Municipality of Eindhoven - follow-up

Municipality of Eindhoven unburdens its IT department and takes a step toward Common Ground thanks to a sovereign Private Cloud from Fundaments.

The IT department of the Municipality of Eindhoven faced a clear challenge: the existing infrastructure was outdated, the workload was high, and a lot of time was spent on ad hoc management. The municipality decided to issue a tender for a new Private Cloud environment, including support and management. This tender process was led by IT Architect Cor Brandenburg, Cloud Consultant Sander de Rijk, and Project Manager Marcel de Vries.

Fundaments scores highest on quality

Fundaments was chosen based on the quality of their proposal and the best price-quality ratio. Sander explains: 'For us as a municipality, the technical layer of the solution is particularly important, and Fundaments made a very good impression in terms of knowledge. Moreover, during our collaboration, we became quite fond of their approach. We first looked at what we wanted to achieve together, and only then at the contract.' Cor adds: 'A result-oriented partnership emerged during the implementation phase. We share a pragmatic approach and engage in open and honest discussions. That contributes to the collaboration in a very pleasant way.'

A combination of VMware and open source

The original tender from the Municipality of Eindhoven focused on providing IaaS, BaaS, and DRaaS to create a technically solid foundation for the future. Once in discussions, the municipality added an additional requirement: realizing a modern Cloud environment for Common Ground that also complies with the Haven standard. This is a standard for platform-independent Cloud hosting, as defined by the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG).

Sander explains why: 'Many municipal applications come from the same few suppliers. With Common Ground, we wanted to reduce that dependency and provide access to applications in a modern way. Using a "buddy concept," we set up a suitable environment together with Fundaments. The IaaS environment uses VMware, and for the Common Ground principles, we chose the Kubernetes open-source platform. Both run on our Private Cloud at Fundaments. The result is a well-constructed technical foundation that we can truly build upon.'

Cor is very pleased with the perspective the new infrastructure offers: 'By decoupling our data from the middleware and the application and process layers, we always remain the owners of our data. We store it in one place and provide access via microservices, which makes the application supplier less critical. This solution not only offers us the possibility of sovereignty but also concrete opportunities to phase out existing case management systems.

Current status: stability, peace of mind, and control

The new Cloud environment is now running stably. So far, there have only been two minor hiccups, both fully within the SLA and unnoticed by the employees of the Municipality of Eindhoven. On top of that, this new way of working delivers significant savings in costs and effort. But the biggest gain for Sander and Cor is the peace of mind and confidence in the solution. Sander: "The environment is running well, and we are technically unburdened. Now our tech team just needs to learn to let go," he laughs. "That human aspect takes the longest." "But the convenience and the possibilities that have been created for the future are, of course, what matters most," says Cor. "Sovereignty really started to gain traction last year. What is happening in America now shows how important it is where you, as a municipality, store your crown jewels. I am already hearing from colleagues at other municipalities that they are looking at what we have now with great interest."

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