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OVHcloud outlined its execution strategy at a side event on March 19 during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe — it seeks to become an even more formidable competitor against hyperscale cloud-service providers.
Executives detailed how OVHcloud has quietly built a reputation as a lean and cost-saving-oriented cloud provider. In addition to describing its historical cloud native offerings and increasing market share, OVHcloud presented statistical data outlining its roadmap for expanding nodes globally for its cloud native services, from compute to managed services. The goal: meet customers’ localized needs, including for data-sovereignty and regulatory compliance. OVHcloud executives also provided more context about the company’s partnership with Linux and Kubernetes platform provider SUSE to offer Managed Rancher Service that is accessible and supported on OVHcloud.
The new OVHcloud Managed Rancher Service emerges as a way to build a global infrastructure with Rancher, a cloud native platform with deep recognition. Of particular interest are Rancher’s overall feature-rich capabilities, now including vCluster, the virtual cluster capability that comes through Loft Labs’ integration with the Rancher platform. In all, the opportunity gives DevOps teams the tools and infrastructure needed to scale out their platforms on a local, regional and global scale.
A Contender to Watch
Since its creation almost 25 years ago, the company has steadily gained recognition as a reasonably priced alternative to the cloud giants and is renowned for its engineering excellence. Today, OVHcloud is particularly relevant as organizations seek alternatives to address rising cloud costs and limitations in services offered by the major players. OVHcloud emphasized that it has long been a reliable cloud-services option that offers more value for companies’ investments.
@OVHcloud’s Yaniv Fdida and @SUSE ´s Peter Smails join up for @kubernetesio for orgs anywhere, while they offer a European contention w/@thenewstack’s @alexwilliams during @KubeCon_ . pic.twitter.com/pbrE9Zb3QZ
— BC Gain (@bcamerongain) March 19, 2024
Innovation, Freedom and Cloud Service at Scale
“Innovation and freedom [represent] the way we think about the cloud,” Yaniv Fdida, chief product & technology officer for OVHcloud, said during the event. “OVHcloud’s mission for all users is to deliver an open, reversible, accessible, transparent and secure platform. To summarize, we’re the European data-provider leader in Europe, with a worldwide presence. We’re present at scale in four continents.”
Some organizations may see OVHcloud as a cost-effective service provider and wonder about its capability to offer the latest cloud technologies and platforms. Cloud users also want to know that their data is safe and secure, and that they have the flexibility open source offers — to avoid vendor lock-in and move and shift their data out as needed
It’s one thing for organizations to grumble about rising cloud costs and perhaps seek alternatives to save on storage costs with more rudimentary cloud offerings. But OVHcloud is making the case that its customers are benefiting from Kubernetes, the open source philosophy that supports it and the services that accompany it — whether that’s Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) or another such service. That case grows stronger with OVHcloud’s new offer of Managed Rancher Service, a hybrid cloud solution that enables customers to manage their Kubernetes clusters whether they are on-premises or in the cloud.
Cloud Support for Global Businesses
@OVHcloud’s Jacques Murez: @OVHcloud’s public cloud offer will be available in 150 local zones by 2026. w/@thenewstack’s @alexwilliams during @KubeCon_ week. pic.twitter.com/3v0jM0xRAd
— BC Gain (@bcamerongain) March 19, 2024
For legal and regulatory compliance and other reasons, it’s critical for organizations scaling worldwide to be able to monitor, manage data and store applications locally on servers that are physically located in legal and geographic zones. OVHcloud customers will be able to put their data and applications in any of 150 local zones by 2026. In this way, the cloud provider seeks to accommodate customers “dealing with data-residency constraints that are struggling to get their data and applications as close as possible to their customers,” said Jacques Murez, group product manager at OVHcloud Public Cloud.
OVHcloud competes globally, and it is not letting up on what it says is more reasonable and transparent pricing than its hyperscale competitors. This should come as a godsend if it can deliver for the many organizations that have been surprised with bad news when they receive their cloud bill, especially given the hyperscalers’ recent price hikes.
“We seek to increase flexibility for the cloud, for all our customers to manage the architecture and to be in control of its design, which is fundamental in the cloud. And all the while, our products deliver the best performance and price ratio. This is something that we actually focus on in the design of our products,” said Fdida.
OVHcloud Looks to the Future
OVHcloud will soon unveil a new data platform that seeks to facilitate customers’ data journey, Fdida said. It will consist of services that accelerate data projects — from data collection to advanced analytics — when it becomes available in beta in a few weeks.
Aiming to help “democratize AI,” the company is releasing an AI-endpoint service, which allows organizations to use AI through API calls, Fdida said. This will enable things like enhancing customer reports and connecting call centers to a speech-to-text API endpoint.
OVHcloud is also developing its support for AI with market-standard solutions through AI App Builder, Fdida said.
@OVHcloud’s Maxime Hurtrel and @SUSE ´s Paul Gonin demo @Rancher_Labs Managed Service on @OVHcloud w/@thenewstack’s @alexwilliams during @KubeCon_ week. pic.twitter.com/pqALQBd6o2
— BC Gain (@bcamerongain) March 19, 2024
OVHcloud’s agreement with SUSE to jointly provide and support Managed Rancher Service should help demonstrate that OVHcloud offers services on par with market expectations to support organizations’ cloud native ambitions.
“It’s really about giving our customers technology options, providing them with choices on multiple different factors, if you will. Number one is choice and flexibility predicated on open source technology and access to all the latest and greatest technologies,” said Peter Smails, senior vice president, general manager, and enterprise container manager for SUSE. “Number two is flexibility and choice around consumption,” which Rancher offers.
As “the world’s most widely adopted container management platform,” Smail said, Rancher on OVHcloud allows organizations to manage clusters and Kubernetes “anywhere, from the data center to clouds out to the edge.”
The post OVHcloud Unveils Roadmap to Take on Hyperscalers from Europe appeared first on The New Stack.
At a special KubeCon Europe event, a European cloud-service provider revealed its ambitious plans to compete toe-to-toe with the hyperscalers.