Cloud, operations & data sovereignty: Managed services in transition | Series: Spotlight

In the latest episode of "Dataciders Spotlight", Dr. Johannes Held, Principal Consultant at PRODATO, a company of the Dataciders Group, talks about his experiences from customer projects involving managed services and cloud technologies.

A key topic: changing requirements. Today, companies are no longer just looking for functioning solutions, but for a partner who is responsible for the entire operation - including maintenance, availability and stability. One example: reporting services are not just about the reports themselves, but also about the underlying infrastructure - such as the servers on which the reports run.

Another key area is migration to the cloud, often referred to as "lift & shift". This involves transferring systems to cloud environments - a process that many underestimate. New network structures, data protection issues, governance issues and, in particular, the preservation of data sovereignty pose challenges. Together with the European cloud provider OVH, Johannes implements solutions that deliberately avoid dependencies on non-European hyperscalers.

He also points out an aspect that is often overlooked: The cloud is not a panacea. Not every application benefits from unlimited scalability, and a subsequent switch back to local IT infrastructures can be very costly in technical and organizational terms.

A practical example rounds off the episode: Dr. Held reports on the use of the NoSQL database Couchbase at a large food discounter - and how it contributes to the optimization of critical processes there.