Hyperscalers offer a quick and painless route to the cloud, but they’re not for every organization. From wanting more control over an environment to simplifying compliance, demand for European alternatives to hyperscalers is growing. Austrian cloud provider, eww ITandTEL, is using VMware technologies to tap into that local market to provide its customers full control over cloud environments.
eww ITandTEL provides IT and cloud services to customers across both the private and public sectors. While these businesses all have different needs, they look to eww ITandTEL for reliable, trusted services to help them achieve their business goals.
“Our customers’ success is our success. We need to stay one step ahead of changing needs to make sure we can exceed their expectations,” says Robert Steinerberger, senior systems engineer of IT services, eww ITandTEL.
What today’s customers want is greater choice and control over their environment. Costs need to be optimized, processes need to be efficient, and customer data needs to be secure and compliant. So why are some companies reluctant to turn to hyperscalers to meet these needs?
Supporting local economies and complying with regulations
Largely, it comes down to preference. For many European companies, data sovereignty is high on the agenda. Many European businesses are looking for hands-on control of their own data. They want assurance that their data is stored in Europe, that no one has unauthorized access to it, and that it complies with GDPR and the Gaia-X initiative.
While hyperscalers make every effort to meet these regulations, some businesses feel more comfortable working with a provider based in the same region who understands the regulations inside out. Staying local is also considered better for the economy and innovation within Europe.
The sheer scale of multinational hyperscalers and the vast quantities of data they handle can also be off-putting for companies worried about security and privacy. The notoriety of these companies alone makes them a more tempting target for cybercriminals than a small, independent cloud provider.
Finally, companies need to consider if the flexibility and complexity of multi-cloud is a fair trade-off when the alternative is to standardize on one hyperscaler, which risks vendor lock-in. Or, they can side-step the issue by finding an alternative provider who offers resilience, flexibility and high availability without these limitations.
Customer-centric cloud services
eww ITandTEL was already an attractive partner for customers. The cloud and services provider’s custom solutions combine a foundation of excellence with built-in flexibility that allows them to be adapted for specific use cases and requirements.
Cloud services also come with the Ö-Cloud seal of approval. That means they comply with GDPR and 135 security requirements defined by EuroCloud Austria, a network of cloud providers aiming to promote innovation and establish high service levels in the region.
“The missing piece of the puzzle was to empower customers with greater control and visibility over their own environments,” says Steinerberger. “We decided to launch a new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering to help customers scale seamlessly, boost efficiency and get a better handle on costs.”
Greater control and guaranteed compliance
With support and training from partner, evoila, eww ITandTEL rolled out VMware Cloud Director with VMware NSX. This acts as an abstraction layer and customer portal with networking and security on demand, putting the customer firmly in control of their own environment.
“During our long-term partnership with VMware, we’ve always been impressed by the resilience of the technology and fast customer support. That’s the kind of stability we need to compete with hyperscalers and other local cloud providers,” explains Steinerberger.
When GDPR was introduced, VMware took a holistic global approach to data privacy, embedding policies and governance across every area of the business to help customers achieve compliance. Meanwhile, evolia provided consultancy to ensure the organization’s new IaaS complied with Gaia-X.
The VMware solutions were deployed at the company’s Austrian data centers over a six-month period. As well as ensuring data sovereignty, the centers provide redundancy if any location is impacted by a fire or flood.
Empowering everyone to focus on what matters most
For customers using the new IaaS from eww ITandTEL, the sky’s the limit. They can take advantage of the many benefits that moving to the cloud has to offer—from adopting the latest apps and enabling hybrid working to reducing operational expenditure and future-proofing their environment—while enjoying greater transparency, peace of mind that their data is secure, and having hands-on control when they want to scale or maintain their infrastructure.
And in this case, spending less time engaging with eww ITandTEL is a direct result of a strong relationship built on trust. As Steinerberger explains, “Our customers don’t need to ask us every time they want to spin up a new virtual machine or deploy a new app. The best technology works quietly in the background so our customers can focus on their strategic initiatives. We’re still here if they need us, but we have more time to focus on developing innovative products to wow them in the future.”
Read the full customer story here.
