EBRC Learn&Go sessions: EBRC announces the launch of new services

Yuri Colombi, EBRC Head of Solutions & Innovation, officially opened this session by highlighting the importance of data for companies in a constantly changing digital world. "Data has become the vital capital of companies, both in terms of their value and their essential role in value generation. Their volume has increased, as has the number of sources, which is thus growing significantly. As a result, IT teams are facing several challenges, including regulatory and time-to-market constraints,“ said the Head of Solutions & Innovation. EBRC therefore intends to support companies in meeting these new challenges inherent to the digital transformation of all sectors and industries, through the launch of new offers focusing on the hybridisation of cloud services, combining flexibility, security and data integrity. "However, EBRC remains true to its core values: SLA - Service Level Agreement -, compliance, security and business continuity. These hybrid services aim to provide better support for this transformation, with more flexible infrastructures enabling companies to focus on their business needs", explained Yuri Colombi.

Data storage: more flexibility and guaranteed security

Then, Gérard Miceli, EBRC Innovation Consultant, took the floor about Object Storage, a storage solution natively adapted to the hybrid cloud. Proposed by the company, Gérard Miceli defines the solution as "the foundation for all platforms, because it will then enable the creation of new services focused on container optimisation as well as data archiving, management and protection".

S3 storage technology supports a large volume of data, with the presence of additional information, or metadata, giving additional value to the stored object and ultimately broadening the scope of its uses. "In addition, Object Storage natively provides many features and guarantees: it continuously checks and corrects data integrity, offers high availability, allows replication and duplication of the data, while guaranteeing optimal security and compliance. These elements are necessary for implementing a strong cyber-resilience strategy", said Gérard Miceli. The service also offers data localisation, a prerequisite in a digital world into which many regulations on private data are emerging.

A hybrid cloud to optimise resources

According to Nicolas Kleber, EBRC Innovation Consultant, "with the implementation of hybridisation, the managed services portfolio is now covering all the customer's needs, end-to-end, in compliance with most standards, thus also ensuring security and compliance. Consequently, EBRC's aim is to offer new hybrid services that guarantee the same levels of security and compliance as those offered in our own Data Centres”.

Interconnection is one of the main considerations to be taken into account when hybridising infrastructures. Therefore, one of the challenges faced by EBRC experts in implementing this new solution was to guarantee the level of performance and security of this interconnection. "We selected Intercloud, a company which has developed a complete network covering almost all the destinations of the major cloud operators. As a result, customers will be able to quickly organise the transfer of data and infrastructure to other service providers", said Nicolas Kleber. Azure was selected as the partner for starting hybridisation, with the aim of launching with AWS in the second half of the year.

"The EBRC approach is based on extending its services to hybrid clouds as additional secure Data Centres, including ISO 27001 certification and a higher level of flexibility and superior SLAs”. The management platform based on the existing model offers a unified view of all the services entrusted to EBRC, to which were added native tools from Azure, then AWS: "the aim is to automate to the fullest extent possible and limit human intervention, without forgetting that the architecture can be adapted and customised to each customer". Fast implementation, scalability, ability to replicate easily and move from the Data Centre to a cloud environment: these are the main advantages for companies that now operate in a constantly changing digital world.

Improving links between development and operations

Gérard Miceli added, in order to share EBRC vision on DevOps: "the aim is to provide agile and secure services to facilitate the digital transformation and innovation in general". Thanks to a new platform, containers can be deployed across all types of environments, providing the additional flexibility required by customers working in the cloud.
It is within this framework that a partnership was initiated with "Continuous", always in order to accelerate the path towards adoption and transformation. "We support customers from the definition of standards to the proposal and implementation of a platform in order to make the most of their business", stressed the innovation specialist: "Kubernetes as a Service" is an orchestration tool offering a high availability rate. Once again, EBRC aims to offer an agile platform for managing the Kubernetes platform: "a key accelerator offering key support, from training to coaching". The Luxembourg-based expert, guaranteeing the availability SLA and security, announced a clear roadmap aimed at offering its customers ever more flexibility. "Finally, we realise that all these new services are in fact a single service: that of hybridisation. It offers many advantages in terms of flexibility and mobility", explained Gérard Miceli.

Finally, Yuri Colombi stated that "EBRC ambition is to help companies in the various stages of hybrid cloud adoption, and in the transition from on-premise to cloud". He therefore recommends starting the process with a needs assessment, then an audit, and finally to continue defining a clear strategy. Discovery sessions will be held to explain in detail how the cloud works with specific cases and the constraints faced by specific sectors. "Together, we will then be able to deliver pilot applications and, in partnership with InTech, PoCs, with the mission of increasing the flexibility and ultimately the efficiency of your services", concluded the Head of Solutions & Innovation.

Photo by EBRC