Shift from ‘cloud first’ to ‘data first’

Published by Dutch IT Channel

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CTO Larik-Jan Verschuren begins with a brief bit of company history. “We’ve been around for 25 years. The common thread has always been providing hosting-related services for clients from the data center. In fact, we were already offering cloud services back in 2000, before the term was even in use. Of course, a lot has changed in the world. We are all doing more and more with the cloud, but we don’t think much about where the data in that cloud ends up and who is processing it. Since Trump came to power, that last part has certainly changed.”

“We operationalize server, network, and storage infrastructure in data centers, providing a platform where your applications can be deployed,” Verschuren explains. “There are more and more variations of this. Everything is becoming much more containerized. The rise of AI is also changing a lot. Small ‘factories’ need to be built to roll out AI. Our reason for being remains the fact that we know where your data lands and who can access it. We look after that data, even in this era of AI agents.”

The reality is different

In the past, Fundaments didn’t usually talk about private cloud or sovereign cloud, but they have actually been offering it for a long time, says Ron Boscu. He has been the sales and marketing manager at Fundaments for a year. He focuses largely on the private cloud offering, particularly for the healthcare and (semi-)public sectors. Boscu has years of experience with cloud and data centers, including as sales director at Equinix. He spent the last few years doing something else, until he was approached by Fundaments. “To be honest, at that time I felt the cloud market had already been completely claimed by the major American players. I notice that many people think the same. But I’ve discovered that the reality is completely different from that framing. More than 65 percent of national and regional government bodies, semi-public organizations, and healthcare institutions still keep their data in their own data centers.”

According to Boscu, organizations choose this primarily for security and control. “It is mainly their crown jewels that they keep in their own data centers. Most organizations only take action when their infrastructure reaches end-of-life. Until recently, we at Fundaments stayed away from clients’ own infrastructure because we hadn’t developed it ourselves, but now we help them with it. In addition to offering shared and private CPaaS (Container Platform as a Service) on our own platform, we can also manage infrastructure at the client’s location or in a data center for them. Since then, many clients have been coming to us. For them, there is no standard solution. It is almost always a combination, a patchwork. We support that patchwork.”

Business wants guarantees

In this way, Fundaments also wants to ensure that IT and the business side are less at odds with each other. Boscu: “IT wants to outsource things to save money and because they can’t find the right people. The business is happy that everything is running and just wants to keep it that way. Business departments are, much to my disappointment, often not focused on how they can make things more efficient.”

But in recent months, something has changed, he notes. “Because of Trump’s policies, people have suddenly become afraid of the fact that they don’t have a grip on their data. I call it a kind of ‘kill switch.’ The business now wants the guarantee that they are 100 percent the owners of their data. That is the core question. Budgets are being freed up to gain and maintain control, and there is a huge demand for private cloud.”

When making these kinds of decisions, it is often about money, Boscu points out. “The heavier the applications that need to be hosted, the greater the financial advantage with us. Because we offer customization, we are more flexible and scalable, with the required 24/7 support underneath. We can simply offer that more smartly than the large hyperscalers. Companies notice that their budgets with those hyperscalers often run out much faster than expected due to opaque and therefore unpredictable monthly costs. This is despite the fact that the business wanted to save money in the first place. Furthermore, they get little to no help when a problem arises.”

Discussions about data strategy

Verschuren also notices that conversations have changed significantly as a result. “In the past, companies talked about a ‘cloud-first’ strategy, and the type of cloud didn’t really matter to them. The discussion is now less about cost and convenience and more about data strategy. You have to ask yourself what data you really need to exist as an organization. You must protect that important data well. Data is therefore increasingly being labeled again, just like in the past. You then look for a cloud provider, which could very well be a hyperscaler. The answer is often a mix of multiple clouds. So, you have to shift from a ‘cloud-first strategy’ to a ‘data-first strategy.’”

That narrative is particularly strong among government and healthcare organizations, which Fundaments is focusing on more and more. Verschuren: “Because we are talking more about data, we are helping larger and larger organizations.” Boscu: “We prefer to work with organizations that think about the long term and understand the importance of ownership, translating that into data classification and data labeling.”

Conscious choices in Eindhoven

One of those clients is the Municipality of Eindhoven, where Fundaments won a European tender for a new private cloud environment, including support and management. Verschuren: “We set up our private cloud solution there locally. This way, the client combines the convenience of outsourcing management with having a grip on their data and applications. That is exactly what they wanted. A great example of an organization that thought very carefully about their data strategy and made conscious choices based on that.”

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Curious about the success story of Fundaments & the Municipality of Eindhoven? Read more here.