Computas, a leading Norwegian IT consultancy, is expanding its cloud provider portfolio by partnering with French OVHcloud, Europe’s largest public cloud provider. This partnership comes in response to a significant shift in market demand, with a growing preference for European providers.
For years, American cloud platforms from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have been considered essential for driving IT modernization and innovation through digitalization. Computas has built extensive expertise in developing cloud-based infrastructure, applications, and data platforms, serving a large client base in both the private and public sectors. While Computas already holds partnerships with Microsoft and Google and offers development expertise on AWS, they’re now seeing increased demand for alternatives to these American hyperscalers.
“In today’s uncertain geopolitical landscape, preparedness and protectionism have become a greater focus for many businesses, and we’ve certainly felt that,” says Trond Eilertsen, CEO of Computas. He explains that several Computas clients are actively assessing their ability to quickly migrate between cloud platforms, and skepticism towards American cloud providers has increased.
“It’s not necessarily about everyone planning an actual exit, but they want to understand the risks and have a plan ready if the need to move arises. Whether the reason is Trump or other factors, it’s sensible to have a digital contingency plan,” says Eilertsen. He highlights particular demand from the public sector and industries like power, finance, and media. “These are sectors where sovereignty over their own infrastructure, data, and systems is especially critical.”
Choosing the Best European Alternative
Computas has recently conducted lectures and workshops for clients looking to evaluate their situation and contingency plans. This eventually led to the need to evaluate and test European alternatives to the American hyperscalers. Filip Van Laenen, Director of Application Development at Computas, led this effort.
“It’s true, as many say, that there are no European providers that currently fully match the offerings from the American providers. But we were pleasantly surprised by how far several of the European providers have come, especially in terms of portability and data security,” says Van Laenen.
OVHcloud offers a broad range of services, data centers within the EU/EEA, and an open platform that provides flexibility without vendor lock-in. For many businesses, this is a crucial factor in today’s risk landscape.
Computas has already successfully tested migrating applications to OVHcloud – both internal solutions and for clients. Van Laenen explains that such tests provide better insight into what it would actually take to carry out a migration if it becomes necessary. “It’s about digital preparedness. Not necessarily because you’re going to pull the plug, but because you should have control over what happens if someone else does it for you,” he says.
