. Founders Stan Garber and Alex Yakubovich emphasized human-AI collaboration, data-driven automation, and governed autonomy as pillars of the platform. Attendees praised the platform’s rapid evolution, including advanced sourcing and category management features, while upcoming priorities include deeper integrations and P2P expansion. Levelpath has staked its place as a flexible, agentic platform redefining how procurement operates in the era of intelligent automation.

DayOne and Cortical Labs Advance Biological Computing for Next-Generation Datacenters

Heather West, PhD, Franco Chiam — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

DayOne's collaboration with Cortical Labs to develop a biological datacenter signals how the rapid expansion of AI is pushing the computing industry to explore entirely new substrates for computation beyond traditional silicon processors. Although still experimental, biological computing represents part of a broader shift toward heterogeneous computing environments in which digital, analog, neuromorphic, and quantum systems work together to tackle increasingly complex workloads while addressing the energy and sustainability constraints facing modern datacenters.

IDC PeerScape: Intuitive AI Practices for Information Management

David Weldon — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC PeerScape explores how some early adopters of intuitive AI decided to pursue this strategy and how they used the technology to overcome challenges from traditional methods.

"Advanced intuitive AI tools can instantly understand and act on new types of documents and workflows without a lot of manual configuration. They can find actual meaning in what would otherwise be just words, which enables AI systems to learn, connect disparate information, and act intelligently," says David Weldon, adjunct research advisor for IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP).

IDC's Worldwide Cloud-Native Engineering Software Taxonomy, 2026

George Mironescu — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study presents a standardized and comprehensive view of IDC's software taxonomy functional markets considered for the cloud-native engineering software competitive market. It serves as the foundation for sizing the worldwide cloud-native engineering software spend.

"With AI underpinned by cloud-native primitives, understanding the structure and dynamics of the cloud-native engineering space is key to enable organizations to execute on their AI ambitions," said George Mironescu, associate research director, Software Development and Delivery at IDC.