For organizations, it is becoming increasingly important to know exactly where and when their data is stored. This is not only to gain faster business insights from that data, but also because compliance and other regulations are becoming increasingly stringent. To guarantee this data sovereignty, the Dutch cloud provider Fundaments works exclusively with purely Dutch data centers and VMware technology. In its collaboration with VMware, Fundaments has recently even become the first cloud provider in the Netherlands to achieve VMware Sovereign Cloud status.
“Fundaments is a cloud provider for resellers who value Dutch quality,” begins CEO Raoul Werger. “We are eight years old, but have over two decades of experience in hosting. Our founding was tied to the rise of the hyperscalers, large cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. We wanted to provide a fully Dutch, certified answer to that.”
Partly based on their experience with managed hosting and with an eye toward faster growth, Fundaments has focused on collaborating with partners to offer IaaS services from the very beginning. Partners are given a great deal of autonomy by the cloud provider to manage and service their customers, such as restoring backups themselves, and so on.
“We can offer that autonomy with the help of our platform and VMware technology,” states Werger. “But autonomy doesn’t mean ‘doing everything yourself.’ Partners can always turn to our 24/7 helpdesk for the necessary technical support. In that regard, too, we are an alternative to the hyperscalers. Our managed hosting providers had the experience that, when problems arose at night, they couldn’t turn to Azure or AWS. With us, they can quickly connect with an engineer for a customer issue they cannot resolve themselves.”
Sovereign cloud
Fundaments offers a 100 percent Dutch, ‘sovereign’ cloud environment that complies with all applicable laws and regulations (data must remain in the Netherlands), explains CTO Larik-Jan Verschuren. “We notice that organizations are often concerned about where their company’s digital crown jewels are actually located. Whether they are properly protected, or whether they are even allowed to be in a certain location. Our cloud has features that go beyond a generic public cloud. You always know where the data is, and you know that you are compliant with Dutch and EU legislation.”
In addition, according to Verschuren, Fundaments can operate cloud-independently and everything is in control from A to Z: from people to processes and technology. “This starts with how we set up a data center, to how we ensure the continuity of organizations through our choices for hardware, software, and their configuration. Furthermore, we ensure that we bring daily management to the highest level with our skilled colleagues.”
Mission Critical cloud
Many mission-critical services that cannot afford an outage run on the Fundaments platform. That makes the Fundaments Cloud a Mission Critical Cloud as well, Werger states. “And not just for data like patient or banking records. Workspaces can also be mission-critical applications, or a transaction platform for an e-commerce company. If that platform goes down for a moment during a peak period due to a malfunction, they lose massive amounts of money.”
Verschuren emphasizes that Fundaments therefore chooses best-of-breed technology for other parts of the Fundaments Cloud. “Whether it’s a choice for Dell or VMware, we always choose what we believe are the best products and services. This allows you to guarantee the quality you promise, and we can focus primarily on our partners and their customers. And regardless of which Tier 3+ data center our cloud is in, we use the same template. That standardization keeps our platform simple.”
A step further
The partners of Fundaments include ISVs that use the Fundaments Cloud for their software applications, as well as MSPs and IT service providers such as workspace providers. “We offer them a range of services around our platform and helpdesk,” emphasizes Werger. “Such as onboarding, a partner marketing kit with all our products and services that they can easily use as white label in their communications and quotes. And sometimes we help when a partner needs to deliver custom work; we can draw on our previous experience for that. I think we go a step further than average in that regard.”
The level of support also depends on the type of partner, Werger observes. “One manages with access to our portal and a virtual data center. Another needs more knowledge, advice, or a sounding board. We now also have a renewed partner program, with which we can fully serve our partners. Deal registration processes to properly support partners with technological support for (end) users. This is what a partnership means to us: doing business together.”
Collaboration with VMware
VMware was already mentioned. Fundaments works intensively with this leading provider of multi-cloud services and is one of the few parties in the Netherlands to be a VMware Cloud Verified partner. The choice for VMware is logical, Werger believes, because the company’s technology has clearly proven itself. “Moreover, they offer good support, assistance, and training. If something does go wrong, we can quickly escalate with them and you are referred to a team that knows your market and market challenges.”
“We first worked with open-source technology,” adds Verschuren. “Great technology, but nothing to fall back on for support. Forget scalability; everyone is constantly putting out fires. With VMware, we offer our partners and their customers a stable, reliable, and scalable platform, which also burdens our people and those of our partners much less with all kinds of malfunctions. With the current scarcity in the labor market, that is becoming increasingly important.”
This also frees up more time to innovate based on the VMware technology used, such as the recently launched Fundaments service CPaaS on VMware Tanzu, continues Verschuren: “VMware supports us in that. They make time for you, listen to what you want, and include you in their roadmap, so you know what is coming. Your relationship with a vendor should also be a partnership, and you don’t find that everywhere.”
1) all VMware partners with their own data centers that use VMware software to serve their customers (such as Fundaments).
2) MSPs that serve VMware through its data centers for, among other things, Cloud AWS, the ST1 service based on Velo Cloud, security services based on Carbon Black, and Verizon Cloud Services.
Both segments fall under the VMware Cloud Provider Program (VCPP). The Cloud Verified partnership is the most far-reaching within this program and is the partner variant of the VMware Verified Design program - designs for end customers across the entire range of VMware’s cloud-based solutions.
Godwin: “Cloud Verified partners have a high status that only a limited number of partners possess - six in the Netherlands. It gives us the confidence that when a party like Fundaments brings a solution to the market, it happens according to our architectures and designs in their purest form. Any party that invests in VMware to that extent is highly committed to us.”
Sovereign Cloud
Fundaments has also recently become a Sovereign Cloud partner of VMware. And that is no small feat, states Godwin. The rise of the concept of sovereign cloud and data sovereignty stems, according to him, from the fact that the use of hyperscalers sometimes entails risks for organizations and their data regarding compliance and regulation. If a Dutch organization chooses a European cloud provider that nevertheless partially stores user data in an American data center, it still runs the risk of not being compliant.
Godwin: ”Our Sovereign Cloud initiative started last year to prevent this. It is aimed at partners who not only provide data center infrastructure but also a certified sovereign cloud experience. Then, as an organization, you know 100 percent for sure that you are doing business with a party that only stores your data where it is allowed according to the relevant regulations – for example, the GDPR.”
Strict requirements
While Cloud Verified already sets strict requirements for partners, that is even more the case with Sovereign Cloud. Just as not every VMware partner becomes Cloud Verified, not every Cloud Verified partner will become a Sovereign Cloud partner. The fact that Fundaments has now achieved this status as the first cloud provider in the Netherlands means, according to Godwin, that they are a top partner for VMware in this regard.
“Where we have a hands-off approach with our Cloud Verified partners – we trust that these partners deliver the best VMware cloud product – it is much more hands-on with Sovereign Cloud. Partly because this is also a new initiative for us, partly because the data sovereignty of our end customers is of crucial importance to us. This is not a matter of trust, but means that we want to learn, further develop, and grow together in a complex, heavily regulated partner market.”
Godwin therefore expects mutual benefit from a long-term relationship with a party like Fundaments, in which they collaborate on Sovereign Cloud designs. “We are only at the beginning and have to put into practice how this initiative will work for our customers. But given the rigorous certification that Fundaments meets, I have no doubt that we will achieve good results.”
