More and more companies are developing a hybrid cloud strategy and even more are adopting a multicloud approach that they combine with their own on-premise environments.
From the point of view of connectivity, explains Alejandro Gutiérrez, Sales Director at InterCloud Spain, this can become a challenge; one that not all companies are willing to face internally.
«We believe that connectivity is something that, if not taken into account, if not properly studied, can cause problems. Therefore, our goal is to help companies in their digital transformation process, so that they are guaranteed the best connectivity, meeting all the requirements to obtain the maximum value from any cloud they use,” Gutiérrez tells us, who also tells us talks about what the proposal is that it takes to companies.
(MCPRO) What is your position in the Spanish market and what is the profile of clients you are working with?
(Alejandro Gutiérrez) We have been in the Spanish market for seven years. In the beginning, we spent a lot of time educating about the importance of connectivity, as it is not something that is considered from the beginning in many cases. However, we have experienced significant growth since then.
We work with clients of different profiles, but in general, the typical profile is that of a multinational that has a presence in several clouds and the need to connect them in a secure and reliable way, which for them can be a complex challenge to address.
But although larger companies were initially the main users of our services, we are now also seeing interest from medium-sized companies that are advancing their journey to the cloud. As these companies mature, we expect demand for our platform to increase.
(MCPRO)What are the main challenges you face in terms of connectivity?
(Alejandro Gutiérrez) When you work with multiple clouds, the complexity increases considerably. Each cloud provider has its own connection method: Azure uses ExpressRoute, AWS has Direct Connect, and Google uses Google Cloud Interconnect. Adapting to these differences in approach is a significant challenge for clients.
Furthermore, before reaching the desired cloud, clients have to go through different agents: the line provider, the connectivity service of the cloud itself, if cross-connect has to be done… etc. In the end, if you have several clouds, or if you have several CPDs, it turns out that it is a complex project and that doing it internally does not add much value, because the client’s focus is on making their business application go well.
Our solution addresses these issues by offering an extremely reliable service, backed by service level agreements (SLAs). Our message is clear: let us take care of basic connectivity so you can focus on your core business and ensuring an optimal user experience. In essence, we become the network administrator’s best ally, allowing them to level the playing field with the demand for cloud applications.
(MCPRO)How is this interconnection done in practice? How do you define the network?
(Alejandro Gutiérrez) It is crucial to understand that the connectivity environment in public clouds does not completely conform to a pure SD-WAN model. We are not talking about your own network, but rather data centers managed by different internet service providers around the world. Using pure SD-WAN technology for this environment is not ideal, although it is possible.
Our platform, InterCloud, has its own backbone that covers several countries and we manage the connectivity in this backbone, thus connecting our clients. We call our approach Software Defined Cloud Interconnectthat is, a software-defined network designed specifically to connect customer data centers with those in the cloud.
We are a platform independent of cloud, telecommunications and service providers. collocation. For example, in Spain, we connect to the entry points of the data center where the Azure region is located, thus allowing us to connect our customers to that cloud.
(MCPRO) You have just introduced InterCloud Autonomi. What are its main advantages?
(Alejandro Gutiérrez) In the world of connectivity there are two main approaches: some companies do not have the resources or do not consider connectivity management as their main activity, while others do.
Until now, our approach in the market has been to offer an end-to-end managed solution, with full service level agreements (SLAs), where we provided a complete, turnkey solution. This is the traditional approach to interconnection services known as pathway.
However, in today’s market, there are customers or partners who want to manage and control all connections for security, management and policy reasons. They want control over Level 3 connectivity and infrastructure, but they need to acquire it easily.
This is where Autonomi comes in. This solution is designed for companies or partners who want to manage intelligence and communication, and who implement level 3 management software. However, they need a flexible infrastructure that allows them to open and close connections to different public clouds in an automated manner.
Autonomi offers a typical solution «do it yourself»but with the ability to manage the level 3 service layer. This solution complements our managed services and although we see a convergence between the two in the future, for now there is a clear difference.
(MCPRO) What role does Artificial Intelligence play in your solution?
(Alejandro Gutiérrez) The integration of artificial intelligence in management is inevitable. Today, algorithms and APIs offer some level of automation, although they still do not reach the full potential of artificial intelligence. However, it is an aspect that will surely be integrated in the future.
At the moment, the options available include using APIs to integrate with different providers, which provides a degree of intelligence. For example, an integrator or end customer may prioritize cost over service level agreement, or latency when choosing a connection, depending on their specific needs.
Although currently the artificial intelligence technology in this area is not yet fully developed, it is of course something that we are going to keep an eye on and work on.
(MCPRO)Finally, how are you developing your partner ecosystem?
(Alejandro Gutiérrez) From the beginning, we have adopted a clear mindset regarding our business strategy, something that is repeated in all our launches, including this third subsidiary that we have successfully launched. The first step is always to attract a minimum number of clients to gain visibility in the market, and we have already achieved that.
Now, our focus is on attracting great partners. Although I cannot reveal names at the moment, we are working with them to integrate our connectivity services into their closed end-to-end offerings. Since connectivity is a crucial link in the outsourcing and cloud services chain, these large partners need agile connectivity, and that’s what we offer.
Our vision is clear. Autonomi has been developed to meet the needs of both partners who want to manage connectivity themselves and those who prefer a comprehensive turnkey solution.
Furthermore, in Spain we are leading this partnership model within InterCloud, allowing our partners to include our services in their portfolio. This makes a big difference in offering a comprehensive approach that covers communications, which is increasingly critical in workload-intensive environments.