Fourth Cloud — On-prem control plane assessment
Function-by-function scoring of on-prem control planes against the Fourth Cloud operational model: VMware Cloud Foundation, IBM / Red Hat OpenShift, Nutanix Cloud Platform, and Oxide Cloud Computer. Each vendor is scored on FC-0 through FC-4 layers plus identity plane continuity.
Enterprise on-prem control planes, scored against the Fourth Cloud operational model.
On-prem control planes assessed against the Fourth Cloud operational model. Function-by-function scoring (0–4), gap ownership classification, and a top-level identity plane continuity finding for each vendor — calibrated against the AWS hyperscaler benchmark.
Status is the average of function scores within each layer. Open the comparison page for the full identity plane and FC-2C reasoning detail.
| Layer | VMware | Red Hat | Nutanix | Oxide | Canonical | Bounded K8s | HPE | SUSE | Dell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FC-0 · Substrate Physical & Virtual Substrate | Strong | Moderate | Moderate | Gap | Gap | Gap | Moderate | Moderate | Gap |
| FC-1 · Context Distributed Data & Context Fabric | Gap | Moderate | Gap | Absent | Gap | Gap | Moderate | Moderate | Absent |
| FC-2A · Orchestration Infrastructure Orchestration | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate | Gap | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate | Moderate | Gap |
| FC-2B · Runtime Execution & Runtime | Moderate | Strong | Strong | Gap | Moderate | Moderate | Strong | Strong | Gap |
| FC-2C · Reasoning The Reasoning Plane | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent |
| FC-3 · Catalog Application Distribution and Governance | Moderate | Strong | Moderate | Gap | Gap | Gap | Moderate | Moderate | Gap |
| FC-4 · Integration Integration Fabric | Gap | Moderate | Absent | Absent | Gap | Gap | Absent | Gap | Absent |
Fourth Cloud is the readiness instrument in a four-part system. It scores on-prem control-plane readiness, not vendor authority, and its scores don't map one to one onto the 4+1 layers. System map →