DIGITAL ACCELERATION BOOSTS 3DS OUTSCALE

No break during lockdown for this SecNumCloud certified sovereign Cloud actor since December 2019. The acceleration of digital uses in many sectors has even boosted the activity of 3DS OUTSCALE, Cloud subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes. KEONYS gives you an exclusive testimony of David Chassan, Chief Strategy Officer.

“We organized ourselves internally by working remotely for all employees with one referent per department. And we continued to ensure the quality of our services to public and private organizations.”

KEONYS – Why should we choose the Cloud ?

David Chassan – The digital transformation has dramatically accelerated in recent years in many sectors of the economy, from education to industry, in order to face new industrial and societal challenges. We all use services on the Cloud on a daily basis, both in the professional and private environment, such as social networks, email, photo storage or streaming videos.

The health crisis we are currently going through enlightens the good practices of organizations that have gone digital. Working and collaborating remotely in Cloud mode rhymes with agility, efficiency and security. It is no longer necessary to install software or servers on site, they are accessible via the Internet with a single click. IT infrastructure costs are considerably reduced, and updates are made in real time. Storage capacity and data security are fully managed by the cloud provider.

KEONYS – Safety is still a challenge for many companies, what would you tell them?

D.C. – 3DS OUTSCALE is the only Cloud provider to offer the highest level of certification and the first in the world to obtain the SecNumCloud qualification, issued by the ANSSI (National Authority for the Security of Information Systems). This qualification guarantees the security of processes and services for highly sensitive and strategic areas, whether in the public or private sector such as energy, transportation or defense. Some organizations are required to comply with the ANSSI recommendations.

KEONYS – How did you manage the business with your customers?

D.C. – Our clients are startups, software publishers, companies and public organisations.

We anticipate our material and human resources very regularly through our ISO 27001 certified capacity management. We had just received 2.5 tons of equipment to double the capacity of a datacenter. This is an order placed a few months ago to accommodate the growing use of our customers and the projects we were working on. We were thus able to satisfy our customers’ Cloud uses in Europe under the same conditions as before lockdown. No network overload or saturation.

As a responsible company, we have also supported various initiatives risen from this lockdown period, such as Scalingo, which deployed in less than 4 days the Civic Reserve portal for the government, capable of supporting more than 2 million registrations per hour. The SATELLIZ initiative enabled Jamespot, a collaborative software publisher, to technically integrate open-source Jitsi video-conferencing technology on the SecNumCloud qualified Cloud platform.

KEONYS – How did you organize yourself internally?

D.C.: We organised ourselves internally by working from home for all employees and one referent per department. And we continued to ensure the quality of our services to public and private organizations. On March 2nd, we launched our Information Security Management System (ISMS) Pandemic Prevention Plan in accordance with the requirements of ISO 27001. We have set up a crisis unit with a representative for senior management, security, infrastructure, HR and communication. Our 140 employees, mainly located in Saint Cloud, close to Paris, (92), are working remotely and we make sure that the social link is maintained, such as the virtual Thursday afternoon snacks that are conducive to chats and artistic creations by parents and … children.

Thanks to our continuity plan, we have maintained the planned hirings during the period of breakdown and we have carried out about thirty interviews by videoconference to welcome new talents in the near future.

KEONYS – What did this period of lockdown mean to you in terms of Cloud use and society? Does the Cloud encourage working from home?

D.C.: The Cloud enables teleworking for all the services of a company. Thanks to the Cloud, all production or business departments can have the applications and data they need at their disposal. People can thus pursue their missions and projects from home.

In addition, the IT department has an infrastructure that it can manage autonomously without the physical or security constraints of the premises. It can manage the capacities of virtual machines at any time without the need for CAPEX. It now plays a key strategic role for new organizations.

KEONYS – Will this experience promote new ways of organizing at work?

D.C. : Yes, clearly. We have found that the companies that have been able to continue to operate are those that have embraced the digital transformation we’ve been hearing about for a long time. For our part, we were born “Cloud-native”. Some companies were organized to work remotely. Unfortunately for others, the digital transformation was not complete or was still a project.

It was not a fad. On the contrary, new organizations need agility, innovation and security. It doesn’t matter whether employees are in offices, at home or in coworking space. It’s about unleashing everyone’s talents.

KEONYS – Will it lift the brakes of some managers who are still reluctant to adopt this use?

D.C. : Some organisations need to have confidence. How can we think that employees can loose their responsibilities, their enthusiasm, their motivation when they walk through the door of a company when they are the coach of a sports team, a music teacher, parents, a local elected representative or the president of a charity?

For those who have the deep conviction that no trust can be granted, then they are living through a sad and unhappy period.

For others who have seen that their teams are making progress on their projects and that they are capable of self-organization, then this revelation will allow them to get through the crisis and look to the future with serenity.

KEONYS – Will the economic aspect (reduction of IT costs among others) be a trigger?

D.C.: The economic factor is one of the drivers in all decisions. On this point, teleworking can be considered as: less office space, less energy consumption… But it is above all the Cloud that takes the lead with the absence of CAPEX or financing, no more need for square meters of clean room to secure.

Above all, the company will gain in efficiency and agility and will be able to free up human resources for more innovation and responsibility.

KEONYS – Will extended collaboration be the driving force towards further innovation within the company?

D.C.: Yes, this is a virtuous effect that we can expect. In all phases of a product or service lifecycle, the entire ecosystem can be involved in product innovation or improvement from ideation to support.