1. Moving towards a limited number of standard AI libraries

With double digit growth, the French-American startup HuggingFace is paving the way towards the convergence of different Artificial Intelligence techniques within a single library.

Neural network techniques have considerably evolved in recent years. Like machine learning libraries such as Scikit-Learn, which had laid the foundations of standardization, the rise of HuggingFace’s Transformers library seems to usher in a new technical era: the convergence of tools that simplify and democratize the use of AI.

2. Advances in NLP spread to other areas of AI application

Natural Language Processing (NLP) grew exponentially in 2019 and 2020 due to the emergence of new technologies including Transformers. The latter was particularly noteworthy because it brought with it high-performance and highly agnostic NLP models. It mainly addresses the difficulties inherent to the temporal and spatial aspects of language. It solves the difficulty of establishing the link between the beginning and the end of a sentence and identifying key elements.

Given the performance of those new techniques in solving this type of problem, it becomes clear that the same techniques can also be used in areas not directly related to language such as video, voice, or even image processing. Even if there were few research paper concerning this topic in 2020, there are bringing out 2021 to be a year of improvements in the state of the art surrounding these subjects.

3. The New Era of Speech Recognition

As we have seen, techniques related to NLP will benefit to numerous learning fields in which data temporality plays a very important role, among which Speech Recognition. Thus, MILA (known for its eminent professor Yoshua Bengio), in collaboration with Nvidia, Samsung and Nuance have announced the Speechbrain Project but has not yet revealed all its secrets but could be a “game changer” in 2021.

4. I annotate, you annotate…

We all will annotate this year! The widespread use of AI by companies will lead to an explosion in data labeling solutions, and should be accompanied by an expansion of open-source tools. A few big startups should stand out this year, like Weights and Biases for experiment management, which was democratized last year.

5. AI to be taught earlier in the IT curriculum

Although the bachelor and master’s degree programs in computer science already deals with the notions of artificial intelligence, in September 2021 the first artificial intelligence teaching programs may arrive in scientific fields upstream of the master’s or bachelor’s degrees.

6. Fake or not fake?

The rollout of Generative Neural Networks (GANs), over about 3 years, will spawn a real revolution in multimedia, especially in video games and video creation. As with great power comes great responsibility, with those technologies comes risk of malicious uses of generated images, as for example deep fake. Stay vigilant GAFAM, you are under the magnifying glass!

7. A major open source player?

All indications are that an open-source player, centralizing several areas of artificial intelligence applications such as image, sound, text, video – might emerge in the course of 2021 or 2022.

8. Indicators to help reduce energy consumption

The associated power consumption remains important, especially for the operation and cooling of GPUs. The ecological impact of Artificial Intelligence is a growing topic. We can expect new indicators related to ecological impact in the research papers as an indicator… and why not in some cloud providers communications 😉.

OVHcloud already started working on this topic through the Green Cloud Task Force.

9. Responsible and ethical AI certifications

Everyone is talking about ethics and responsibility; it is certain that the subject will be a priority for the major certification bodies.
New ISO certifications, dedicated to AI, are expected to be launched this year to address critical topics such as: reversibility transparency of algorithms, multi-locality context application avoiding biases (skin color, age, gender, language, culture, accent, …).

10. Collaborative solutions and container to secure reproducibility and to put in production

As the processes for implementing AI projects within companies are becoming more widely accessible and structured, we are seeing the trend of entire ecosystem looking forward to use/implement several collaborative data science tools, based on Project Jupyter’s logic. Real-time collaborative code editing seems like a promising path! Reproducibility and production proof AI implementations seems to converge toward the container technology which should arrive in force for the data scientist community.

And a last one, my personal conclusion

And here is an 11th prediction in the form of a more personal conclusion: the trend towards simplifying usage for developers/data scientist will grow… It is for this reason that we have worked to simplify as much as possible the user experience of our AI services such as AI Training and ML Serving 😉

And what a bonus if these tools are on a trusted cloud 💖

Happy cloud year 2021!

With this business decreasing context, organizations have no choices but to optimize their costs and continue developing their move to digital, while keeping their IT secured and their data protected from the booming number of cyberthreats.

To accelerate their digital transformation while reducing cost, companies can leverage on some key sales events organized by their IT suppliers. Cyber Monday sales is one of these unique opportunities, cloud providers offering very attractive deals and promotions for their services.

In our case, we follow the traditions with dedicated offers on Bare Metal Cloud, Hosted Private Cloud, Public Cloud and Web Cloud, multiple tailored cloud solutions answering all business needs can be purchased at discounted prices.

Cloud computing is a very fast growing but extremely competitive market, where providers sometimes do not hesitate to highlight very low prices, not mentioning hidden costs, lack of security and data protection basic features, or using not interoperable proprietary solutions to lock you in order to eventually generate profit. To prevent from bad surprises whine selecting a cloud provider, we have listed some guidelines or key aspects we believe you should carefully look at before making any decision.

Where my data are stored?

Some cloud service providers have decided to not communicate to their clients the precise location where their data are stored, and use the concept of geographical “regions” and “zones”. You can then select such a zone… but it doesn’t really mean you know where your data are stored and replicated.

Some alternative cloud providers show more transparency, sharing detailed information with their clients about datacenters precise location, and even the actual room and server where the data is stored. You could even ask your cloud providers a report stating where your data are localized if this is required by your clients or by some authorities.

What laws apply to my data and who could access it?

The data you store within a cloud provider is basically subject to the nation’s laws of its headquarters, as well as the nation’s laws of the territories where your data is transferred, processed, and stored. This topic raised a lot of questions within the EU with the invalidation of the “Privacy Shield” last July.

For instance, if your data is hosted and operated within the EU by a US based cloud provider, the US and EU laws apply to your data meaning both GDPR and US extrateritorial surveillance programs (FISA 702, EO 12333…), as well as the CLOUD Act.

Same rules apply to Chinese cloud providers where your data are subject China National Intelligence Law.

Does my cloud provider follow best practices in terms of security & data protection?

A very common way to assess the level of security offered by your cloud provider is to make sure it provides industry standards compliance like ISO/IEC 27001, AICPA SOC II Type 2 as well as with the latest one: ISO/IEC 27701 certification for data privacy. Check-out your cloud provider Information System Security Policy documentation (ISSP), everything should be reported there.

For your most sensitive data, some national IT security agencies have developed specific standards, like ANSSI with SecNumCloud qualification in France. Moreover, in order to protect your data privacy after deleting stored data, your cloud provider must automatically execute a specific script according to in force standards, like NIST SP 800-88.

What are its commitments in terms of service continuity and availability?

Service continuity is provided by various processes ensuring power, network, equipment and applications availability.

To provide such high availability, has you your cloud provider designed its services with full redundancy at each level? In case of outage, has your cloud provider put in place some recovery processes like system configuration backups? Advanced Anti-DDoS protection can also be applied by your provider to prevent from some type of cyberthreats. Is it the case?

Last but not least, you must check whether your provider offers end-to-end SLAs. You can then be sure it will do its best to not lose money with the services it operates for you!

How can I prevent from unexpected fees in cloud services’ bills?

Some cloud providers can look extremely competitive thanks to their super low-price tags which actually do not include multiple additional hidden fees, like Ingress / Egress data transfer costs or other basic options you will definitely need.

To avoid bad surprises, you can decide to switch to a prepaid plan… which can end-up being expensive and as unpredictable as standard post-paid.

Some other cloud providers offer simplified and transparent pricing structures with no hidden fees.

How easy is it to cancel my contract, and transfer my services to another provider?

Vendor lock-in is a wildly used common practice in the cloud industry. This cloud service looks perfect to you, however it seems to be using not standard proprietary technologies, but with very appealing price tags or sales promotions. It’s easy to get trapped, but hard and expensive to recover.

To avoid this, you must seek as much as you can for open, portable, interoperable technologies. As such practices are getting well known, new standards and initiative recently emerged to help you, such as CISPE and SWIPO Code of Conducts, or now with the European initiative Gaia-X.

Use of open source and standardized technologies are another, complementary way to prevent being stuck with one single provider.

Do we share the same values with my cloud provider?

Your cloud becomes a key supplier operating critical assets for your business, this required a very high trust level.

Your provider must help you increase your competitiveness and grow your business. You cloud provider is actually like a business partner however, in some cases, it can also appear as an embarrassing partner.

Is there a risk to face a competitive situation with your provider in the future? What image does it carry in your industry? Where does it pay its taxes? What are its sustainability and green policies?

Your trust combined with market recognition

As this year is very unique, OVHcloud has decided to launch unseen deals and discounts for the Cyber Monday, with an extended range of services covering all business needs, in every country where we operate.

To better support and empower our enterprise customers, we have developed new strategies. Those got rewarded this year by major analysts like Forrester that qualified OVHcloud as the European leader for Hosted Private Cloud, or IDC that listed OVHcloud as the only European company among worldwide Public Cloud providers.

More than ever before, we stick to our SMART Cloud (Simple, Multi-local, Accessible, Reversible, Transparent) values, providing innovative, open and secured solutions, a cloud you can trust fully respecting our client’s fundamental rights and freedom.

The Beginning of a Revolution

OVHcloud offers a wide portfolio of cloud products and solutions across its four universes (Web Cloud, Bare Metal Cloud, Public Cloud and Hosted Private Cloud). The cloud we deliver is always designed and developed with our customers in mind, and we’re always looking to understand their business so we have a better idea of their challenges.

We started our discussions on the Premium Bare Metal Cloud market back in 2016. At that time, we received feedback from a few customers regarding our price positioning on this particular range of powerful servers, which meet very high storage requirements. Our bare metal products were simply too expensive in comparison to what they were willing to pay for. We then worked with two customers in particular. Since they were open to share their costs with us, we were able to project their economic model onto our business model. These two customers hosted their own services via colocation, without a local team available 24/7, and they had a low-capacity internet network. They invested in their own servers by calculating their prices across a 5-year period. Once we performed this analysis, we realised that we could offer them these powerful servers for a lower, much more competitive price. But to meet this challenge, we would need to do some major work that would probably take several years.

A New Business Model

Our first project involved completely restructuring the mathematical basis of our business model, which we used to calculate our prices. We started this in 2017, and it took three years.

In our first year, we reorganised the company and created Units. Each of the Units is a kind of small business within OVHcloud. It contributes to our collective success by managing responsibilities corresponding to its expertise, and by contributing to our strategic plan. It is led by a Unit Lead, and has a roadmap to deliver.

In the second year, we created P&Ls for each Unit so that they could model the projects in their roadmap, through real costs generated compared to the expected benefits. To provide them with this analytical framework, we had to restructure our finances. This involved dividing the company’s overall P&L into several micro P&Ls. This meant we could allocate costs to the right Units and create an internal billing workflow. We were then able to calculate the revenue of each Unit by reconciling the revenue generated by customer billing with the revenue generated by the internal chargeback for other Units, while integrating the associated costs (teams, licences, etc.). We then had the margins released by each Unit.

In the third year, we linked all these metrics to financial statements, and made their KPIs available to Units in real time. The purpose of deploying these financial dashboards was to better manage the company’s efficiency — but more importantly, to empower the teams. By aligning financial monitoring tools with the new organisation, Units were able to produce more reliable forecasts, better anticipate risks, and better project their investments and salary expenditure. For the company, it was also a way of ensuring that every project created value for OVHcloud, as well as continuing to ensure that our development remained profitable, balanced and sustainable for our competitiveness and independence. From the customer’s point of view, this cost-conscious culture would mainly lead to even bigger price reductions.

In the digital world, economies also rely on two shifts: reducing fixed costs (by increasing sales volume) and reducing variable costs (by automating tasks through software, robotic systems, and artificial intelligence). Investing massively in automation is a crucial challenge for a cloud provider like ourselves. Through massive investments, we improved quality (fewer bugs, simplified procedures, faster service delivery), and we were able to carry out more operations per day, without increasing the size of the Units. This meant the Units no longer had to do repetitive tasks, and they could instead focus on the added value they needed to bring to our customers. We do this by following the principles of BFLNT, which I described in a previous blog post.

Finally, this combination of operational and financial efficiency — as well as the level of automation in Units — helps us develop increasingly cost-effective solutions, and provide even more value for money to our customers.

CAPEX is Value

To support their ambition, companies that incur a high CAPEX — through spending high amounts on real estate or equipment investments — are never highly valued on the financial market. To secure these large investments, they often operate complex — even opaque — financial schemes that are perceived as too much of a risk.

For OVHcloud, these large sums are the foundation of our virtuous model — investing in building and improving our datacentres, renewing our production equipment, and acquiring new manufacturing premises. Our business model completely demystifies these massive investments, because it ensures returns on investment by design. Our ability to invest by generating profitability has enabled us to raise capital in 2016 ($279 million from KKR and TowerBrook) and even raise debt at the end of 2019 ($976 million). CAPEX is our main vector for creating value. We must constantly invest in future innovations and infrastructure to ensure our sustainability and competitiveness.

With all the work we have done over the last three years, we have also been able to make huge changes to our business model. With the sophisticated analysis we gained, we can now calculate a server’s price based on multiple variables like commitment time, order volume, server type, and investment spending on the infrastructure and the business itself. This new financial model is internally called “Jackpot”, as any reduction in our CAPEX or OPEX (operating expenses) will certainly lower the price for our customers. And in the event that we don’t provide the price expected — which means that our CAPEX or OPEX solutions are not sufficiently optimised — we are always looking for where we can innovate, and what level we need to disrupt. Because if we improve our costs, we reduce our prices rather than increasing our margins. This constant self-reflection through innovation is what enables us to offer customers better prices, as we will soon be doing with a Premium Bare Metal Cloud.

New resource usage methods

Our ambition is to become a global expert in Premium Bare Metal Cloud. We want to shake up the market from 350 to 2,500 dollars per month (for the top-range premium servers) and become a benchmark, as we are already doing for entry and mid-range servers. Customers who need the most power and capacity will start to notice the first effects of our strategy. To better serve their challenges, by the end of 2020 they will see our public prices drop. But we will maintain the same high performance. In addition to our industrial model, which is unique in its total control and enables us to adapt constantly, it is mainly our new “Jackpot” business model that has helped us go even further in recent months. And based on this new model, we have reviewed everything — servers, network, energy and water-cooling. Now more than ever, we are a price leader by design.

By allowing us to follow product life cycles with greater finesse, our new financial model has also enabled us to review our commitment models. Before the end of the year, we will offer more competitive prices on longer-term commitments. In addition to the monthly payment models already available, i.e. with no commitment or with a commitment of 6, 12 or 24 months, we will also offer commitment plans over 3, 4 or 5 years. Our prices will be even better for customers who are able to commit to both volume (3 or 12 racks with 48 or 96 servers) and duration (3, 4 or 5 years). In the future, our customers will also be able to get Bare Metal prices per hour, billed per second.

Finally, for customers who need a lot of server racks and don’t want to manage their infrastructure, we can already deliver private spaces in our datacentres, with 12, 24 or 48 racks* equipped with cameras, badges and logs. This use case not only meets the needs of Bare Metal Cloud customers, but also Public Cloud and Hosted Private Cloud customers in “private region” mode. From 100 racks onwards, we are able to deliver true private datacentres in third-party buildings (customers’ premises)*, wherever they are in the world. This significantly reduces their costs. For these datacentres, we deploy our industrial and technical expertise, including our exclusive water-cooling technology, and all of our hardware innovations — including the very latest technology on the market. We also manage all software layers and their lifecycles.

A Global Impact

The purpose of this blog post is not to detail our future offerings, but to explain the long journey that has led us to drop our prices on Premium Bare Metal Cloud. But if you follow my Twitter account (@olesovhcom), you may have seen some previews of them — because I share information about our work regularly.

In all, OVHcloud will soon offer around 300 Bare Metal Cloud models! This is a very wide range, and our marketing teams have taken on the impressive challenge of offering a simplified browsing experience, so that you can find exactly what you need. In late October 2020, the menu name will change from “Server” to “Bare Metal Cloud”. This will be the first step in a transition that will take place in the coming months, with a much more usage-based approach, such as virtualisation, storage, deep learning, databases, etc. The aim is to make your journey easier, and help you easily pick the models that best suit your needs.

As internal customers, our three other cloud universes (Web Cloud, Public Cloud, Hosted Private Cloud), which all rely on our Bare Metal Cloud infrastructures, will also benefit from these innovations and new prices. Before making this global impact, we needed to review the fundamentals of the cloud. Expect some great announcements in 2020-2021!

To find out more, head to the OVHcloud #EcosystemExperience, our new virtual event, on the 03rd, 04th and 05th November.

We will prove to you in concrete terms that by thinking out of the box through disruption and creating a solid ecosystem, we are helping to make OVHcloud a genuine alternative in the cloud industry every day.

Octave Klaba

Founder & Chairman OVHcloud

*Interested? https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-gb/contact-sales/

A bit of history…  

This case dates back to 25 June 2013, when Mr Maximilian Schrems, an European citizen, filed a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner seeking a ban on Facebook Ireland Ltd. from transferring his personal data to the United States.   

This complaint pointed to American mass surveillance activities, which were brought to light at the same time by Mr. Edward Snowden. It highlighted that the regulations in force in the United States did not sufficiently regulate these programs and did not guarantee to data subjects, rights equivalent to those recognised in the European Union.   

In a first judgment dated 6 October 2015 (C362/14), the ECJ ruled in his favour by invalidating the Safe Harbor, a protection mechanism implemented for data transfers to the United States, which the European Commission had considered adequate (decision 2000/520).   

Following this decision, the Irish authority, which had initially rejected the complaint because of the existence of the Safe Harbor, opened an investigation during which Facebook Ireland Ltd then justified having put in place, not the Safe Harbor, but standard contractual clauses in line with those adopted by European Commission Decision 2010/87/EU, which should in principle provide adequate safeguards for individuals affected by transfers of personal data to countries that do not ensure an adequate level of protection.   

This time, the ECJ was asked to rule on the validity of the above-mentioned standard contractual clauses on the one hand, and of the “Privacy Shield”, a new protection mechanism created in the meantime by the United States and the Commission to replace the Safe Harbor.  

Invalidation of the Privacy Shield  

In its judgment of 16 July, the ECJ decided to invalidate, with immediate effect, the Privacy Shield, or more precisely the decision (2016/1250) by which the European Commission had found that the Privacy Shield constituted a sufficient protection mechanism to regulate the transfer of personal data to the United States.   

In its decision, the ECJ considered that the US surveillance programs are not limited to what is strictly necessary, since the authorities may, in particular, carry out large-scale surveillance operations which do not comply with the principles of necessity and proportionality in force in the European Union.  

The ECJ also noted that the United-States, including the ombudsperson mechanism to which the Privacy Shield Decision refers, does not provide real possibility for data subjects to bring legal actions before an independent and impartial court as required under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.  

Valid, but not always sufficient standard contractual clauses.  

Concerning the Standard Contractual Clauses, the ECJ confirmed that they remain a valid mechanism to secure transfers of personal data from the European Union to countries that do not benefit from an adequacy decision. However, it recalled that, pursuant to Article 46 of the RGDP, these clauses alone do not always by themselves constitute a sufficient protection, in particular in the case of data transfers to countries which, like the United States, do not sufficiently regulate the power of interference of their authorities.  

In this respect, the ECJ essentially points out that the standard contractual clauses constitute a contract, established between a data controller exporter and a data importer, and that this contract is not enforceable against the authorities of the country receiving the data; the said authorities not being party to the contract.   

Therefore, although valid, the standard contractual clauses do not constitute a sufficient guarantee to regulate transfers of personal data from the European Union to countries such as the United States. In this case,supplementary measures should be put in place in addition to these clauses.  

Impact of these decisions  

The impact of this ^2nd opus is far from negligible.   

Indeed, since 16 July, all economic operators who previously transferred personal data from Europe Union to the United States on the basis of the Privacy Shield have been obliged, if they wish to continue such transfers, to replace the Privacy Shield by valid alternative guarantees.   

However, the alternative mechanisms that can be put in place – which are listed in Article 46 of the PGRD and which include the standard contractual clauses – are, for the most part, contractual mechanisms that the ECJ has found insufficient because of their unenforceability against the US authorities.   

The implementation of these alternative mechanisms must therefore be accompanied by the adoption of additional measures to ensure the required protection.   

The question then arises as to what types of measures can, in addition to the standard contractual clauses, constitute adequate protection against interference by the US authorities.   

The ECJ has not ruled on this issue, and data protection authorities have not yet published information on the subject, which may make compliance a little bit difficult.   

In concrete terms, it seems difficult to technically prevent the US authorities from accessing data transiting from the European Union to the United States, since, as the ECJ has noted, the US authorities intercept traffic on network cables, particularly in the context of Upstream programmes.   

In this respect, even the implementation of end-to-end encryption solutions could be considered insufficient, due in particular to the decryption solution that are or may be available to authorities, notably as a result of quantum technologies. In addition some regulations may require operators to communicate their encryption keys to the authorities, or even prohibit some of them in the future. The United States are notably discussing the « Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act ».  

The use of solutions hosted within the European Union could be the alternative. However, it is not even certain that this would be sufficient in all circumstances, particularly in the case of processing being carried out remotely from the United States, for example in the context of administration, maintenance or support activities.  

Indeed, some remote processing operations, such as accesses, technically imply a temporary transfer and therefore expose the data. This is moreover considered as a data transfer within the meaning of European regulation.  

Some economic operators also question whether it is possible to adapt the additional measures depending of the risk to rights and freedoms, in particular to ensure that the use of data with a low risk to the privacy of individuals is not unduly impeded. Here, too, nothing is less certain, even though the risk-based approach, which is predominant in the RGDP and in the standard contractual clauses, may suggest this.   

Beyond the United States, these questions arise whenever a transfer is operated, based the standard contractual clauses, to countries that have not been subject to an adequacy decision and for which it is not possible to establish with certainty that they provide equivalent guarantees than those recognised within the European Union in respect of interference by the authorities.   

Uncertainty about the type of supplementary measures to be put in place creates insecurity, not only for data subjects, who may not benefit from appropriate protection when their data is transferred, but also for economic operators, many of whom still looking forward to have confirmation of compliance, particularly when they depend on third party service providers or solutions operating outside the European Union.   

As such, the predominance – or near-monopoly – of GAFAM in sectors such as online research, social networks and advertising, makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible from a competitive stand point, to do without their services. And such services usually involve transfers to the United States for which it is not easy, due in particular to the uncertainties mentioned above, to ensure that appropriate additional safeguards have been put in place.   

In this context, it seems essential that the data protection authorities continue to support economic operators so that the supplementary measures required in the event of transfers to the United States and other equivalent countries can be clearly identified and implemented.   

What about using OVHcloud Services?  

No transfers to the United States   

Except for services ordered directly from OVHcloud’s US entity, in the course of performing its services, OVHcloud does not transfer its customers’ data to the United States.   

Indeed, OVHcloud’s data centers located in the United States do not host any of the services marketed by OVHcloud’s non-U.S. entities; said US data centers being only used to host services marketed by OVHcloud’s U.S. entity. In addition, OVHcloud’s US entity is not involved in the provision of services provided by OVHcloud non-American entities. In particular, none of these services are administered from the United States, and therefore no related data processing can be remotely operated, and notably accessed, from the United States.   

Therefore, the invalidation of the Privacy Shield has no impact here.   

Regarding the services ordered from OVHcloud’s US entity, they are generally not used to process data subject to European regulations, in which case the above-mentioned European solutions are preferred. However, OVHcloud United States is nevertheless studying solutions for customers that could be impacted.   

Limited transfers to other countries  

When the customer chooses a service hosted in an OVHcloud data center located in the European Union, only the European and Canadian entities of OVHcloud have, within the framework of the administration and maintenance of the services, the possibility to carry out processing operations on the data hosted by the Customers.   

With regard to Canada, it was the subject of an adequacy decision (2002/2/EC) 

by which the European Commission notably noted that Canadian law « covers all the basic principles necessary for an adequate level of protection fornatural persons, even if exceptions and limitations are also provided for in order to safeguard important public interests. The application of these standards is guaranteed by judicial remedy and by independent supervision carried out by the authorities, such as the Federal Privacy Commissioner invested with powers of investigation and intervention ». Furthermore, the provisions of Canadian law regarding civil liability apply in the event of unlawful processing which is prejudicial to the persons ».

Also, OVHcloud has never received any request from the Canadian authorities that was disproportionate with respect to the fundamental rights and principles of the European Union.

Therefore, even if the said adequacy decision is limited in scope to activities falling under Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) – which led OVHcloud to adopt contractual clauses for certain processing operations outside the scope of PIPEDA – the foregoing findings about Canadian law make it consistent to consider that the implementation of standard contractual clauses for activities not subject to PIPEDA does not require any supplementary measure with respect to interference by the authorities.

Nevertheless, OVHcloud has implement supplementary measures according to its security policy, and is seeking to get confirmation, notably from the Commission, of the consistency of the foregoing findings. More generally, it would be desirable that the Commission review all the adequacy decisions that were taken especially before the ECJ judgements and the entry into force of the GDPR.

OVHcloud customers also have the option of choosing data centers located outside the European Union to host their services, particularly in Singapore and Australia. However, these data centers are generally not used to process data covered by GDPR; the European data centers being in this case preferred. However, for customers who wish to operate such transfer to Asia, OVHcloud has set up standard contractual clauses. In these cases, the Customer should conduct, if necessary with the help of OVHcloud, a compliance analysis of the solution that it deploys on OVHcloud Services.

Concerning the use of OVHcloud’s internal tools, some of which contain customer data (customer account data, invoicing, support tickets, data relating to the use of services, etc.), and which are used by other OVHcloud non-European entities, OVHcloud has put in place standard contractual clauses in addition to which various technical and organisational measures have been implemented to limit transfers as much as possible according to OVHcloud security policy.

In particular, OVHcloud systematically favours to host its IT system within the European Union. This makes it possible to avoid by design mass transfers, as transfers are only occasional and temporary in such a remote access case.

Furthermore, access is limited on the basis of the principle of least privilege, which ensures that only the data necessary to carry out legitimate business operations is accessible to operators. These accesses are systematically traced. In addition, in the event of recourse to third-party solutions, OVHcloud favours “on premise” hosting on its own infrastructure in order to keep control.

All these measures, combined with the implementation of a strict policy concerning the treatment of requests from authorities, appear to provide adequate protection against possible interference from authorities in non-adequate countries.

However, OVHcloud will continue to pay close attention to the recommendations of the authorities to ensure that its mechanism is appropriate.

In addition, OVHcloud Group is undertaking to reexamine the legal order of the countries in which it is present in order to assess their compliance in the light of this new ECJ judgment, and be able to support its customer in the best possible way.

Let’s consider countries, companies — entire sectors, like the healthcare sector — which is so severely affected right now. What are the concrete consequences of concepts such as resilience, sovereignty, and trust?

The digital sector has by no means been spared from these unprecedented challenges, and there is good reason for this. In just a few days, radical transformations were imposed across the globe. Our working lives froze, and completely transformed at the same time. For better or for worse, digital tools are undeniably playing a vital role in this forced transformation. With remote working, remote teaching, alert systems, remote healthcare, online shopping, and much more, there are so many challenges and transformations that can be sudden.

Day after day, we are discovering that this accelerated digital transformation comes with many advantages, but it also comes with challenges — and even risks.

Protecting our freedom of choice

The jungle of digital solutions is so rich and overabundant, and lines of trust can be particularly hard to read — especially for a society that has never needed so many of these solutions before. The lively debate over traceability in contact tracing tools, like TraceTogether in Singapore, demonstrates that citizens are questioning the ethics of these digital tools. And they are right to do so.

• Where is our healthcare data stored, who can access it, and what can they use it for?
• Do we just have to accept that a select few players can sometimes keep their ground rules completely secret?

The recent scandals on the abusive usage of our personal data by social network providers show that these scenarios do not just exist in sci-fi shows like Black Mirror — they are already a reality.

At a time where many countries in Europe have lost control over their production and provisioning chain for equipment like masks and antibiotics, it is evident that the world of data is struggling with the same risks of dependency.

Initiatives for a trusted European digital ecosystem

At OVHcloud, like our customers and most of the other companies we work with, we believe that the ability to exercise our digital sovereignty is key for our freedom of choice. It is important for keeping control over our future, maintaining job security, and even keeping our way of life. These are all the challenges of a trusted cloud — a cloud guaranteeing European countries that strategic data is protected for their states, companies and citizens.

We strongly believe that in Europe, we must build a powerful ecosystem of players that share the same values and respect for data, reversibility, openness and transparency.

This belief is shared by a number of business owners, and by services across the European continent. The latest speeches from the European Commission demonstrate that this feeling is shared, so we need to take action.

There are different initiatives in place already; I’ll give three examples of the ones promoting digital sovereignty:

• Across Europe, there is the Gaia-X cloud project — a joint initiative from German and French public authorities, supported by their respective ecosystems. The goal of this cloud project is to define the axes of influence for a trusted European cloud. With integrators, manufacturers, players in the telecom sector, and institutions, this European ecosystem exists and is united by a strong set of values.
• In France, there is the Industry Strategic Committee, known as the Comité Stratégique de Filière (CSF). It was initiated by the Ministry of Finance and Industry, with players such as Atos, Oodrive, Outscale, OVHcloud, Scaleway and many others confirming their commitment to developing trusted solutions. Integration players such as CapGemini, GFI, Sopra and Thales have also worked hard to offer alternative, trusted sovereign solutions.
• And in terms of business owners — we can look at the success of the call to action from the 09th April for better digital sovereignty in Europe and across the globe in future* (on the initiative of Raphael Richard (Néodia), Pascal Gayat (Les Cas d’OR du Digital, Les Pionniers du Digital), Matthieu Hug (Tilkal), and Alain Garnier (Jamespot)). It has been signed by more than 100 business owners (including Octave and myself, on behalf of OVHcloud) and proves how important it is to be conscious of these topics, and how collective engagement is a key part of taking action together.

These European solutions exist, they are outstanding, and their ingenuity makes them able to compete with more dominant players. But solidarity between public authorities, business owners and large groups will be one of the keys to success for solid digital sovereignty. Public demand, the demand of large European groups, cooperation between research institutes and large teaching centres with start-ups are also key factors for accelerating this ethical ecosystem.

Everyone has understood that now is the time to take action, rather than simply identify issues. Octave Klaba, Founder and Chairman of OVHcloud, has always worked hard to defend strong values, and has succeeded in creating a European champion company — the only European cloud player that is within the top 10 worldwide.

To be responsible, we must take action.

OVHcloud’s commitment to investing and building trust for the future

Investing in our trusted infrastructures: We are investing in our own network of 30 datacentres, and our own telecom network with more than 20TB of transit. We are also investing in two trusted datacentres situated in France, reserved for European players with the most critical data — our public services, hospitals, and cutting-edge industries. Our datacentres hold the very highest certifications in terms of security (HDS, SecNumCloud in progress, ISO/IEC 27001, 27017 and 27018, PCI DSS, etc.).

Investing in a responsible, resilient model: We design our own datacentres, build our servers in France, and prefer short supply paths. This model guarantees employment in northern France, and also offers both traceability and auditability for our hardware — as well as improved availability.

Investing in an energy-efficient model: For over 15 years, OVHcloud has been developing water-cooling technologies for its servers, massively reducing its building and operating costs, and drastically limiting its energy usage.

Investing in innovation: Our belief is that innovation should be used for values of trust, and respecting personal and company data. OVHcloud invests a lot in research and development for solutions, particularly open-source projects — and also working with others to build standards that guarantee interoperability for cloud infrastructures.

But beyond investing in our own technology, we must also build an ecosystem of players that share the same values and respect for data, reversibility, openness and transparency.

Open Trusted Cloud — a catalogue of trusted solutions

We are urging software and SaaS publishers to work with us and help with the emergence of a new initiative: Open Trusted Cloud.

This program has a simple goal — to build an ecosystem of SaaS and PaaS solutions, hosted in an open, reversible cloud that guarantees the physical location of data.

OVHcloud guarantees hosted solutions:

• The choice of location for the storage and processing of data, ensuring compliance with local European legislations.
• Compliance with the CISPE European “code of conduct” on Data Protection¹.
• Compliance with the “Code of Conduct” on data reversibility facilitated by the European Commission (SWIPO IaaS²)
• If required, compliance for healthcare data hosting (HDS certification) and financial data hosting (SOC/ACPR/EBA compliance and PCI-DSS certification) in France, and in a certain number of European countries.
• And in certain cases, if solutions are referenced by the right organisations, C2 hosting for state services in France.

This way, it will offer a common platform of competitive solutions, marked with a label that enables everyone to use the best software solutions in the world — all while remaining protected by a trusted, sovereign infrastructure.

Join our Open Trusted Cloud initiative, and together we will prove that the future can be aligned in harmony with our values!

1 https://cispe.cloud/code-of-conduct/

2 Code of Conduct for Data Portability and Cloud Service Switching for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud services

Remote working has become a standard worldwide, like never before. As a matter of urgency, companies have had to deploy new digital tools very quickly in order to adapt, especially in cases where their infrastructures needed to be scaled up. It has been crucial to maintain business continuity — and to do this, many companies have opted for third-party solutions available online. However, quick choices can sometimes be detrimental to both digital security and strategic autonomy. A few days ago, we shared some basic principles on securing your data. Now, we must consider a vital question — what will be the price of these tactical choices, in the long-term?

In terms of protecting strategic and sensitive data for European companies, it is important to ensure that the service you use is compliant with European laws. This way, you can ensure that your data cannot be intercepted and analysed by authorities overseas. With the Cloud Act, for example, American law enforcement organisations can access certain types of data hosted by US operators worldwide — and they can do this without even informing the company. No matter where the data is stored geographically, US law is what holds sway if this data is hosted by a US player.

When it comes to your children’s maths lessons, for example, it is not a big issue if their teachers use a non-European platform. But when it comes to your strategic data, this is an important point to consider. In this period of crisis, the notion of sovereignty has proven to be crucial — and in some cases, even vital — within the domain of medical research, healthcare equipment, and even for “simple” masks. The same goes for the domain of strategic data.

In addition to this, cybersecurity can no longer be considered as optional. We are already seeing hackers targeting the most vulnerable infrastructures— and the most sensitive ones too, like hospital IT services — in the midst of a pandemic. Over the last few weeks, companies have radically changed the way they work. Video conferencing is now more widely used than ever, and remote working has become the norm. Many people are now using tech tools — but through press articles, we are discovering that as practical as these tools may be, they are sometimes not compliant with personal data protection regulations. Some do not even offer any security or encryption. Video conference calls have become real vulnerabilities for a company’s security!

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) provided an initial response to this in 2018 — but now more than ever, the decisions taken by businesses on how their data is used remains a relevant issue. For each of the tools we use, we should consider the following points:

• How sensitive is the data that needs to be stored?
• What legal regulations apply to our conversations and discussions, strategic meetings, financial statements, investment plans, personal data, etc.?
• Do we want overseas authorities to be able to read and analyse this data?

More globally, there is only one realistic way for Europe to achieve strategic and sovereign autonomy in terms of cloud infrastructure. This would involve building an ecosystem of tech players, based on European values that guarantee fundamental rights for businesses. OVHcloud is conscious of this challenge, and has launched a wide initiative for digital aid called #Open_solidarity. Its goal is to quickly unite a community of tech players, and deliver free solutions for remote working, collaboration (education/security) and healthcare — with the guarantee that data generated locally is processed locally, too.

To help them absorb traffic spikes resulting from their solutions being provided free of charge during the crisis, OVHcloud is providing contributors with free, zero-commitment infrastructures. This also helps to boost the availability of their technological solutions.

A number of countries have launched a call to action aimed at national digital companies. Some have also published an online list of solutions that are often free to use, or offered at a discounted price.

• If you want to join this act of digital solidarity too, you can apply to become an official contributor by filling in our online form here.
• If you are looking for a free solution, please take a look at our dedicated platform: https://open-solidarity.com/

“You don’t have a chance.” “You’re already dead.” “You’ll get eaten alive.” For the last 21 years, I’ve heard people say these things several times a week. They’re often said by people who don’t really understand what OVHcloud does. Never by people in the field. I don’t blame them. They’re clearly thinking “It can’t be easy having Amazon, Microsoft and Google as competitors”. First of all, I’ve always sought to be a competitor, and every morning I tell myself that we are competing with the very best in the world. Next, try to name a single company in the world that will not compete with these giants, if they aren’t already a competitor. When people tell me that OVHcloud doesn’t have a chance, the first impression I get is that they have no idea what they’ll do in their own field of expertise. And just because they have no idea how to compete with these giants, it doesn’t mean that we haven’t found a way. Quite the opposite.

OVHcloud has just completed its fourth strategic plan. Between 2015 and 2019, we have at minimum doubled in size, across all of our KPIs. We are beginning this year with our fifth strategic plan, which will finish in 2024. Our strategy is centred on the 5 C’s: Culture, Customers, Cloud, Conquer, Cost. Over the next few months, we will be able to look again at this strategy, and share the details of our 2020 execution. In this post, I would like to share my long-term global vision for OVHcloud, which is based on European values. Since 1999, I have thought about where I’d like to be in 20 years — and even today, I think about where OVHcloud will be in 2040.

There are a number of consequential factors:

• OVHcloud designs and builds its own datacentres, and operates its own fibre optic network in Europe and North America, rather than renting services from operators.
• We design and build our own servers in a frugal, short-circuit economy. And by building them instead of buying them from major global manufacturers, we can make them match exactly the needs of our customers.
• OVHcloud comes from an open-source culture, and develops software products that comply with market standards. It offers its customers interoperability, reversibility and control over their data, rather than blocking them with retention and making them dependent on our services.
• We also invest in frugal disruption to find alternative ways of building products, rather than following pre-established industry rules or copying our competitors.
• We rely on human talent and company culture to work intelligently and foster profitable growth, rather than raising money and diluting ourselves with financial investors until we lose control over our destiny.
• We capitalise on our ecosystem to collaborate with hardware, software and business partners. We build with them, and consider their constraints and ambitions rather than systematically acquiring them, integrating them and imposing our strategy onto them.

OVHcloud chooses to do things differently, and this is why we have a real value proposition in the competition with web giants. If you compare OVHcloud to its competitors, some of our cloud products and solutions are better, and others aren’t as good — and the same goes for companies everywhere. On the other hand, we have three key characteristics that our competitors lack:

• Firstly, for a long time now, OVHcloud has been aware that customers need different types of cloud: Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Multi Cloud, Web Cloud… We offer them all.
• Secondly, since the cost of cloud solutions is a significant aspect of their business models, our customers are keen to seek predictability and competitivity in the cloud they use — and we are able to deliver what they need.
• Finally, since our customers are keen to maintain control over their data, we guarantee data sovereignty all over the world.

With this ‘Next Gen Cloud’, we offer these three characteristics on top of all the other standard requirements associated with cloud solutions. This is what sets us apart on the cloud market.

To be a giant, I could dilute my shares in OVHcloud’s capital by progressively increasing the capital by several tens of billions of euros. This would make us able to acquire several companies across the globe, consolidate markets, then create a European giant that could be compared to US and Chinese web giants. If I were to make this decision one day, it would be an admission of failure to follow the common vision that we have developed for Europe. It would mean that Europe does not have its own economic model, and that all we can do is adopt the US model. It would also mean that it is impossible to create an ecosystem of companies that can collaborate together, and that the only way forward is to make them submit to funding, forcing them to work with one another. This would mark a failure to uphold our values, what we believe in, the reason we get up every morning, and the dream we build together. It would mean that Europe is stuck in the 20th century and is incapable of innovating, leading the way, or inspiring other nations by offering a new model of capitalism.

I may think like this because of my personal background, but without a doubt, it is also because I think like a European. Freedom is particularly important for OVHcloud. Our motto, “Innovation for Freedom”, is a symbol of this vision. If I were American, I would probably hold just 15% of a company worth several tens of billions of dollars, as opposed to 80% of a company worth several millions of dollars. If I were American, I would think that a smaller slice of a bigger cake would be better for me than a larger slice of a smaller cake. But because I’m European, I don’t think in terms of cake slices. I think about the long term, I think about Europe, I think about the ecosystem, and I think about ‘us’. Today, OVHcloud is the only European cloud enterprise that has reached a critical enough size to operate worldwide. For me, it has been a responsibility to strengthen this vision for Europeans over the last 20 years without exposing OVHcloud to tender offers, strategic changes, governance crises and financial crises.

OVHcloud is a tool I offer to Europeans to help them enter into this new, digital world while maintaining their values and dreams. This is a 21st century tool because of its ecosystem-based DNA and its opportunities for collaboration. Even if OVHcloud acquires other companies, my main aspiration is not to become a capitalistic conglomerate that looks like a cloud version of Airbus. OVHcloud aims to foster the creation of an ecosystem where companies can unleash their talent, collaborate together, stay independent and control their destiny. OVHcloud aims to support the emergence of digital enterprises that will make 100 to 200 million dollars in annual revenue. To be strong, organisations constantly influence each others’ identities and core values, so that they don’t go extinct. To be strong, the European cloud must work as a living organisation made up of several thousand companies that evolve or fade out. This way, it can continuously adapt to reflect the current reality. It’s different to the US and Chinese models, and I think it is truly our own. This is the European model.

These patent applications obviously concern our “hardware” innovations (you know that we manufacture our servers, racks, cooling systems…) but also software patents, because contrary to popular belief it is possible to patent certain software (under certain conditions, but this is not the subject of this article). 

So, obviously, you are wondering why OVHcloud decided to launch this patent program when open source has been in OVHcloud’s DNA since its creation. 

That’s a very good question indeed! 

The purpose of this article is to explain why a company like ours cannot avoid filing patents and why patents and open innovation are not incompatible 

Why patent filing is essential 

There are multiple studies listing the reasons why companies decide to file patents (anti-aggression tool, communication tool, talent recruitment tool, financial valuation tool, competition blocking tool…). 

From all these reasons, the mains ones are:

Protecting ourselves 

There are 2 major threats to a company like ours: 

• The giants who can afford to file hundreds of patents a year to attack any company trying to compete with them 
• Patent Trolls, which are companies whose only business is to buy patents and sue companies to force them to pay them licence fees. 

Patenting is relatively expensive, and it is not usually a priority for companies when they are in the launch phase. 

Moreover, as long as they remain small, they can hope not to attract the attention of big competitors or patent trolls. 

When we started to grow and decided to open a subsidiary in the US, the territory by definition of patent trolls and GAFAM with thousands of patents, we thought that crossing our fingers in the hope of not being noticed was clearly not the right strategy, so we rolled up our sleeves, drafted a patent program, an associated reward policy, trained our employees on intellectual property and we quickly started to see the benefits: nearly 50 patent filings in 18 months! And trust me, it’s only the beginning! 

Maintaining our freedom to operate

Trade secret is an interesting protection and is often preferred by companies because it is much less expensive than filing patents (well it appears to be much less expensive, but an effective management of secrecy might be very expensive too…) 

But it should be noted that if a third party had (even in good faith) filed a patent for an invention kept secret for several years by another company, the latter would become a counterfeiter if it continued to use its invention, frustrating no?! 

Enabling us to participate in patent pools and other open-innovation communities 

It is well known that there is strength in numbers! 

It was therefore natural that companies began to join forces to innovate. 

Either they wish to work together (co-development, cross-licensing…) and in this case it is preferable to file patents upstream to allow for free discussion afterwards, 

Or they decide to join forces against attacks by patent trolls and other aggressive companies and decide to pool their patents to serve as a bargaining chip in the event of an attack by one of the group members. 

Thanking our employees 

Because we believe that our first value is our employees, and that it is thanks to them that we innovate every day, we have set up an attractive reward system and we celebrate them all together when their invention is patented. 

We have also created Innovation Awards to reward employees of certain projects that do not meet the criteria for patentability, but which are nevertheless essential to our innovation. 

When the patent promotes open innovation 

Many recent studies have shown that paradoxically, the patent system promotes open innovation by stimulating inter-company collaboration in research and development. 

Technology partnerships 

We have just seen above that this allows companies to work more peacefully on joint projects without fear of their previous know-how being stolen. 

Today, OVHcloud is committed to opening up more technological partnerships with other companies, universities and research laboratories.  

Software and open-source patents 

In software, it must be understood that patent and copyright protection do not have the same purpose. 

Copyright only protects the form (i. e. source code, object code, documentation, etc.) while the patent protects the process, the method, regardless of the language used. 

Two software programs producing strictly similar effects but with different forms do not infringe upon each other in terms of copyright. 

While a patent protecting the process will prohibit its reuse regardless of the form used. 

But why file a patent and then give access to the sources? 

• To prevent a third party from deciding to replicate the functionality of open-source software (in a different form) and distribute it under proprietary license. 
• To prevent a third party from filing a broad patent on a process before we have had the opportunity to distribute the application in open source. 
• To focus community efforts around a method. Indeed, since the code is open, the whole community can use it, correct it, optimize it, and thus innovation goes faster and further. As the concept remains protected by the patent, this avoids the multiplication of methods for the same purpose and the dispersion of innovative resources. 

The “Economy of Peace” 

When Tesla allowed its patents to be used without having to pay licence fees, Tesla did not give up its patents, Musk said, “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology”. 

Tesla considered at that time that there was more to be gained (for the sake of saving the planet) by having the community work on their technology than by keeping it to themselves, but patents still exist and if a company does not act in good faith (probably Tesla is targeting patent trolls), then the company reserves the right to attack it. 

This new way of thinking and acting is in line with what the author Thierry Couzet calls the “economy of peace” which he opposes to the “economy of predation”. 

This is also what we at OVHcloud think and that’s why we advocate a SMART Cloud – a reversible, open and interoperable cloud through open innovation. 

Don’t worry, OVHcloud has not forgotten its values and intends to participate as much as possible in open innovation and promote this “economy of peace”. 

Pour tout vous dire, ça fait longtemps que je m’attends à un papier de ce genre. En France, on n’aime pas trop la réussite, ça parait souvent suspect. On souffre d’un gros complexe d’infériorité, qui nous fait dire que c’est foutu, qu’on n’y arrivera jamais face aux géants américains et chinois. Ils seraient trop forts, trop avancés, trop riches. Bref, autant laisser tomber tout de suite. Autant lever le pied.

Cette façon de voir les choses, c’est juste pas la mienne, pas la nôtre. La vérité, c’est que les 4 dernières années ont été incroyablement denses et très intéressantes. Et donc cet article me donne l’occasion d’en parler afin de partager notre expérience. Il y a si peu de boites en Europe qui ont la recette du succès puis du scale. Je pense que, modestement, OVH est sur le bon chemin. Mon but est donc de partager les idées, d’encourager les entrepreneurs, de démystifier les coulisses d’une entreprise numérique en croissance.

OVH, c’est une boite qui génère des émotions. Les rapports humains entre nos collaborateurs, avec nos clients, avec nos partenaires, vont souvent au-delà de rapports professionnels. A ce titre, j’aime dire qu’OVH est une boite très humaine. C’est pourquoi je pense que certains nous adorent, comme d’autres nous détestent. C’est la vie et je l’accepte très bien : il n’y a que ceux qui ne font rien qui laissent les gens indifférents.

Start-up nation

Quand j’ai créé OVH, le mot de start-up n’existait pas. Puis au Summit 2015, je disais « OVH, ce n’est plus une start-up » et cette année, on va fêter nos 20 ans. Le temps passe mais la méthode ne change pas. Depuis le début, je crois en un truc qui n’est devenu à la mode que récemment en France : le droit au fail. Et c’est ça la « start-up nation » : essayer de faire bouger les choses, prendre des risques, tenter, se tromper, changer, recommencer.

Moi, ça fait 20 ans que je me plante. J’en ai pris des tonnes de mauvaises décisions ! Mais alors, pourquoi OVH existe malgré tout ? Car on ne lâche rien et on itère jusqu’à trouver le truc qui marche. Et alors là, ça marche très fort. Chez OVH on dit « ça déchire ! ». Et ça absorbe toutes les erreurs, qui ont fait partie du processus de création.

Je remarque que pas mal de gens n’ont pas encore mis à jour leur logiciel et tournent encore avec la version du 20eme siècle. Ils n’ont pas encore compris que quand on ne sait pas, il ne faut pas rester paralysé, mais au contraire il faut avancer, essayer, quitte à prendre une mauvaise décision, puis itérer et finir par y arriver.

Recrutements

Jusqu’en 2014, on recrutait majoritairement des jeunes fraichement diplômés, sans expérience professionnelle (entre 100 et 200 personnes par an), puis on les formait durant 12 à 18 mois. La culture OVH, notre mindset, était donc naturellement transmis aux nouveaux, qui les intégraient comme des repères. C’est la meilleure méthode, mais 12 à 18 mois c’est long.

C’est pourquoi à partir de 2014, on a commencé à recruter des nouveaux collaborateurs avec 7 à 10 ans d’expériences professionnelles. Un vrai choc culturel. Cela a totalement changé le processus d’intégration. Aujourd’hui, on sait mieux expliquer notre culture et notre différence. En arrivant, Il faut d’abord avoir l’humilité d’écouter, pour apprendre tout ce qui a fait OVH, pourquoi, comment. Puis seulement après, commencer à utiliser sa propre expérience. OVH est une entreprise qui fait grandir.

Côté Sales, avant 2015, on avait peu de force commerciale. Pur digital. Côté grands comptes, il n’y avait qu’un seul Sales. On a fait évoluer l’équipe en plusieurs étapes. D’abord, 2016-2017 avec une équipe de 15 personnes, puis 2018-2019 avec une équipe de 40 personnes. Idem pour les grands clients digitaux, on a passé l’équipe de 5 à 90 personnes. On a aussi développé l’équipe commerciale pour accompagner les clients « à potentiel » et les aider à grandir chez OVH. Là on est passé de 0 à 40 personnes en 2018-2019 !

En à peine 18 mois, OVH est passé de 1200 à 2500 personnes. Fin 2017, durant 6 mois, toutes les 2 semaines, un « bus » de 30-40 nouveaux collaborateurs arrivait chez OVH. Un rythme infernal, période très mal vécue en interne. Avec du recul, c’était une belle connerie d’aller si vite. C’est pourquoi, aujourd’hui, je déconseille le blitzscaling. Cela casse la culture de l’entreprise.

Et même si durant ce blitzscaling, nous avons recruté plein de talents qui font la force d’OVH de 2019, nous avons aussi fait des erreurs de recrutement. Certains nouveaux arrivants ne respectaient pas nos valeurs, ou ne se retrouvaient pas dans la mission ou le fonctionnement de l’entreprise. Il y a aussi ceux qui n’étaient pas prêts à désapprendre et se remettre en question pour s’adapter à l’entreprise.

Pour certains historiques, c’était aussi un challenge de vivre cette période. Dans une start-up, il y a une culture de « super-héros » ou de « couteaux suisse », des gens qui touchent à tout, qui ont un avis sur tout. Des supers généralistes. Mais quand on structure une entreprise, on a de plus en plus besoin d’experts très qualifiés sur des sujets précis. Et il faut des leaders pour gérer toutes ces équipes.

Certains collaborateurs évoluent constamment, au rythme de l’entreprise, depuis des années. Pour d’autres, cela ne dure qu’un temps, car ils préfèrent revivre la même étape en changeant d’entreprise régulièrement. Ils aident ainsi différentes boites à passer par les mêmes phases d’évolution. Ça, c’est génial ! Je trouve ça top de voir que des gens qui se sont formés chez OVH mettent ensuite leur expertise au profit d’autres boites afin de les aider à scaler à leur tour.

La stratégie

Durant cette période, j’ai fait une autre erreur : j’ai décentralisé la stratégie. Le Comex (le Comité Exécutif) exécutait la stratégie que j’avais définie. Mais l’équipe en charge de la stratégie, elle, avait un autre avis sur la direction qu’OVH devait prendre. Aux USA, l’équipe locale avait, elle aussi, une autre idée sur la stratégie à déployer. 3 stratégies dans une seule entreprise, c’est 2 de trop. La leçon de cette période est que la stratégie doit être unique. Aujourd’hui, avec Michel le CEO d’OVH, nous avons mis en place une seule stratégie pour toute l’entreprise, qui est désormais sous ma responsabilité.

Aux USA, cette erreur nous a obligé à restructurer les activités en 2018. L’équipe d’OVH US est passée de 8 personnes fin 2016 à 220 personnes en 2017 puis à 310 personnes début 2018. Puis fin 2018, comme la stratégie en place ne donnait pas les résultats escomptés, nous en avons changée pour y adopter la stratégie unique d’OVH. Cela nous a obligé à réduire les équipes, principalement les Ventes et les Avant-Ventes, pour terminer début 2019 à 160 personnes. Depuis, nous commençons à avoir des résultats, mais avec 18 mois de retard sur le planning initial.

De manière plus générale : je ne crois pas dans l’idée d’un Airbus du Cloud européen, idée exprimée dans l’article. Les temps ont changé. On n’est plus dans un rapport capitalistique, de rachats. On est dans le temps des écosystèmes et des communautés. Des partenariats et des plateformes. D’où l’initiative lancée il y a un an et que j’avais appelée « virtual GAFAM ». C’est pas le bon nom, mais l’idée est là : si les européens font écosystème et bossent ensemble, on peut être aussi fort que les GAFAM, tout en respectant nos valeurs européennes de Privacy. Ce mode de fonctionnement partage mieux la valeur créée et évite les phénomènes de dominance abusive.

OVH est le seul Cloud européen avec un chiffre d’affaire supérieur à 100M€ réussissant à faire plus de 20% de croissance. Il n’y a personne d’autre. Cette année, nous allons réaliser 600M€ et on continue d’avoir une croissance de plus de 20% par an. On sait aussi comment croitre jusqu’à 1Mds, puis nous commençons à avoir la vision de comment monter à 5Mds.

Public Cloud, mais pas que !

La tendance actuelle dans les grands comptes est l’Hybrid Cloud et notamment le Hosted Private Cloud. Nous l’avons pressentie dès 2010 et aujourd’hui, nous sommes l’expert mondial de cette activité. Pour ce type de clients, on bosse sur d’autres produits : AI, HPC, BigData, pCE, Cloud Secure, Cloud Game, Cloud Edge.

Aussi, nous sommes le grand gagnant de la bataille autour du Bare Metal. Nous sommes devenus le principal fournisseur mondial du serveur dédié at scale. Nous avons déstabilisé tous nos concurrents mondiaux, au point qu’ils ont été obligés de changer de stratégie et de se réinventer. Certains de ces anciens concurrents sont devenus nos partenaires et nous commandent aujourd’hui de gros volumes de Bare Metal, en marque blanche, dans nos 28 datacentres partout dans le monde.

On continue de travailler pour les petites entreprises, qui ont besoin des outils numériques. On est en train d’aller au-delà des noms de domaine ou de l’hébergement web, et je sens qu’on va surprendre avec nos nouveaux produits. Puis bien sûr, nous aussi on développe le Public Cloud. Oui on a du retard, mais on va le combler progressivement.

Notre stratégie produit pour les années 2020-2022 est claire. De nouveaux produits sont attendus à la rentrée, puis d’autres vont arriver l’année prochaine. On va annoncer de belles choses au Summit le 10 octobre prochain, hâte de vous y retrouver.

Je peux comprendre que certains, et notamment nos concurrents, ne croient pas en notre stratégie. Nous on y croit, et le plus important : nos clients y croient. Ils pensent qu’on va dans la bonne direction et ils commandent nos produits actuels. Ainsi, ils nous donnent les moyens de croitre et nous, à notre tour, on continue d’investir. On reste le pied au plancher.

A la recherche du buzz

Quand je lis « la masse salariale a été réduite de 300 salariés », alors qu’on vient de passer de 1200 à 2200 salariés en 2 ans, je pense qu’on cherche à faire du buzz. Nous, on travaille dur tous les jours pour faire quelque chose que peu d’entreprises en Europe ont réussi à faire. Oui, on était monté jusqu’à 2500 salariés, puis nous avons restructuré les USA, et nous avons eu des départs de personnes qui ne se retrouvaient plus chez OVH.

J’avais expliqué en avril comment je conçois le rôle de l’humain en entreprise, via le concept de BFLNT. Et bien dans cette phase de blitzscaling, on s’est parfois planté en recrutant dans le B (« business as usual »), et non pas dans FLNT (« Fix », « Lean », « New », « Transformation »). Mais c’est inexact et injuste de dire que « le ciel s’est assombri » ! Désormais, on recrute bien, sur les bonnes missions, des gens qui ont de l’impact, qui respectent nos valeurs. D’ailleurs, plus de 180 postes sont actuellement à pourvoir sur notre site http://careers.ovh.com/fr.

L’article parle aussi de finances. Il parait que ça irait mal, avec « un chiffre d’affaires en hausse de 20% (tout de même) au lieu des 30% prévus » et des investissements gelés. Et bien non : ça va bien. Combien d’entreprises auraient rêvé d’avoir 20% de croissance en faisant 600M€ de chiffre d’affaires ? On prévoit toujours d’arriver à 1 milliard de chiffre d’affaires d’ici 3 ans. Chaque semaine, OVH investit entre 3M€ et 5M€. Si on ne le faisait pas, on ne saurait pas livrer nos clients. Bref, OVH continue de croître rapidement. L’entreprise est profitable et les investisseurs ont confiance en OVH. Nous avons choisi des investisseurs de qualité, très solides, qui partagent nos valeurs et notre rêve.

Le modèle de croissance européen

J’en retiens que l’entreprise, aventure humaine avant tout, pose des vraies questions autour de l’hyper croissance. Comment croitre très rapidement en gardant ses valeurs ? Comment avoir la bonne orga pour le scale ? Recruter les bonnes personnes pour cette orga ? Et cela en très peu de temps ? Et si l’on fait de la croissance externe et qu’on rachète des boites : comment les fusionner ensemble ? Il y a souvent des mix culturels complexes et beaucoup d’acquisitions ratent sur des questions de culture. Aujourd’hui, je n’ai pas les réponses à toutes ces questions et peu en ont.

Au final, c’est vraiment dommage qu’en France et en Europe, certains soient aussi pessimistes. Alors oui, si les Américains et les Chinois avancent aussi vite, c’est effectivement parce qu’ils ont un vaste marché intérieur, qu’ils sont soutenus par les pouvoirs publics, que les innovations sont rapidement adoptées et utilisées, ce qui permet de booster l’essor des startups et la croissance de tout le secteur. Mais au-delà de ces facteurs, s’ils vont vite, c’est parce qu’ils sont portés par un rêve.

Et bien moi, j’ai aussi un rêve. Et les retours que j’ai des équipes, c’est que chez OVH, nous l’avons tous ce rêve. Nous avons tous l’envie de changer le monde. Nous avons tous l’envie de construire des produits simples, ouverts et transparents, accessibles partout, y compris aux USA. Et moi, j’ai pas du tout envie de vendre la boite pour aller boire des piña-colada. Nous éprouvons un réel plaisir chaque lundi matin à nous retrouver pour construire un futur meilleur. Cette sensation de construire quelque chose de plus grand que nous, cela n’a pas de prix. On est là pour durer.

OVH is a digital company in that we use software to deliver the service ordered by the customer. Like other companies, we serve our customers in many ways, but the actions of our employees do not have the same why. Toward the end of 2017, I realized that many who joined us did not understand what the unique qualities of a digital business are. In other words, they didn’t get the why. To train our teams quickly, we had to create simple tools that incorporate principles, tools, and often common sense to educate everyone about the fundamentals of a digital company.  

One of the tools I developed has the acronym “BFLNT”. The name is not very sexy but it gets the job done. I proposed using this tool to examine the entire OVH organization to answer some simple questions that must be asked when recruiting in a digital company. Some of those questions are:  

• When recruiting new teams, how do we ensure that we are still building a digital company? 
• How do we know that we are focusing our efforts in the right place?  
• How do we describe the mission of each employee?  
• What is involved in the transformation of a business into a digital enterprise?  
• What is the impact of this transformation on the business model?  

This is not the only framework for defining the structure of a digital enterprise. If you know of other similar tools, please do not hesitate to share them on Twitter @olesovhcom 

B: BAU = Business as Usual

In BAU, we consolidate all the projects, tasks, and daily actions needed to execute the processes necessary to deliver the service sold to the customer.  These business processes remain constant over time. 

The Digital Revolution consists of digital companies conducting BAU through the use of machines powered by software. BAU processes are identified in the context of an ideal company, with no glitches or bugs. Software, robots, drones, and artificial intelligence are used to carry out the processes, based on data. In this type of futuristic and ideal digital enterprise, no one is employed to deliver the specific services ordered by the customer. BAU processes have been so carefully thought out and automated that there is no need to have employees do this work. 

Let’s take a real-life BAU example: initiating a bank transfer. Before the Digital Revolution, the customer spoke to a teller and signed documents to initiate the transfer. Then the bank executed a series of processes, using off-shoring for many of them. 

Today, with one click of his or her smartphone, the customer can initiate a bank transfer using the app or software created by the digital bank. This is classic BAU, with no human intervention. Similar types of transactions are possible in doing business with hotels, insurance companies, movie theaters, and purchasing music.  

By reducing the costs of BAU, improving productivity, and reducing costs for customers, software is propelling digital companies and drives the Digital Revolution. Customers also improve productivity by initiating business themselves through mobile apps and websites. Behind the scenes, companies use robots, drones, and will soon use autonomous container ship and cars to execute client orders. 

 A comparison of standard vs. digital company business models shows that in a standard business model, the cost of BAU is proportional to income. In a digital enterprise, BAU is a fixed cost. Digital companies continue to invest in and to use software, robots, drones, and anything that can be automated in order to further reduce costs. Thus, a digital company recruits employees not to carry out BAU processes, but to further automate them. 

When I started OVH, I immediately wanted to use software everywhere. Why? First, I was born with a computer in my hands and wanted to make a box where I could code crazy stuff. In addition, I started OVH with nothing. In software, I saw a solution to do much with little  and to lower costs for clients. From the beginning, we coded all the business processes. Today a customer can still go to the site, order a service, pay, and the software will configure the infrastructure and deliver the service. There is no human intervention. Historically, our prices have been cheaper because of this software attitude in our DNA. 

However, the technology doesn’t exist that can automate everything, so outside of our core business, the rest of BAU is not (yet) fully digitalized , though software, robots, and automation do support each of the following areas of our work. Support services answer our customers’ questions about the use of products and services. The sales reps listen to the customer to understand client needs in order to select the right product. Factory teams assemble servers and ship them to data centers. We haven’t digitalized the building and expansion of our data centers. The finance, human resources, and legal teams are needed to support the activity of OVH. So even in digital companies like OVH, BAU with no human intervention is not (yet) true. We know that market pressure to offer even cheaper, more scalable products will keep us always questioning ourselves. OVH is committed to further industrialize, automate, develop, and innovate in order to reduce the cost of BAU and thus reduce prices for our customers. 

The mindset of the BAU teams is quite schizophrenic. On one hand, teams must be involved in the execution of and performance of daily processes. On the other hand, these teams must deliver quality work that identifies improvements in the tools that will simplify their work, reduce their workload, work smarter, or even eliminate their jobs. Crucial to this process is a work environment in which perseverance in the present is balanced with an eye to the future. We are constantly questioning and improving. 

BAU is based on the ideal company, but we know that a perfect world doesn’t exist. For this reason, I’ve created the other 4 features of BFLNT: 

• F: FIX 
• L: LEAN 
• N: NEW 
• T: TRANSFORMATION  

F: FIX

 Because it’s impossible to deliver BAU glitch-free, FIX projects, processes, and teams are in place to solve unforeseen problems. 

In OVH, our RUN teams work on 2 missions 24/7 :  

• Monitor customer-ordered, BAU-delivered services and software FIXes, which automatically correct bugs in BAU software. RUN teams also intervene when FIX software doesn’t fix bugs.
• Respond to customers reporting incidents missed by monitoring. Even the best monitoring is not able to imagine all potential problems.  

 We continually improve our monitoring, software FIXes, and BAU software. The post mortem process is in place to eliminate recurring problems. Failing to perform this process correctly may lead to the additional hiring for FIX and so increase the cost. Or reduce the quality of the service.  

Because bugs will always exist, it’s a mistake to look for savings on FIX and try to reduce its cost to zero, which is impossible. In the ever-changing digital world, clients may accept the occasional glitch, but non-functioning software is unacceptable.  

American companies probably understand the importance of FIX more than European companies do. Substantial investment in FIX in these companies is due to the FIX in their DNA. Because of the huge cost of FIX, American digital companies seek volume and expansion into the world market as one way of lessening the impact of FIX spending on the business model.  

With the mottos never let go and never give up, the FIX teams tenaciously persevere. They spend every day focusing on identifying and fixing problems. Not everyone can handle this kind of work. The character traits we seek for those on our FIX teams are positivity, joy, perseverance, courage, and a strong service orientation. 

L : LEAN

LEAN in the digital context involves improving the effectiveness of the BAU software’s operation, in the same way that streamlining work on assembly lines is done in manufacturing. These are LEAN’s three priorities. First, LEAN can take the form of refactoring code, optimizing databases, and changing programming languages, thus executing the software faster with fewer computing resources. Second, LEAN also improves the code to fix the bugs discovered by FIX. Finally, LEAN teams also develop the ideas that come from BAU.  

LEAN team members are meticulous perfectionists who work on those rare instances of problems that are certain to happen. These teams also consider general improvements to services, as well as specific challenges, such as how best to deliver services to customers in 10 seconds vs. 20. 

The rationale for making such small incremental improvements in speed is not a defensive because our competitors will do it. LEAN teams passionately and constantly push against their own limits in what Simon Sinek describes as The Infinite Game. It is a sport that has no limit. 

N: NEW

Risk-taking is in the DNA of each company. NEW for digital companies typically means developing new code to offer customers new features, new products, new services, all in the service of meeting new customer needs. 

But NEW is not only about writing code. NEW must take into account customer needs and the business model, which includes price, cost, volume, and the size of the market. Once we’ve considered those factors, then we’ll focus on the software. NEW teams require marketing, technical, and financial know-how in developing new products.  

NEW teams collaborate with customers in rapid cycles of iterative processes. They test ideas with customers, let go of the ineffective ones and run with the ones that work. Developing customer relationships based on trust and collaboration is crucial to this process. 

Compromise and disruption are also part of the NEW Team portfolio. The client always wants 1+1 to equal 3 and we need to deliver, which requires thinking outside the box. An example of OVH success in this area involves the cooling of the data centers that we developed in 2003. From the outset, we were convinced that we’d find a way to cool the data centers with water, similar to the way liquid cooling was developed to cool car engines. We simply told ourselves it was possible and then made it happen. This example illustrates that digital companies don’t often create truly new inventions. What we’re really doing is adapting existing technology in new contexts. This is the true meaning of the word hack. 

The arrival of AI is disrupting the software industry in many ways. NEW and LEAN code software AI which “automates” the developers. Inception. This is a great topic for a future blog post. 

T: TRANSFORMATION

Business TRANSFORMATION is a well-known process. Sometimes  TRANSFORMATION is necessary because the company isn’t working effectively and so has to be restructured. Sometimes TRANSFORMATION is needed because the company is highly successful and growing, so it needs to transform processes and the organization in order to work effectively on a larger scale.

In digital companies, TRANSFORMATION to flat, transversal models, in which organizations use collective intelligence, are more common. These companies don’t have the luxury to pay for organizational silos, ego battles, or slow execution due to a lack of information. Digital companies have survival in their DNA. Picture a living entity designed by Mother Nature in which the organs are autonomous and also interdependent. Thought is given to including men and women in the company from diverse backgrounds, countries, and ways of thinking, and allowing them to work together effectively. The result of millions of years of Darwinian evolution makes these companies more organic, more humane, and more robust, which helps them to survive.  

TRANSFORMATION teams share the never give up ethos, but work in a quiet and empathetic manner. They specialize in the process of transforming the company. Transforming the culture is the first step and is achieved by listening, explaining, and providing meaning, thereby helping employees to go through the process of TRANSFORMATION. They encourage and reassure employees while maintaining focus. 

SUMMING UP  

Digital businesses already incorporate LEAN, which provides the opportunity to transform BAU. Because these go hand-in-hand, the culture will also need to transform. Once BAU is automated, the center of gravity of the company must switch to data, which will, in turn, change the organization, its functioning, and the roles of the individuals in the company.  

Building BAU, FIX, LEAN, NEW and TRANSFORMATION teams requires understanding psychology, the deep motivations of all involved, and finding the best talent who can work together. At OVH, about 50% of the teams work on BAU, 10% on FIX, 25% on LEAN, 10% on NEW, and 5% on TRANSFORMATION.  Our goal is to move to about 40% on BAU, 10% on FIX, 30% on LEAN, 15% on NEW, and 5% on TRANSFORMATION. 

LEAN and the NEW teams are expensive. Companies have to recruit employees who develop software and need to transform the business, its organization, and culture. These are investments in current production tools for a better future. If one thinks long term, these investments are indispensable. And there’s a lot of good news. First, setting up LEAN and NEW teams allows a company to requalify all these direct investment costs. At the level of budget, all these OPEX can be invested as CAPEX and amortized over 5 years. This shows that the business has remained profitable despite a profound internal transformation. However, this does not change the cash flow situation; employees still must be paid. Increasing capital may be necessary in order to have the funds for investing in LEAN and NEW and thus reduce the costs of BAU. There are many players in the market to assist with this. Profitability will be increased and this is good in the long term.  

Using the ecosystem model of interdependence will further reduce the costs of BAU more quickly. The competitive edge that American companies have over European companies is often thanks to speed and their ability to take risks. In risk-averse Europe, we are cautious, prefer to go slower and stay in control. Compromise is not actually used in Europe and one prefers to think in a binary way, in good vs. bad. In Europe, we have not yet seen that solutions come through trust and working within the ecosystem. 

I remain convinced that neither a company nor an ecosystem can succeed without trust, which cannot exist without passion. A company and an ecosystem are by definition organizations built on foundations of human concerns. Bonds of trust are created in part through an understanding of one’s own limits and the willingness to be vulnerable. However, it’s not easy to create organizations in which vulnerability is a sign of maturity and not an admission of weakness. This is not the typical mindset employees bring to work. In fact, the opposite is often true. It’s imperative to know how to create an environment that fosters trust and encourages women and men to want to work together. Trust is the basis of a company, a reliable, profitable long-term ecosystem.  

We are definitely living in passionate times!