Thanks to the CAC 40 and the companies of the SBF 120, France shines internationally and this, in most economic sectors. However, to stay at the top, these large companies must go beyond their hexagonal anchorage and this notably involves the network.
To remain efficient, the quality of their IT infrastructure is key. Clearly, the competitiveness of companies today depends on multicloud and therefore on the ability to manage a complex network which can hold surprises in terms of budget if it is not supervised. This is a key element in helping companies to continue to innovate.
The challenge is to deal with the events of recent months that have changed the situation structurally: between health crisis and new organization of work, conflicts and cyberwar, and also taking into account the strengthening of regulations such as the GDPR, the of conduct of the CISPE, the SecNumCloud repository etc.
The challenges thus posed therefore involve new so-called NaaS or “Network as a Service” solutions, and their concrete contribution to responding to these issues.
Choose the As a Service network and create a shock of simplification
According to the IDC institute, by 2024, up to 50% of data center infrastructure will be consumed as a service and therefore in SaaS mode. This is good news for CIOs as the IT subscription simplifies their lives.
The IT departments of large French companies must combine security, collaboration, competitiveness and allow the deployment of hybrid working methods. If the professions are waiting for effective solutions adapted to their daily needs, the CIOs must also, in addition to these requests, respect other criteria and make every effort to guarantee the integrity of the systems and data, while cyberattacks are increasing year by year.
At the same time, the number of cloud providers is growing and they offer competitive offers on a technical, commercial and regulatory level. 80% of companies will put in place a system to move to cloud infrastructure and applications at twice the rate of before the pandemic.
In this context, CIOs may choose on-premises or cloud-hosted environments, prefer one cloud provider for the quality of its database services or another for its artificial intelligence capabilities. This involves daily management of a multicloud network. However, the complexity of this multicloud ecosystem will increase further depending on the number of countries covered by the company, its choice for hosting its data or its desire for harmonization. It is therefore an issue of primary importance for French companies operating internationally.
NaaS as an adaptable response to business needs
In this quest to simplify the work of CIOs and their IT landscapes, companies that use cloud service providers seek, above all, to guarantee the availability of their data in any situation. They also want to ensure their security and retain the ability to freely change supplier without jeopardizing their infrastructure.
“As a Service” offers are multiplying to precisely meet these expectations, with in particular NaaS, known as “Network as a Service”, which offers to create private and secure connections to the cloud, depending on the demand emanating from the company and according to a flexible mode of consumption. This type of service available on subscription allows CIOs to rationalize their costs and modify the allocation of resources according to the needs expressed internally.
Legal regulations and networks: choose suppliers qualified by the authorities
We have often asked the question of the impact of regulations on the competitiveness of French companies. In addition to internal constraints, IT departments must take these regulatory constraints into account. Compliance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) or the SecNumCloud qualification awarded by the ANSSI (National Agency for the Security of Information Systems) for cloud hosts have even prompted cloud infrastructure providers to develop a code of conduct through the CISPE association (Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers Europe), approved by the CNIL.
Today it would seem that – beyond the question of data sovereignty – supplier transparency has become a business asset. Many companies have understood the dangers of American law, which can require players to disclose their data without notifying the companies concerned. As a result, data protection and compliance are now competitive advantages that affect their competitiveness.
Consequently, CIOs are turning to qualified external service providers to juggle between the various local constraints, but also to consolidate their infrastructures to respond to them satisfactorily. End customers are now more demanding in terms of the use made of their data. However, NaaS-type models make it possible to continuously optimize their performance and ensure their security. They also allow CIOs to consolidate resources, policies and operations more easily while respecting the legal aspects through a single provider.
In conclusion, the new “as a service” offers ease the constraints of CIOs in the reform of their information systems, by relieving them of the complexity of network management, which has increased with the crisis. Access to data being key to competitiveness, it places the decisions of CIOs at the heart of the activity and the sovereignty of the company.