Google and OVHcloud to bring co-built cloud services to European enterprises

Google has struck a technology alliance with French infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider OVHcloud that will see the pair bring to the European market a jointly created hosted private cloud service.

The service will be based on the Google Cloud team’s multicloud management platform, Anthos, which is designed to enable enterprises to containerise their applications so they can run competing public cloud environments in on-premise locations with minimal modifications.

OVHcloud will use Anthos to create a hosted private cloud offering that will run within its own datacentre infrastructure, and will be operated and managed in Europe by the OVHcloud team accordingly.  

The offering will be among a slew of co-built cloud services the pair plan to roll out to the European market to assist enterprises in delivering on their multi-cloud strategies and accelerating the pace of their overall digital transformation efforts, the companies said in a statement.

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, described the alliance as the “first of its kind” the public cloud giant has signed to date.

“Listening to our customers, partners and policymakers in Europe, we understand their need for even greater control and autonomy,” said Kurian.

"We address this in many ways and  look forward to continuing to deliver on our customer commitments in a meaningful way with a partner with whom we share values of trust, innovation, collaboration, openness, security, interoperability, transparency and environmental responsibilities to jointly add value and help our customers accelerate their digital transformation.”

The technology tie-up between the two firms is notable, given OVHcloud’s past efforts to position itself as the European alternative to the “big three” US public cloud giants through its championing of open source technologies, and its outspoken stance on data protection issues.

For example, the firm’s CEO Michel Paulin has repeatedly gone on record to make the point that, as a European cloud provider, OVHcloud is largely exempt from having to comply with the US government’s Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (aka the Cloud Act).

The act gives law enforcement agencies the right to demand access data stored on servers hosted by US tech firms, even those located overseas.

The Google Cloud team, meanwhile, has moved to differentiate itself from Amazon and Microsoft in the public cloud in recent years by championing the notion of multicloud as a sourcing strategy enterprise IT leaders are keen to pursue to get the most from their off-premise investments from a cost, resiliency and performance point of view.

Like OVHcloud, the Google Cloud is a keen supporter of the open source community, which has emerged as something of a competitive differentiator for the firm in recent years, as it has continued to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft and Amazon in the public cloud space.

In a statement, Paulin said one of the main aims of the partnership is to enable the pair to bring to market co-built cloud services that will meet “Europe’s growing requirements for data sovereignty”.

“This is a significant step forward to create new value for the European market,” he said. “Combining cutting-edge technologies for the developers’ community while strengthening a powerful ecosystem of players united by a common set of values is core to OVHcloud. This partnership opens the doors to wide new possibilities, we are therefore glad to enable it together.”