As the demand for data processing and storage continues to soar, businesses are seeking optimal data center locations that offer efficiency, cost-effectiveness and sustainability. The Nordic region, comprising Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark, has emerged as a compelling choice for data center investments due to its unique combination of low power costs and cool climate. We will explore why the Nordic region makes the perfect choice for organizations with high-performance computing needs and how businesses can leverage these advantages for efficient and eco-friendly operations.

Abundant Renewable Energy and Low Power Costs

The Nordic countries are renowned for their commitment to sustainable practices and abundant renewable energy sources. In fact, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are all among the top 20 countries in the world in terms of renewable energy production per capita. Thanks to an abundance of hydroelectric, wind and geothermal resources, the region offers businesses a golden opportunity to benefit from low power costs. By choosing a Nordic data center, companies can significantly reduce their electricity expenses, resulting in considerable savings compared to traditional data center locations, in many cases at least 50% lower TCO than a similar setup in a central European location.

 Learn more about Verne Global Finland’s commitment to renewable energy and sustainable practices.

Harnessing the Cool Climate for Energy Efficiency

The cool climate of the Nordic countries provides a natural advantage for data centers. During the summer months of June through August, the average temperature only reaches 20 to 25 degrees Celsius, while winter months from December through February average -4 degrees Celcius. Instead of relying heavily on power-hungry cooling systems, Nordic data centers can employ innovative free cooling techniques. These techniques leverage the ambient low temperatures to keep the servers and infrastructure cool, while reducing energy consumption and minimizing the carbon footprint. The synergy of low power costs and energy-efficient cooling solutions makes Nordic data centers a winning choice for eco-conscious organizations.

Verne Global leverages the cool Nordic climate and unique geography in several ways. The Air data center that utilizes combined energy and cooling cells (CECC), takes advantage of the cool Finnish climate. Meanwhile, The Rock data center takes advantage of the cool climate in another unique way. The facility was built at the site of a former underground tunnel facility quarried by the Finnish Defense forces in the 1960s, which was turned into a modern data center that uses the cool bedrock underground environment and uses 100% green energy.

Learn more about how Verne Global Finland implements innovative free cooling technologies for your energy-efficient data center operations.

Cost Effectiveness without Compromising High-Performance Computing

In the world of heightened computing, performance is paramount. The Nordic region’s low power costs and energy-efficient cooling do not come at the expense of data center performance. On the contrary, businesses can enjoy cost-effectiveness without compromising the speed, reliability and scalability required for handling extensive high-performance computing needs. This balance is crucial for organizations aiming to optimize their operations while staying ahead of their competition.

Explore how Verne Global Finland’s data centers provide you with climate-neutral, high-performance computing without compromising performance.

Sustainability and Green Initiatives

In today’s environmentally conscious world, sustainability is a core value for many businesses. By selecting a Nordic data center, organizations can take a major step toward reducing their carbon footprint. By capitalizing on the region’s renewable energy sources and leveraging the naturally cool climate, businesses can proudly showcase their commitment to a greener future and corporate social responsibility.

Verne Global Finland’s datacenters cool climate benefits go hand in hand with third-party certified sustainability and security-audited services that further validate your decision to make a data center move to the Nordics.

By choosing Verne Global  as their data center partner, businesses can pave the way toward a greener, more cost-effective and efficient future for high-performance computing. Want to learn more about how to save more than 50% in TCO while reducing your carbon footprint? Contact us to learn more.

Sustainability is an important focus not only for the data center industry but for any company. As data center operators recognize the importance of reducing their environmental impact worldwide, some are already finding ways to meet their sustainability goals, and some are just beginning to set goals.

A crucial question to ask is how your data center can help your business to achieve sustainability goals. We took a look at an Uptime Institute report on “Key findings from the Uptime Institute Sustainability and Climate Change Survey “ and listed some of the key findings of the report and discuss reasons how an environmentally focused data center helps you to reduce your carbon footprint and help in achieving your sustainability goals.

Reducing Energy Use

Reducing energy use is a vital sustainability goal for most, if not all, data center operators and their customers. According to the Uptime Institute survey, 50% of respondents reported that reducing energy consumption was their top sustainability goal.

Not only does energy reduction help lessen an organization’s carbon footprint, but it can also lead to significant cost savings in the long run. Reducing energy consumption, though, is easier said than done, so it’s important to partner with a colocation provider that is committed to reducing energy consumption by implementing energy-efficient technologies, redesigning their buildings and training staff on energy-saving practices. For example, Verne Global Finland has its own Solar Power Plant in The Rock data center. Using solar panels, using renewable energy generated from wind turbines and utilizing waste heat recovery methods are other ways we implement energy-saving practices. In addition, the Nordic cool climate naturally reduces the need for energy, e.g. for cooling. Also, energy pricing and consumption is transparent to our customers and our web-based customer dashboard allows customers to monitor their power consumption.

When it comes to energy consumption, it is also important to keep in mind that energy consumption can be impacted by external factors beyond a data center’s control, such as weather changes and energy price fluctuations.

In addition, data center operators can achieve third-party certifications in sustainability. Climate-neutral certification is a rigorous process that verifies an organization’s carbon neutrality and commitment to sustainability. At Verne Global Finland, we are proud to be able to back up our sustainability efforts with firm climate neutral certification proof.

Utilizing Renewable Energy

Another way companies can make progress toward sustainability is by finding a data center that is committed to utilizing renewable energy. According to the Uptime Institute survey, 37% of data center operators reported that procuring renewable energy was their top sustainability goal. Renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and green hydrogen power is the goal. And the good news is that green energy is becoming increasingly popular among data centers worldwide, with global renewable electricity forecast to rise more than 60% by 2026.

Procuring renewable energy, however, can be a complex process depending on a data center’s location.

The key is finding the right spot to store and manage your data. Finland, for instance, has vast amounts of green energy available, with wind power increasing by 75% last year alone. In fact, Verne Global Finland has employed 100% renewable energy since its inception.

Establishing Alignment on an Effective Sustainability Strategy

A successful sustainability strategy requires a clear understanding of an organization’s environmental impact, a commitment to reducing that impact and a plan for achieving sustainability goals. To ensure you are working toward your sustainability goals as efficiently as possible, it is critical to make sure your data center’s strategy aligns with yours.

Working with a like-minded partner will help your organization advance toward a more sustainable future, so make sure your data center has a comprehensive sustainability strategy and climate-neutral certification plan in place. That plan should consider the complexities of its business operations, stakeholder expectations and regulatory requirements.

According to the Uptime Institute report, the third biggest challenge on sustainability goals was creating a sustainability strategy. To ease this process, we have complied an e-book from our own experience, “A Data Center’s Guide to Sustainability,” which provides an inside look at sustainability strategy and explores the multiple ways data centers can reduce their carbon footprint and gives guidance on how to evaluate data centers on their sustainability.

Connect with Verne Global Finland to Meet Your Sustainability Goals

Verne Global Finland is achieving growth combined with carbon neutral and effective sustainability strategies. It’s validation that sustainability and business can and should go hand in hand. Our sustainability strategies include:

Certified climate-neutral facilities
100% green energy since Day 1
The company’s own solar power plant
Heat reuse to the district grid
The use of our region’s naturally cool Finland air in place of mechanical refrigeration

Overall, there are many ways a data center can help support your sustainability goals. It all starts with shifting your mindset and company focus to be relentlessly committed to reducing your carbon footprint, leveraging renewable energy sources, and taking simple steps, no matter how small, toward building a greener future for the next generation.

Learn more about Verne Global Finland’s sustainability focus and contact us today.

Verne Global Finland had a wonderful time at PTC ‘23 in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii, beginning of January. While the distance from Helsinki to Hawaii is nearly 7,000 miles, the conference was absolutely worth the lengthy trip for so many reasons. At the event, Verne Global Finland had the chance to catch up on the latest trends in the digital infrastructure industry, and we enjoyed meeting with colleagues, old friends and new friends in the warm island air. It was wonderful to talk about our great accomplishments in 2022 and to share some of the big things we are looking forward to in 2023 as we move forward as Verne Global under the Digital 9 umbrella of sustainable, innovation-focused companies.

Sharing Our Story at PTC
Our very own Kim Gunnelius, founder and CCO of Verne Global Finland, sat down with Jaymie Scotto & Associates (JSA) to share some highlights of the exciting things happening at Verne Global Finland, including our continued, unwavering focus on sustainability.

.

Greener Data Directory

We are also proud to share that you can now find us in JSA’s Greener Data Directory, an online rolodex of sustainability-minded companies, including technologists and innovators in or serving the digital infrastructure industry.. Now, you can find us listed among the most environmentally focused tech companies in the world dedicated to getting to net carbon zero, quickly and globally. To learn more about the Greener Data Movement and to purchase a copy of Greener Data, a best-selling book co-written by Kim Gunnelius, visit greenerdata.net.

New Comprehensive Guide: The Journey to Climate Neutral

Last, but definitely not least, we are thrilled to share the launch of our new comprehensive e-book, The Journey to Climate Neutral: A Guide to Data Center Sustainability.

This robust resource was created to help organizations in the digital infrastructure industry move further and faster down the road to becoming carbon neutral. We explore how to make realistic decisions on resourcing and develop an environmentally focused strategy. Plus, gain a clear understanding of how to look beyond your data center’s carbon footprint.

As an industry, we have the potential to make significant progress in the global effort to battle climate change, and this guide serves as an invaluable resource to learn how to make changes now to secure a more sustainable future. Become an agent of change for your own business, customers and the planet — and find out how to stand out as a leader in sustainability. For more information about Verne Global Finland’s solutions and upcoming initiatives, do not hesitate to contact us. In the meantime, we look forward to sharing more updates with you in the months ahead!

Originally published in ficolo.com in 2022.

As 2022 comes to a close, we have a lot to reflect upon. Our team has made incredible achievements this year, bringing our company to new heights. From a new name to a best-selling book to branching out to reach new markets, let’s take a look at the things that made 2022 a year to remember.

1. New Family: Joining Forces with Like-Minded Companies

In 2022, our company joined the Digital 9 Infrastructure (D9) portfolio. Joining forces with D9 and its impressive family of sustainability-focused companies is helping us accelerate our global growth and fuel our progress toward carbon negativity. In fact, the company’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in its name, with “9“ representing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 9 (“SDG9”): “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation.” As the only third-party certified climate neutral, hyperscale-level data center company in the Nordics, Ficolo is a true leader in sustainability, making us an ideal company to support D9’s vision of a climate-resilient, digitally connected world.

2. New Markets: Hello, US Financial Services

This year, we are proud to expand into new markets, including the financial services industry in the U.S. where we have a major win! Having passed a stringent qualification and review, we provided and installed a solution that the customer is very happy with and particularly got great feedback for our flexibility and devotion. Whatever your goal, we have a way of making things simple, helping you to achieve a scalable solution that grows with your company.  

3. New Book: We Have an Amazon Best Seller

Earth Day is an important day, but this year it was extra special as we launched Greener Data, our Amazon best-selling book, featuring our very own in-house sustainability champion, Kim Gunnelius, CCO and Co-founder of Verne Global Finland. The multi-author, groundbreaking book features the voices, stories and perspectives of the leaders of the data center and network infrastructure industry. It explores ways to drive real change to make the world a better place and reduce our carbon footprint — industry wide.

4. New Name: Ficolo Is Now Verne Global Finland

Our latest significant news is joining forces with Verne Global. Merging our brands with Verne Global we will bring a wealth of new opportunities to our domestic and global customers — and will accelerate our journey toward our goal of becoming carbon negative.

Both Ficolo and Verne Global are part of the D9 portfolio of critical digital infrastructure assets. Verne Global operates sustainable-powered facilities in Iceland and London. Through this strategic collaboration backed by D9, Ficolo and Verne Global will provide an expanded platform of connectivity across this emerging region. This pivotal partnership is set to provide hyperscalers and enterprises with expanded connectivity and efficient, innovative solutions to drive digital transformation throughout Europe. In addition, the newly expanded Verne Global team will focus on delivering industry-leading customer support. It is also rolling out consistent engineering design best practices to reduce the carbon footprint of customers and to optimize the performance of its operations across all five locations.

While Ficolo is now operating under the Verne Global brand, our customers can rest easy knowing the relationships we have built over the years and our innovative, sustainable service offerings will remain unchanged. In fact, customers now have the opportunity to benefit from a more robust portfolio of colocation and cloud computing solutions and will have access to more Northern European markets.

“This change is more than a new name. It’s an exciting journey for our company,” says Kim Gunnelius. “As we combine our innovative spirit, passion for the environment and data center operational expertise with that of Verne Global, we will continue to strengthen our position as an agent of change across the global digital infrastructure industry, empowering hyperscale growth and moving our sustainability efforts forward to make the world a greener place.” 

It’s been a stellar year, and one thing is clear – It would not have been possible without the support of our amazing customers and partners.

Our humble thank you for the past year — it is a pleasure to continue to provide you with sustainable, efficient cloud services and colocation solutions!

Pinja renewed its private cloud services by moving them to a colocation data center hosted by Verne Global Finland. At the same time, Pinja took advantage of the Cloud Management Platform, a comprehensive system for managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With it, Pinja achieved transparency into its own private cloud.

“With CMP, we can also provide administrative and business roles with visibility into the managed environment and capacity.” Jari Alamaa, Service Manager, Cloud Services, Pinja

Read Pinja’s case study and learn all the benefits the Cloud Management Platform. The Cloud Management Platform is a complete solution for managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments, based on Morpheus Data’s award winning technology, suitable for both in-house use and for service providers to manage customer environments.

Unikie was looking for a reliable supplier that could deliver a high quality colocation solution for their customer’s research environment in a short timeframe. Verne Global Finland was selected based on the recommendation of another client – a decision Unikie has not regretted. Verne Global delivered a tailor-made solution in a couple of months, and now Unikie’s Chief Business Officer Rauno Vänni sleeps well at night. Read the whole customer case.

“We were professional buyers in the sense that we had our own team with very specific requirements in terms of hardware and service contract. We were looking for another professional supplier who would immediately understand our needs and be able to respond flexibly and quickly. The recommendation from our client was so strong that we didn’t really even consider other suppliers.” Rauno Vänni, Unikie Oy Chief Business Officer

Unikie required: 

Colocation data center operator who pays special attention to climate friendly operation.
High quality and safe environment, with special attention to assured power supply and cooling.
Service provider who could tailor their service contract to Unikie’s needs.

Verne Global Finland provided:

Required data center technologies and worry-free environment.
Pre-installation and setup of applications and firewalls configured by Unikie.
Support organization to maintain the environment.
Fast delivery – only a few months between first contact and service delivery.

The article was originally published in ficolo.com in June 2022.

A few months ago, we shared the exciting news that Ficolo agreed to sell its shares to UK-based Digital 9 Infrastructure plc (D9). As the deal moves forward, what does the future hold for D9 and Ficolo? For starters, a bright — and environmentally responsible — path toward a more sustainable planet with a unified focus on clean connectivity.

With an unwavering focus on enabling sustainable global connectivity, D9 and Ficolo will join forces to help accelerate global connectivity and fuel the progress toward carbon negativity. Ficolo customers will also continue to receive the exceptional customized cloud and colocation services they have come to expect with the added advantage of access to even more services leveraging D9’s best-in-class portfolio of companies. This includes Verne Global in Iceland, a company that exploits the country’s abundant green energy, and Volta, a central London green data center. 

D9’s Dedication to Sustainable Digital Connectivity
D9 is helping to bring people closer together by meeting the global demand for improved speed, reliability, and accessibility of data. The company invests in critical digital infrastructure, including subsea cables and data centers, to promote digital connectivity and close the digital divide worldwide. At the core of every investment and every business decision D9 makes is a steadfast commitment to sustainability and environmentally responsible practices. 

In fact, the company’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in their name, with “9“ representing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 9 (“SDG9”): “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation.” SDG9 encourages nations and organizations to bridge the global digital divide by increasing access to information and communications technology, while at the same time, decarbonizing digital Infrastructure energy usage. In other words, D9 is focused on accelerating economic growth, social development, and critical climate action. 

Since their IPO in 2021, D9 has invested over £600m in digital infrastructure assets, including data center companies and subsea network service providers, to help fulfill their mission. As such, they seek to only acquire and partner with companies, like Ficolo, that share their vision for a sustainable future and meet strict environmental, social, and governance criteria. 

The Important Role of Data Centers

D9 understands the powerful role digital infrastructure plays in advancing global connectivity, and data centers are an essential piece to the digital infrastructure puzzle. From websites to videos to music to critical corporate information, data centers house the data businesses and consumers generate and use every single minute of every day. 

Currently, data centers consume an enormous amount of power, contributing 2% of the world’s CO2 emissions. As the demand for cloud services soars and the vast amount of data generated across the world continues to grow, employing data centers that operate efficiently and sustainably is crucial. And that is why Ficolo is a perfect addition to the D9 portfolio. 

Ficolo and D9 – A Perfect Fit

As the only third-party certified climate neutral, hyperscale-level data center company in the Nordics, Ficolo is a true leader in sustainability, making us an ideal company to support D9’s vision of a climate-resilient, digitally connected world. Here’s why: 

We utilize 100% renewable energy in all data centers, based on wind and solar power.
Thanks to the cool Nordic environment, we leverage free natural cooling with the ability to distribute waste heat to the district heating grid.
sed on our initiatives that support the long-term vision of low carbon and sustainability, we are the first data center company in the Nordics to receive the highest Dark Green rating from Cicero, the Norwegian climate research institute.
We achieved Climate Neutral Company certification, awarded by Swiss carbon finance consultancy South Pole, signifying our compliance with the international PAS 2060 standard developed to certify carbon-neutral operations. 
We are relentless in our commitment to becoming climate negative, continuing to explore green technologies and ways to improve efficiency. 

With the support of D9 and its impressive portfolio of companies, Ficolo will have the opportunity to further improve operations, achieve our goal to be carbon negative, and drive sustainable global connectivity solutions for the future.

To learn more about D9 and their purpose-driven investments, visit their website.

Originally published in ficolo.com in 2021.

Does your current infrastructure hold you back? Do you need to lower costs, better management or maybe you want an environment that is more scalable? Then hyperconverged infrastructure or HCI Cloud might be the right choice for you.

Hyperconverged infrastructure

Traditional data center architecture is three-tiered: There’s separate computing, storage and networking equipment, each requiring their own expertise for operation and management. This type of architecture can be expensive to build and operate as each part of the infrastructure has to be bought and managed separately.

The lack of agility and the time it takes to deploy the architecture often drives organizations to public cloud services which are easy and fast to deploy. But while organizations benefits from the ease-of-use of public cloud, they also have to deal with having less control, higher costs and the lack of enterprise-level security.

But traditional infrastructure and public cloud aren’t the only options available for organizations. Modern hardware can converge the entire infrastructure and run it all on x86-based servers with internal SSD drives. This type of infrastructure is called hyperconverged infrastructure, or HCI for short.

Why HCI Cloud: 

Basically, HCI offers higher agility and lower costs than traditional infrastructure without the negatives of public cloud. Capital expenses are lowered, as all you need to procure is x86 servers instead of storage arrays, storage controllers, or fiber-channel networking. And thanks to everything happening in the servers, the operations become much simpler and require less time and expertise.

There are also business benefits. HCI hardware can be up and running even in a few hours and workloads can be spun up in a matter of minutes. There is no need for complicated constructs like LUNs and volumes because the configuration is based on policies aligned with applications. And scalability is not an issue as drives and servers can be added without disruptions – without a lot of configuration or capital expenses.

HCI Cloud Benefits:

Simplified management
Easy deployments
Simple scalability and upgradability
Increased flexibility and reliability
Optimized cost structure

HCI offers the flexible scalability of public cloud with the manageability and security of private cloud, combining the best of both worlds. It is a good option for smaller scale deployment – for bigger deployments HCI can lead to sub-optimized system. When the scale of the operation is large enough, it may be better to have compute and storage segregated. HCI is also most well suited for organizations who don’t have massive amounts of rarely accessed data but require that data is retrieved rapidly and saved within the HCI system.

Your chosen architecture should always be driven by the business requirements: some businesses require a unique platform and other times a more generic platform is all that is needed. Ficolo is happy to help you choose the cloud platform to build your business. Contact us and let’s discuss what your cloud should look like.

Originally published in ficolo.com in 2021.

The use of cloud services has increased rapidly and it might be good for many organizations to stop and consider how they have implemented data security in their systems. When many new services are deployed consecutively in short period of time, the security can easily become an afterthought. Processes have to change as cloud services require different solutions compared to more traditional application security. It also requires more up-to-date specialist know-how.

It is easy to think that all responsibility of data security would be left on the shoulders of the service providers – unfortunately this is not the case as most of the responsibility is still on the user of the service. When the services are procured, the user has to consider what kind of data is moved into the cloud and how critical the data is. The same risks that affect other services also have to be considered with the cloud services. Additionally, there are differences in data security between different cloud models.

Criteria for Assessing the Information Security of Cloud Services

Criteria for Assessing the Information Security of Cloud Services (PiTuKri) is a guidance document published by Traficom’s Cyber Security Centre for assessing the security of cloud services. It defines the different types of data and provides recommendations on the solutions required for data with different security classifications. Different types of information present different risks and require different levels of protection.

From a security perspective, the level of assurance that can be obtained about the ability and reliability of the service provider is crucial. In situations where the service is provided by more than one organization, the risks should be assessed for all organizations involved in the provision of the service.

However, the purpose of the criteria is not to rank the different cloud services but to advise organizations on which service is sufficiently secure for each purpose. When dealing with confidential data, particular attention must be paid to the security of the cloud service.

Different Cloud Service Models

Cloud computing can be implemented in several different ways. A private cloud typically allows for a higher level of security than other cloud service delivery models. It allows reliable separation from other computing environments, user organizations and external actors.  In comparing private cloud to public cloud services, the criteria states: “In the public cloud, data is subject to a wider attack surface than in the private cloud, including through other users of the service or external actors.” A hybrid cloud, which combines a private and a public cloud, can also be used as an implementation model. In this case, the private cloud running in the private cloud is complemented by services purchased from the public cloud.

Using PiTuKri provides companies with an important tool for evaluating their own cloud services and choosing which implementation model best suits their needs. Other frameworks and existing certificates can be used to assess compliance.

Certificates and services

Ficolo offers customers both fully dedicated and shared capacity, produced in Finland, and we offer public capacity from the public cloud. By taking control of these with the Cloud Management Platform product, the customer can manage all the services in the different zones through a single console. Our services are available from all our data centers – The Air in Helsinki, The Rock in Pori and The Deck in Tampere.

Our cloud security service portfolio is designed to support cloud services and ensure service availability. The portfolio consists of comprehensive monitoring and maintenance services, network security services, backup and Anti-DDoS services and other methods to ensure the continuity and security of your cloud services. Our services help you to have a comprehensive, flexible, and manageable cloud solution that adapts to your security requirements and the capacity you use.

All our sites are audited by Kiwa Inspecta and we have been awarded both ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System) and ISO 22301 (Business Continuity Management System) certifications covering our entire business – our The Rock data center is also audited to meet Katakri IV level. Operational development is a key part of Ficolo’s approach, and we are actively working to improve our services and obtain new certifications.

We are happy to help if your company is considering cloud computing or if you need assistance in assessing the security of your cloud  services. Contact us if you’d like to discuss about your cloud security needs.

Originally published in ficolo.com in 2021.

The growth of cloud computing for the last 5- 10 years has been exponential and enterprises are rushing to host their data on cloud instead of private servers. 2020 marked the jump in demand for moving into virtualization. Now, when people are working remotely more and more, IT is looking for migrating into cloud faster. Here is where connectivity becomes highly important.

It is understandable that cloud computing is flexible and scalable. It gives enterprises freedom in adjusting requirements of cloud space based on the level of usage. Same adjustments are really difficult perform with physical servers. Apart from scalability, there are cost benefits of subscription-based pricing, so cloud computing heavily reduced IT costs by eliminating need to buy hardware infrastructure. All mentioned makes cloud services an excellent solution for start-ups. With better performance and scalability the speed of application service development improved rapidly.

Nowadays, cloud connectivity is going hybrid and as a result becomes more complex. But why do you need it to be hybrid? You might need extra high-security for an app you are running (even by the law). You also might run video streaming with continuous and busy outgoing data flow. Imagine if you are using public cloud – it will surely consume a lot of money, since getting data out of the cloud is more expensive than placing it initially.

Achieving great connectivity and having optimal cloud for each case is ideal goal but there is a problem on how to manage everything at the same time. How do you find the issue if the user experiences problems? How do you manage connectivity? The answer to these questions: cloud management platform and monitoring solution with build-in reporting.

How will 5G deployments will impact the importance of connectivity for cloud services?

Obviously, 5G will be used for cloud services. Mobile broadband services are already used for certain cloud services. Today many of these cloud services provided from the centralized location like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Central Location through the core network. However, especially cloud computing of edge computing will become really popular mainly because 5G will introduce ultra-reliable, low-latency services. This means cloud computing instance needs to be really close to the customers, and these applications will be business-critical. Low-latency, high-reliability and the highest possible quality will increase the importance of connectivity going forward.

What are the top 3 DC selection considerations when developing technical services provided as cloud services from a data center?

Make sure that the company is able to deliver – in every sense. Strong references, speedy delivery and committed support.  
Ensure that the company has sufficient expertise in connectivity for current and future needs. Ask about options for backup connections along different routes.
As you will be outsourcing something that is critical, make sure the security and business continuity plans are of high quality. A good way to do this is to use a certified company, e.g., ISO 27001 and ISO 22301.

In Cloud Management Platform, what are meaningful KPIs to commit to Client?

The KPI which is used would be highly dependent on which application(s) the connection is used for. However, generally speaking, latency and packet loss likely would be the most important KPIs. This would apply for normal business applications, whereas if you are providing for instance a voice service, jitter would also be very much in focus. For TCP based application: latency and packet loss, for voice: latency and packet loss and for video – jitter and packet loss are the most important KPI’s. As an example, 2% packet loss for TCP based application will double the latency.

What is the Megaport and how does it work?

Megaport is a solution which provides on-demand connectivity to other data centers. Megaport is hosted in several hundreds of data centers, 600+ around the world. Ficolo-IX connectivity hub in Helsinki allows access Megaport’s global network of cloud platforms. Once you have the Megaport, you can connect to any of 600 data centers no matter of the location just by “point and click” interface. Not only that, you can connect to different clouds. Megaport supports AWS, Azure, SAP Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, OVH cloud and a broad range of others. Once the solution is up and running and you want to set up an instance in a cloud you can immediately have the connection to it. So, networking as a service basically can and should be through the cloud.

Read more about Megaport

What kind of measurement probes are typically used in the data centers / customer virtualization platforms?

Typically, data center /cloud providers have to use virtual probes. For example, as a part of Microsoft Azure, there has to be a virtual probe. Creanord has a full portfolio of different virtual probes, and as of today, they have 3 different virtual probes available. All of the probes can support same capabilities and features but what makes them differ is scalability. The scalability varies from PULSensor 200 to PULSensor 3000 by how much disk space and memory they require and how well do they scale in number of circuits that can be monitored. All of the probes can be used in different cloud platforms such as IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure.  All hypervisors and commonly used cloud providers are supported.

About Creanord:

Specialists in active network service measurements / active network service assurance. Based in Helsinki, Finland with 20 + years of experience in developing solutions for network service providers and cloud providers. Creanord active network assurance solutions are enabling accurately and actively track network performance and quality, and support customers in building outperforming networks. Creanord’s technology was implemented in over 30 countries and more than 50 networks globally. Key customers: Tier-1, Tier -2 and Tier-3 service providers, wholesalers, cloud and critical communication providers.

Creanord can offer:

Flexible and scalable solutions perfectly meeting customer needs
A range of physical and virtual probes, for example PULSensor Appliance such as PULSensor 3000 and a virtual version – PULSensor Virtual 3000.
PULScore – all-in-one centralised management system for all performance and quality tracking data across all networks, applications, and SLAs.

Learn more about Creanord on their website: Creanord