We hear quite a bit about ‘tech for the good’ – technology’s unique ability to support social, cultural or environmental progress. We also hear about need for us all to work together in the current COVID-19 crisis to support the health and economic well being of our communities. And today, we are beginning to see launch of initiatives that combine these two imperatives, harnessing the power of technology in support of measures that can help us mitigate the health risks and economic impact associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. OVHcloud, the global provider of cloud and hosting services that identifies as “the alternative cloud,” has announced Open Solidarity, a program promising free access to infrastructure for partners/customers who are likely to experience a spike in resource demand as they deliver free solutions to address the remote work, collaboration and healthcare requirements of COVID-19. This offer extends to OVHcloud’s global customer base for the duration of the pandemic. For details, read this extract from the OVHcloud blog below, and to access application forms, visit the Open Solidarity site here. Driven by recognition that “technology has a role to play,” this initiative also values collaborative efforts to battle spread of the pandemic and support those in need. (Editor’s note)
—————————————————————————————————
COVID‑19 – One Team – One Company – Open‑solidarity
By OVH / 2020-03-16 / OVH News, OVHcloud
Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared on the 30th January, we have been carefully observing how the situation has developed across the globe. Today, depending on the guidelines issued by governing healthcare authorities, our company is managing local situations in all regions where we have teams. We are doing this to guarantee our employees’ safety, and also guarantee continuity for your services. We urge everyone to follow the recommendations issued by public organisations, as well as both national and international authorities. Simple acts of prevention, such as following personal hygiene precautions, are an effective way of protecting both yourself and others from infection. We should show solidarity and remain vigilant — together, we will work to find solutions for confronting this unprecedented global crisis.
Ensuring service continuity for our customers
Our teams are making every effort to support you under the best conditions. As a consequence, we are deploying business continuity plans. Our priority is to ensure a high-quality operational service, which is essential for all of our customers’ activity — both for your business, and also on a more strategic, national scale. We intend to apply this worldwide, wherever we have a presence. Our customer support team are also working remotely from home, and will be available to answer support requests as usual. This system — which has already been in effect for 2 weeks in Italy — has now been deployed across all countries with no impact on service quality. We are also protecting employees in our datacentres, with prevention measures reinforced on-site. Today, all datacentre and server maintenance operations can be carried out as usual. Our infrastructure is able to absorb 20Tbps bandwidth, and for this reason, we do not believe that this crisis will impact the quality of service we offer you. We are working in close contact with our suppliers, and we do not expect to experience any provisioning issues for future deliveries required for producing our own servers. “OVHcloud’s teams are working exceptionally,” explains Michel Paulin.
To combat this healthcare crisis, many companies are working in solidarity with one another, to offer remote working, collaboration and healthcare hosting solutions. Given the gravity of the situation and the self-isolation required in many countries, we can expect these solutions to be in very high demand. Concepts like helping one another and working together as a community are fundamental values of OVHcloud, and they are put into action by by our founder — Octave Klaba — and CEO Michel Paulin. As a result, OVHcloud has decided to do everything it can to offer free infrastructures without any commitment period for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. The aim of this is to help and support traffic spikes for websites that fall within these business sectors. Websites and infrastructures receiving free service will also benefit from the same level of maintenance and support.
“#Open_solidarity. This initiative is a collective, open act of digital solidarity — the aim of which is to make reliable tech solutions more widely available by offering them for free on OVHcloud infrastructures. To do this, OVHcloud is delivering web-cloud, bare metal, private cloud and public cloud solutions free of charge for the entire duration of the crisis — and this is for software publishers, start-ups and public service providers. This way, they can also offer free remote working, communication, healthcare and other solutions to SMEs and individuals.”
Michel Paulin, CEO OVHcloud
“OVHcloud is in a strategic sector. Today, the cloud has become an essential infrastructure that makes the world go round — just like air, water, and electricity. In light of this unprecedented healthcare crisis, our daily lives and freedoms have been heavily impacted. Over the next few months, digital services will be in high demand, because they offer a number of solutions for facing the self-isolation required in this situation. Collectively, we need to multiply initiatives for making all of these solutions visible and accessible to everyone. Open solidarity is the guarantee that a free infrastructure can be scaled up enough to meet demand. It is an initiative for solidarity, the sole aim of which is to offer and share OVHcloud expertise with our community.”
Octave Klaba, Founder OVHcloud
Click here to learn more about OVHcloud’s open-solidarity initiative
