Cloud Community Europe Luxembourg aims to support the exponential growth of cloud adoption in the duchy. Fabrice Aresu, chairman of the CCEL association and CEO of LuxTrust explains why cloud is “a must” and where the association stands on the topic of the sovereign cloud.
You were appointed as CCEL chairman last September. What goals did you set yourself to achieve?
The goal is to continue executing our mission and help companies migrate their solutions to the cloud. We want to support companies on the market to get more familiar with cloud and understand the benefits and caveats of migrating to the cloud.
This is our general mission and what my colleagues and I are now really focusing on is facilitating the exponential acceleration of cloud adoption due to the increased demand we face today. The demand can be explained by three benefits offered by cloud adoption: flexibility and scalability; profitability – you only pay what you consume and need, and ESG – cloud adoption helps keep the energy footprint of companies lower.
There’s a lot of talk about creating a sovereign cloud in Luxembourg. What’s the CCEL’s stance on supporting this initiative?
There are a lot of different understandings of what constitutes a sovereign cloud. Many people think it’s just a government initiative but as we’ve seen in recent examples, the government is never acting on its own. So, it’s not just about how we ensure that we keep control of our data but also about who we collaborate with to pull off this project.
As the CCEL, our priority is to raise awareness and promote the interests of our members and the principle of sovereignty as it is understood in Europe, which focuses on transparency and controlling how data is handled. However, we are also very pragmatic about the fact that all hyperscalers – whose cooperation is essential for establishing a cost-effective cloud – are non-European. Hence, until we have a cost-effective European hyperscaler, our priority is to examine how we could integrate a layer on top of non-European cloud solutions that would guarantee the protection and sovereignty of our data.
“While cloud started as a curiosity a few years ago, today it has become a real vector of growth and competitiveness.”
Fabrice Aresu, chairman of the CCEL association and CEO of LuxTrust
How urgent is the implementation of a sovereign cloud?
I think it’s urgent when it’s a matter of competitiveness for businesses. However, as many large businesses have already invested in cloud services, I think it’s less urgent for them than for smaller businesses that often face a lot more competition and have fewer resources.
In terms of security, my opinion is that cloud infrastructure is generally more secure than non-cloud infrastructure, thanks to massive investment from hyperscalers in that area. Here again, since large companies already have pretty sophisticated security systems in place, SMEs would stand to benefit more and faster from a sovereign cloud. While cloud started as a curiosity a few years ago, today it has become a real vector of growth and competitiveness and as such, cloud has become a must for companies.
What do you expect Luxembourg’s cloud ecosystem to look like by 2030?
I hope that Luxembourg will have been able to leverage its exceptional IT infrastructures and Tier 1 data centres, position itself as a sovereign cloud expert and offer its services across Europe. Because I believe that is one of the key conditions to stress to keep attracting talent to Luxembourg. Luxembourg has a real opportunity to establish itself as a cloud leader if it makes the right decisions. I hope we succeed.
This article was first published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Get your copy.
