Most managed database users stop at storage. Here’s how to complete the pipeline with streaming and analytics, all from one console.

You picked a managed database for the right reasons. No patching, no replication headaches, no 3 a.m. pages about a failed backup. Your PostgreSQL, MySQL or MongoDB cluster runs, stores, and serves. It does exactly what you asked.

But here is the thing: storing data and understanding data are two different jobs. And right now, roughly nine out of ten managed database customers at OVHcloud stop at storage. They run rock-solid operational databases yet never connect them to a streaming or analytics layer. The data sits there, doing its job, answering application queries, serving the API, while the insights it could generate stay locked inside. No streaming. No real-time analytics. No search across logs or events. Just storage.

That is the missing half.

The gap between storage and insight

Most teams hit this wall at some point. The application database handles transactions, serves the API, keeps the frontend alive. Then someone asks a question the database was never designed to answer. “What are customers doing right now?” “Which features are driving retention this week?” “Can we detect anomalies before they become incidents?”

The reflex is to run analytical queries directly on the production database. It works, briefly, until those queries start competing with the application for resources. Response times creep up, the ops team starts throttling reports, and the data team ends up with a spreadsheet export and a frustrated expression.

The real problem is not the database. It is the absence of everything after it: a streaming layer to move data in real time, and an analytical engine purpose-built for fast, flexible queries. Without those two pieces, the pipeline stops at storage.

What a complete pipeline looks like

A modern data pipeline has three layers, each doing what it does best.

Storage

What you already have. Your managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MongoDB handles transactions, enforces consistency, and serves your application. It is your source of truth.

Streaming

The bridge. Apache Kafka captures changes from your database the moment they happen and distributes them to downstream consumers. For teams that need a full change data capture, Debezium can be configured through Kafka Connect, a process we will cover later. Instead of batch exports or nightly ETL jobs, your data flows continuously. Every insert, update, and delete becomes an event that other systems can act on in real time. Kafka is not just a transport layer: it decouples your producers from your consumers, which means you can add new downstream use cases without touching anything upstream.

Analytics

Where data becomes answers. ClickHouse processes millions of rows per second for OLAP workloads: dashboards, aggregations, time-series analysis. OpenSearch handles full-text search, log analytics, and observability. Together, they cover the two big post-storage use cases: structured analytics and unstructured search.

Each layer is independent but connected. Your production database stays lean because it is not fielding analytical queries. The analytics engines are optimised for reads at scale, not for transactional consistency, which is exactly the trade-off you want.

This architecture scales in stages. You do not have to build the entire pipeline on day one. Start with Kafka to get your data flowing, then add ClickHouse or OpenSearch when the use case demands it. Each layer adds value without disrupting what came before. That modularity matters, because most teams do not need everything at once. They need the next piece.

How the pieces connect on OVHcloud

OVHcloud offers all three layers as managed services, deployed and operated from the same console.

Start with your existing managed database. Connect Managed Kafka through the OVHcloud console in a few clicks, then add Managed Kafka Connect as the integration layer. Kafka Connect handles the mechanics of pulling change events out of your database and pushing them into Kafka topics. From there, you route events to Managed ClickHouse for analytical queries, Managed OpenSearch for search and observability, or both.

For teams that want to go further, Debezium can be configured on top of Kafka Connect to implement full change data capture (CDC). This means every row-level change in your database is captured as a structured event, preserving the complete history of modifications. Debezium runs as a connector within Kafka Connect, so the infrastructure is already in place.

What you get at the end is a complete pipeline: source of truth, real-time streaming, and fast analytics. All managed. One console for provisioning and monitoring. One bill. One support team that understands the full stack.

When your database, streaming layer, and analytics engines are scattered across different providers, debugging a broken pipeline means opening three dashboards, contacting three support teams, and reconciling three billing cycles. With OVHcloud, the whole chain lives in one place.

What this looks like in practice

Product analytics at a SaaS scaleup

A B2B SaaS company needs to understand how customers use their product in real time. Their managed PostgreSQL database records every user action, but running analytical queries on it directly means competing with the application for resources. Whenever the data team runs a report, response times start spiking.

They add Managed Kafka to capture database change events as they happen, then configure Kafka Connect to route them to Managed ClickHouse. ClickHouse ingests the stream and pre-aggregates it into the materialised views their dashboards need. The product team now sees feature adoption, session lengths, and funnel conversions updated in seconds, not hours, without any additional load on the production database.

New analytical use cases – such as cohort analysis or A/B test reporting – are added as new Kafka consumers without any changes to the application or the source database. The implemented architecture enables the pipeline to grow without touching what already works.

Observability at a cybersecurity scaleup

A cybersecurity company analyses millions of events per day across its platform. Detecting anomalies means searching across weeks of structured and semi-structured data with sub-second response times. Their PostgreSQL operational database stores event metadata reliably, but it was never designed for full-text search at this volume.

Managed Kafka streams event data as it is written to the database, routing it to Managed OpenSearch. OpenSearch indexes everything in real time. The security team can now run complex searches across months of data in milliseconds, set alerts on anomaly patterns, and correlate events across distributed services from a single dashboard.

No separate log management vendor. No data egress fees between services. And because the data never leaves OVHcloud infrastructure, there is no question about where it sits or who can access it.

Why it matters that it is managed (and European)

You chose a managed database because you did not want to babysit infrastructure. The same logic applies to streaming and analytics. Self-hosting Kafka is notoriously complex: broker management, partition rebalancing, schema registries, monitoring, upgrades. ClickHouse and OpenSearch have their own operational weight.

Analytics engineers already spend up to 40% of their time maintaining infrastructure[1] instead of delivering insights. Managed services flip that ratio. With OVHcloud, rolling upgrades run with zero downtime. Automated failover covers availability zones. End-to-end encryption, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 compliance, and a 99.99% SLA are included, not extras.

And because this is OVHcloud, your data remains your data. No extraterritorial exposure, no ambiguity about which jurisdiction governs your data. For teams operating under GDPR or working in regulated industries, this is not a nice-to-have. It is a requirement.

Pricing is transparent and predictable. No data-transfer surcharges between services, no opaque consumption-based billing that spikes when your analytics workload grows. IOPS, traffic and backups are included.

There is also the question of open-source compatibility. Every engine in the OVHcloud managed pipeline runs the real open-source project: Apache Kafka, ClickHouse, OpenSearch. No proprietary forks, no API incompatibilities, no vendor lock-in. Your code, your connectors, and your tooling all work the same way they would against a self-hosted cluster.

Getting started

If you already have a managed database on OVHcloud, the fastest path to a complete pipeline is:

1. Provision Managed Kafka from the OVHcloud console. Choose your plan, pick your region, and your cluster is ready in minutes.
2. Add Managed Kafka Connect and configure a source connector pointing to your database. This is where your change events start flowing.
3. Spin up Managed ClickHouse (for analytics) or Managed OpenSearch (for search and observability), or both, depending on your use case.
4. Configure sink connectors in Kafka Connect to route events from your Kafka topics into your analytics engines.
5. Query your data. ClickHouse speaks SQL, so your existing BI tools and dashboards plug right in. OpenSearch provides its own dashboards for log exploration and search.

The entire setup can be done from the console, with each service connected through the same management interface. No VPN tunnels to configure between providers, no credential juggling across platforms. For teams comfortable with infrastructure as code, Terraform and the OVHcloud API cover the same ground programmatically.

If you want to explore CDC with Debezium, the Kafka Connect foundation is already there. You configure Debezium as a source connector, and it starts capturing row-level changes from your database into Kafka topics. The managed Kafka Connect infrastructure handles running and scaling the connector itself.

Your database is doing its job. Now to complete the picture.

Nine out of ten managed database customers have not connected their data to streaming or analytics. The operational half works. The insight half is waiting.

The tools are managed, the console is unified, and the pipeline pattern is proven. If you are ready to see what your data can tell you, the missing half is a few clicks away.

Get started with Managed Kafka on OVHcloud

[1] Source: McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/tech-debt-reclaiming-tech-equity

While in our first article we introduced several crucial points about opportunities in the space sector as well as the role that cloud technology can play in it, we thought it would be even better illustrated with some very real use cases from the OVHcloud ecosystem­–or universe if we stick to starry metaphors.

Copernicus satellite data

First up, we wanted to highlight Werum, one of the longest-established independent software companies in Germany, who set up a Copernicus long-term archiving service with OVHcloud. The service includes level 0 and auxiliary data from Earth observation satellites: Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and Sentinel-3. Since its launch in October 2020, around 220 million data records, weighing over 9 petabytes, have been loaded into OVHcloud’s Public Cloud Archive solution. About 110 terabytes will continue to be added monthly!

The correct provisioning and choice of storage solutions and volumes was key in the success of this project. The archive operation in the cloud was extended after the first project phase and will continue to provide the European Space Agency’s (ESA) user community with large amounts of data from the satellite missions beyond 2022.

Smarter farming

Second is another German example, but this time in conjunction with a member of OVHcloud’s Startup Program, Green spin and its application Mofato. In this instance, it is the agriculture sector that takes advantage of the concrete benefits.

To know when to sow and harvest or how much fertilizer is required, Mofato optimizes farmers’ work by providing recommendations at the field level. Furthermore, its algorithms, which analyze satellite images and meteorological data from the past 15 years, are not just useful to farmers, by limiting soil pollution; they are also good for the planet.

As co-founder Sebastian Fritsch stated, scalability and a hybrid cloud approach were key, “We migrated our infrastructure to OVHcloud dedicated servers, which we now complement with Public Cloud instances. These allow us to run calculations in parallel, to show our recommendations to our users faster, and to upscale more easily. “

Real time atmosphere analysis for telecommunications

Amongst other drastic changes to our planet, global warming is causing increased temperature and cloud coverage, evaporation, as well as atmospheric instability. But we can get help from the skies. A bit like meteorological stations or automated observation towers, a Startup Program member from France measures these indicators gathering, in real time, high precision and high-resolution data.

As Miratlas’s CEO states, “In the face of the rapid developments of climate and technological challenges, we are convinced that improving our understanding of the atmosphere is a key enabler for direct to earth free space optical telecommunications.”

The startup needs to store high volumes of data and process them in a secure and sovereign way. With an eye to the future of new space, the Miratlas team joined OVHcloud at VivaTech 2022 where they shared their long term ambitions to develop technology that will allow highly efficient laser communication between space and earth.

Ecological transition

And it’s not just OVHcloud who likes to shout about the space sector’s opportunities. Throughout the year, our partners, customers, and startups have acknowledged our humble contribution, which makes us especially proud.

Such is the case of Kermap, who raised a first round of 1.2M€ in 2022. This recent member of France’s major tech program DeepNum20 is also using satellite imagery, processed by intensive calculations performed by GPU instances, to map the evolution of rural fields as well as urban settings day after day, year after year.

For those fully committed to the ecological transition, Kermap’s tool will provide the necessary metrics to confirm their efforts, from farmers to city mayors. As the startup stated, when describing their efforts to grow from a European perimeter to a global scale, “This technical feat was made possible in part by our partnership with OVHcloud to produce, manage, and distribute our data in a secure, reliable, and sovereign digital environment.”

In conclusion

Space technology is a passionate geek’s dream come true, stimulating and enlightening, innovating today on the edge of tomorrow. It can also be a force for good, as all these stories have highlighted. Indeed, adopting the new frontiers of space and technology is beyond an exciting challenge. The positive impact can be felt back here on Earth, providing hope and enthusiasm to many communities for climate change solutions. These examples were but a few of the existing use cases and as all things “tech”, acceleration is around the corner. OVHcloud’s founder, Octave Klaba, recently invested in quantum and space startups, mirroring the company’s efforts to highlight and support the growth of these ecosystems globally. Pardon the pun, but you should watch this “space”.

Sources

• https://incubed.phi.esa.int/esa-strengthens-its-support-to-start-ups-with-free-cloud-services-from-ovhcloud/
• https://www.asp-public.fr/actualites/pac-2023-lancement-de-lapplication-mobile-telepac-geophotos
• https://www.ovhcloud.com/de/case-studies/werum/
• https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-ie/case-studies/green-spin/
• https://kermap.com/kermap-levee-fonds-2022/

Opportunities and challenges

Of course, many may be captivated by exploration to Mars with Space-X, or recent cosmic pictures taken by the James Webb Telescope, or even space tourism (a market expected to grow to $3B by 2030). In fact, the big headliners hide a wonderful world full of opportunities and challenges, from managing satellite waste to fighting climate change with AI-enhanced satellite imagery. Pushing back the limits of space technology can expand our horizons but also improve our lives back on Earth.

In its latest edition, Euroconsult estimated that the global space economy totaled $370B in 2021. Global trends across the entire space value chain continue to rise year on year. While this includes hardware intensive initiatives such as satellite manufacturing or launch services, it also includes many data-intensive challenges linked to satellite communications and navigation or earth observation, to name but a few.

There are concerns, amid the same economic context that is currently impacting most sectors, of a bubble or even a crash landing (back to Earth), but the recent strengthening of institutions such as NASA in the USA, ESA in Europe or CNES in France, are sure signs of a stable ecosystem. The role of each of these components, from fledging startups to governments, as well as their capacity to interact, remains crucial.

The role of European actors

Strategically, China and the USA lead the investment panorama, while the UK and France are the first in Europe with their own roadmaps. New Space has been identified as a key innovative focal point by European nations to avoid hegemonies from external actors as well as protect Europe and its citizen’s interests. Getting to space is one thing, while making the most of the data that is transmitted back to us is a source of significant added value as well as a competitive advantage at a global scale. As the uses for space data become more diverse, valuable, and plentiful, offering a strong sovereign option from Europe grows in proportionate importance.

To name one example, satellites play a crucial role in the new space ecosystem. While they increasingly clutter our skies, they also provide the means to increase access to internet, improve video streaming, and most importantly transmit data to monitor what is happening on our beloved planet. Accessing, storing, processing, protecting these terabytes of data is a key opportunity which OVHcloud is addressing, notably via its Public Cloud solutions.

Globally speaking, OVHcloud has recently strengthened its partnerships and cloud offering to support the space economy. As the European leader in cloud technology, the company is fully supportive of the European Union´s space ambitions. The European cloud company has signed new partnerships with historical partners such as Italy’s SERCO, with its deep experience in the multiple uses of data from the Copernicus programs. Other key examples of innovation include the application of AI to improve the data provided by Sentinel, such as optical satellite imagery of agricultural land in real time, as well as using cognitive cloud computing to reduce latency and increase fast data delivery to end users on Earth.

Finally, and perhaps not surprisingly, the startup ecosystem is leading this innovative trajectory. Last year alone, venture capitalists (VCs) invested $17B into space projects and OVHcloud, via its Startup Program, has been able to support space startups such as Gisky and EarthPulse. To that effect, a crucial milestone was reached in April 2022, when OVHcloud and its Startup Program became the first official cloud partner for ESA’s Incubed program as well as its 23 Business Incubation Centres. These represent a relevant example of the ongoing efforts to bolster startups and New Space innovation across 70 locations in Europe!

Opportunities are plentiful, as are the related challenges. This means cloud technology’s collaboration with space initiatives at a European and global level become more relevant with every passing year. In our follow-up article, we will share use cases taken from OVHcloud’s ecosystem to highlight precisely how cloud technology’s support to space innovation applies to very real solutions with very real impact.

Sources

• https://www.spacecapital.com/quarterly
• https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/07/travel/space-travel-tourism.html
• https://www.euroconsult-ec.com/press-release/euroconsult-estimates-that-the-global-space-economy-totaled-370-billion-in-2021
• https://incubed.phi.esa.int/esa-strengthens-its-support-to-start-ups-with-free-cloud-services-from-ovhcloud/
• https://www.asp-public.fr/actualites/pac-2023-lancement-de-lapplication-mobile-telepac-geophotos

OVHcloud spoke to three healthtech startups to find out the most important challenges faced by companies wanting to break into the healthcare market, and look at how the right technology partner can make all the difference.

Fragmented regulations

Healthcare is one of the most regulated industries, with large fines and even imprisonment faced by directors of companies that do not adhere to a diverse range of laws that dictate where health data can be stored, how it must be handled and who can gain access.

There aren’t any global standards around patient data and individual countries constantly update and add new legislation. Some laws are specific to healthcare but others deal more generally with data protection and citizen privacy.

Understanding the market and ensuring your product, data storage and security practices are compliant with the relevant market is probably one of the most important aspects to get right, according to Mariana Caillaud, founder and CEO of Dolipharm: “It’s quite difficult to be a startup in the healthtech industry because the market is complex, fragmented and immature. This makes it difficult to understand and hard to predict.”

Dr Shanil Mantri from UK-based startup Miicare explains that in the UK, all health data is owned by the individual. “Even though citizens don’t have direct access to their data, they have a right to see it. And if they dispute it, they have the right to have it deleted,” Mantri said.

Once a startup has established itself in one country, expanding to another one can be a potential minefield, says Patrick Palacin, co-founder of Germany-based startup iAtros. The company wanted to operate in Switzerland. Although language wasn’t a barrier, the medical system was different.

“We are expanding into Switzerland where they speak German but they use different medication databases, different ICT10 databases and different data privacy regulations,” Palacin said.

iAtros had to adapt around 50 per cent of its product before it could consider the move. “No one size fits all in Europe. You will need to check 28 different sets of regulations for the 28 countries. Healthcare is far more difficult than other industries,” Palacin said.

Security, privacy and trust

The private nature of patient data makes it extremely valuable and a prime target for hackers. According to an article in Forbes from last year, healthcare data was increasingly under attack, with publicly reported hacking incidents affecting more than 31 million patient records in 2020.

Startups must ensure security practices are compliant with all their target markets, according to iAtros’s Palacin. “There is a huge catalogue of regulations for data security and it is different from country to country. Some countries say ISO 27001 is fine for cloud, others want [German privacy regulation] C5 certification. C5 has nothing to do with healthcare but healthcare companies are required to follow it.”

Palacin is hoping an EU-wide regulation for healthcare will be implemented at some point, but for now, it’s much easier to pass on that responsibility to a certified cloud partner. “It would be much easier if you could just host your data with a cloud provider that has this certification.”

Another risk is ensuring the data stored is correct and cannot be falsified, according to Miicare’s Dr Mantri. This is crucial to avoid inaccurate data being used to make a dangerous diagnosis, putting a patient’s life at risk.

“If you create a device that tracks movement, are you sure that data is accurate? If you provide it to a clinician, how confident can the clinician be that it’s correct?,” asked Mantri. “If you make the same mistake in non-healthcare industries they don’t carry the same risks,” he added.

Financing, investments and innovation

With so much attention on healthcare right now, there are plenty of investors, but innovation is the key, according to Dolipharm’s Caillaud. “It’s a good time to raise funding. Post-Covid there has been a wake-up call to improve health and create international solutions.” Caillaud points out that in 2021 venture funding for healthcare set new records, with investments raising almost $40 billion, more than double what was raised the previous year.

“It’s impressive and half the deals represent early stage startup development. This means the investors were looking for the next big innovation,” she said.

Unfortunately, with the market moving so quickly and products evolving at a rapid rate, trying to predict the type of products needed and the legal requirements for providing them is not easy.

How OVHcloud can help

OVHcloud provides reliable and secure cloud environments for innovative businesses. The company’s startup programme has helped thousands of small businesses grow rapidly and has a special commitment to healthtech.

As a member of the OVHcloud startup programme, Palacin said iAtros is impressed with the available level of technical support, especially for healthtech companies. “It doesn’t matter which cloud provider you use, you usually only get basic support,” he said. “It’s very, very cool that OVHcloud can offer such a high level of service to startups.”

OVHcloud has representatives in many countries that communicate daily with startup programme members. That is something the company will keep focusing on and expanding in the coming months and years.

OVHcloud can help you develop specific contracts in different territories to make sure you are compliant wherever you do business. And, as a European company, OVHcloud commits to not transfer any data to the US to ensure our customers are fully compliant with GDPR and other local regulations.

Healthtech is a fast-growing market with lots of opportunities in niche and specialised applications. OVHcloud will keep supporting healthtech companies — it is at the core of the company’s strategy

Do you want to know more?

To find out more about the OVHcloud Startup Program, or to sign up for free credits and technical support, go to https://startup.ovhcloud.com/

It takes more than a good business idea to create a successful business. According to the British Business Bank, the biggest challenges for startups include lack of demand, ineffective marketing, a gap in skills, securing funding, financial management, hiring the right people and time management.

By joining a business ecosystem — like the OVHcloud Startup Program — startups can access a network of people and organisations that can provide the support, expertise and advice to give your business the best possible chance of success.

Since its creation in 2015, the OVHcloud Startup Program has helped more than 2,000 companies, by increasing their visibility to investors and giving them access to other organisations — as well as providing access to technology that could add value.

OVHcloud recently spoke to four people involved in the Startup Program to find out why being part of an ecosystem can be so invaluable.

The connector’s view

Sydney-based French expat Leo Denes is the founder of Australiance and co-founder of Startup&Angels, which between them help startups enter the Australian market, recruit talent, grow their business and meet rights partners/investors.

Speaking about the role connectors play in startup ecosystems, Denes says: “It’s quite magical, because you can really create value for a startup founder by just doing an introduction. The right introduction can lead to solving a huge challenge or create massive opportunities.”

Areas in which connectors can help include business development, capital raising, finding the right talent, and developing partnerships to encourage business growth. They can also share knowledge to help founders make the right decisions for their business.

With their knowledge of the Australian market, Denes and his team help tech companies from Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the US to understand the market, develop a go-to-market strategy, set up Australian entities, and secure their first clients. Startup&Angels also helps startups increase their brand awareness through events, podcasts and social media.

Ecosystems as a game changer

For Alex Hernandez, a French entrepreneur now based in Madrid, the opportunities provided by a business ecosystem like that offered by OVHcloud are the reason his business exists.

“For me the power of ecosystem had been game changing in my life and I wouldn’t be here today without it,” says Hernandez.

As co-founder and sales director of alternative recruitment company, JobGether, Hernandez launched the business in July 2020 after finding a business partner via membership of the French Founders business network.

“The power of ecosystem was the start of my entrepreneurial journey,” says Hernandez, who subsequently joined the OVHcloud ecosystem. Through this, he met companies that became clients and partners.

“When you start a startup for the first time, you have no clue of what’s going to happen. By joining an ecosystem you can learn a lot, try to avoid mistakes others have made, share experiences, grow your network very quickly, and find clients,” Hernandez says.

Saving time

For Bordeaux-based Rita Nazarian, partnership manager at digital invoice collection provider iPaidThat, the OVHcloud ecosystem provided a quicker and easier way to increase the company’s visibility and valuation.

“It’s less time consuming, I can find the appropriate partners and I can easily check who is interested in our technology,” says Nazarian.

JobGether’s Alex Hernandez agreed that time saving is a major benefit of ecosystem membership: “When you set up a startup you wish there were 50 hours in a day because you have so many things to do. Building a network on your own will take a lot of time – by joining an ecosystem you will save a lot of this precious time.”

Startups can be directly linked to the people and organisations they need, rather than hoping to find the right person or organisation by trawling through online networks like LinkedIn.

Saving businesses

For UK-based Yigit Erol, founder and CEO of Fidsy, which provides AI-powered conversational BI, the connections he was able to make through the OVHcloud ecosystem was a major factor in his business surviving during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a founder you take a leap into the unknown and it’s a long journey with hurdles along the way,” he says.

Starting the company in November 2019, Erol had four investors agreed in principle. However during the first few months of lockdown, all of the investors pulled out, leaving Erol searching for new ways to fund the business.

Once he joined the OVHcloud ecosystem community, he instantly felt supported. “It was almost like holding hands together through this difficult journey,” he says.

Erol was introduced to the community, took part in a few panels and received advice on how he could keep his business afloat. In the end, he didn’t have to give away any equity in his business and now has a product and customers to sell to, with no need to report to investors.

The ecosystem that OVHcloud has created with its Startup Program is crucial to the businesses that are members. And ultimately, it’s the connections that the ecosystem enables that offer the most powerful reason for companies to become involved.

To find out how your business can benefit from the power of the ecosystem,
visit our Startup Program homepage