Arsys is a leading internet service provider with over 25 years of experience facilitating the digitization of businesses, SMEs, and professionals. With a broad portfolio of solutions—exceeding a hundred options—Arsys covers everything from web presence and productivity services to advanced Public and Private Cloud solutions tailored to business needs. Founded in 1996 in Logroño, Arsys has been part of the IONOS Group since 2013, the largest cloud provider in Europe and a leader in European Cloud, with over 6 million customers and a global network of more than 30 data centers in Europe and the United States.
At Arsys Cloud Solutions, I lead the Sales Enablement area, a unit dedicated to our cloud solutions. Our team focuses on internally coordinating resources to equip our sales force with the knowledge and tools necessary to ensure an optimal experience in our client relationships and to help them fully leverage the value of our cloud solutions.
Cloud Computing Adoption
What percentage of your customers have migrated to the Cloud, and how has this percentage evolved in recent years?
Our case is unique. Since Arsys, and within the IONOS Group to which we belong, nearly all our customers use our Cloud in one way or another across our various platforms.
What are the main benefits your customers have observed from adopting Cloud solutions?
In the past, customers benefited from the Cloud due to its clear technical advantages, such as elasticity, agility, scalability, etc., but also because of its economic advantages by leveraging the economies of scale of cloud providers and the pay-as-you-go model (financially, Opex vs. CapexCAPEX, short for Capital Expenditure (capital expenditures… ), which has democratized technology use for many businesses.
Today, customers have also evolved in their use and the benefits that the Cloud brings them, shifting from a concept of using the Cloud to “do the same better” to a concept of “earning more” with the innovation agility that the Cloud model provides. In summary, the Cloud is transitioning from benefiting the IT department to positively impacting the overall business of companies.
A clear example is our Generative AI solutions in the Cloud. If a company wants to rapidly adopt this technology and bring it to production, Arsys offers the possibility of using a managed, ready-to-consume AI service that includes the necessary infrastructure, the foundational open-source models required, as well as the ability to incorporate its own data securely and privately (RAG) to obtain better and more personalized and up-to-date AI responses, also mitigating its hallucinations, one of the major current issues with this technology.
If one does not opt for this type of service, a company would have to buy and configure its own servers, install the models it wanted, train them with its data, hire engineers and data scientists… And choosing this route is neither easy nor cost-effective.
Do you consider that Cloud adoption in Spain is on the same level as in other European countries? Why?
In general, Spain is still a country with low public cloud penetration in terms of IaaS and PaaS. Approximately between 15% and 20%, compared to the European average of 38%, with other more mature markets having adoptions of up to 50% of workloads in the Cloud. This low penetration in Spain is also more pronounced in SMEs.
On the other hand, regarding SaaS, it is increasingly rare to see a company, regardless of size, not using a SaaS solution for its email, office tasks, or even in its CRM or ERP, among other use cases, because the entire software market is migrating its solutions to SaaS models.
However, that doesn’t mean that proprietary data centers and the on-premise model are going to disappear, as they make sense for certain use cases or simply because a specific system cannot or does not want to be taken to the Cloud.
Multicloud Environment
In your opinion, why are more and more companies opting for a Multicloud environment instead of relying on a single provider?
The first thing to understand is that Multicloud means two things: multiple cloud providers and various types of Cloud.
The Multicloud model is a clear symptom of the market’s maturity. Throughout the time the Cloud model has been around, over a decade, companies have gained experience with it. In some cases, they have also felt disappointed by the high initial expectations created and the limited range of providers available.
But that doesn’t mean they are giving up the advantages of the Cloud, because no CIO can afford to renounce the Cloud today.
Instead, they are now working and integrating different providers and Clouds (Public, Private, on-premise, SaaS…) and today, eight out of ten companies work with two or more providers. This dissipates fears based on past experiences: high and unpredictable costs, lack of customization, vendor lock-in, redundancy, performance, and it also allows for better responses to all aspects related to compliance and legality (data sovereignty) and privacy (digital sovereignty), which are increasingly valued within companies.
What are the main benefits of a Multicloud strategy? And the main challenges?
Not relying on a single provider and opting for Multicloud has many advantages: it avoids vendor lock-in, it offers better performance by choosing the best solution from each provider for each workload, enhances system contingency and resilience, with better recovery in case of disaster and failure of a single supplier, facilitates data sovereignty, compliance, and privacy, and of course, it can improve costs by opting for more competitive cloud providers.
Regarding challenges, the Multicloud environment is a more complex model to manage at different levels (observability, management, security, connectivity, additional costs of managing more than one provider, etc.).
Fortunately, today open-source technologies, first containers and later KubernetesKubernetes (commonly referred to in English as “K8s”)…, have become what we could call the “Operating System of the Cloud,” as they enable a standardized and IT-agnostic Multicloud that greatly facilitates things, with native interoperability between Clouds and a powerful ecosystem of tools and utilities that streamline complete management without silos.
How do you help companies manage the complexity that arises when implementing a Multicloud environment?
As providers, at Arsys, we understand the Multicloud that clients demand. Additionally, we offer solutions that preferentially utilize widely used, compatible open-source technologies aimed at interoperability, and we support the leading tools in the market, which is inevitable for managing an agnostic Multicloud: Kubernetes, IaC, APIAn API, short for “Application Programming Interface,” …, SDK… We also have expert technical teams to advise our clients on the model and integration of our Cloud in Multicloud environments.
A key role in facilitating this Multicloud implementation is undoubtedly played by our partners. That is, the ISVs and MSPs that are implementing a service and a solution and tend to articulate the IT solution that the client demands across different Clouds.
Barriers to Cloud Adoption in SMEs
What main barriers are preventing SMEs from massively adopting Cloud solutions?
The main barrier we find in SMEs for adopting the Cloud is often their perception of price, in addition to the difficulty of evaluating and comparing the actual costs and service levels of one alternative against another.
However, it is also important to note that SMEs are great potential users of the SaaS or PaaS model, and many times they are unaware that they are consuming Cloud when they launch a website with a web creation application or access a text editor from their mobile… They may not have used IaaS because they do not need to manage their own server or environment, just as they didn’t before the arrival of the Cloud, but they are consuming other types of Cloud.
What are the most common concerns of SMEs regarding security and cost when migrating to the Cloud?
We are talking about concerns that are very transversal for all companies using the Cloud, regardless of size. However, in SMEs, they can be more pronounced in some specific aspects.
Regarding costs, once they have adopted the Cloud, their main concern is the unpredictability that some providers can bring to billing at the end of the month. Moreover, it is also true that some Clouds can be complex to manage, where it is easy to make mistakes that have serious consequences for costs and security. This is neither their business nor can they afford to hire or dedicate their own resources to Cloud experts to manage their systems in the Cloud, as it is expertise that does not correspond to their actual area of activity.
Fortunately, in terms of security, they are increasingly aware that by using cloud providers, these have security tools and experience that are beyond the reach of most companies.
What solutions does your company offer to help SMEs overcome these obstacles?
At Arsys, we strive to ensure that our solutions for SMEs are easy to use, with a broad portfolio to meet their needs from the very beginning, providing them with Cloud options at the most competitive price-quality ratio in the market.
I would also highlight the role of our Customer Service and 24/7 local Technical Support, which is essential to help SMEs turn their projects into reality and avoid all the complexities surrounding digitization.
Migration and Complexity
What aspects of migrating to the Cloud are typically most complex for companies? How do you help reduce this complexity?
The first thing to understand when approaching a Public Cloud model (which is not the same as a Private Cloud) is that, usually, we are talking about a commitment model. That is, companies have to adapt to the cloud model of the provider.
If we refer to the SaaS model, this translates into a cultural shift in the way teams using or managing applications work.
The dependency on the Cloud provider is often absolute, and the risk of vendor lock-in can be significant if the right provider is not selected, or if the exit path is not defined in advance. Depending on the provider, migration is sometimes possible, but in others, it may not be or may prove to be very costly (including hidden costs). This latter point is crucial and must be taken into account when evaluating the provider.
If we speak of IaaS or PaaS, depending on the different types and models of Clouds chosen (Public, Private, Hybrid, Multicloud), there are also different types of migration (Lift and Shift, refactoring, rebuilding…) that apply. In IaaS, Lift and Shift migration models (moving workloads as they are) can work well, for example, in Private Clouds, but they can frequently increase costs in Public Clouds if not properly evaluated.
For PaaS, it is generally necessary to refactor and rebuild the application for better utilization of the provider’s Cloud capacities, paying special attention to avoid vendor lock-in situations and considering the possible hidden costs involved in having to rebuild and adapt existing applications.
In both cases, many times clients decide to migrate to a Private Cloud as a preliminary step to the Public Cloud, thus immediately benefiting from advantages such as pay-as-you-go, scalability, predictable costs, etc., and allowing more time to address deeper transformations required by a Public Cloud.
At the same time, it must be understood that the Cloud is useful for many things but is not suitable for everything. In that sense, the on-premise model will not disappear and is destined to coexist with different types of Clouds under the umbrella of a Hybrid Multicloud environment, which is the model that best captures the complexity of today’s business systems.
For this reason, our best recommendation is to partner with a provider like Arsys, who offers the ability to design a tailored solution when necessary and can accompany you throughout the process with an expert team in deploying all types of applications and Cloud environments.
What measures do you consider necessary for SMEs to have more confidence in migrating to the Cloud?
I can almost say that the most important thing is to have a provider that accompanies the SME in its migration to the Cloud and allows it to find the Cloud model that fits its technical requirements and needs.
Have you observed a difference in Cloud adoption between industrial sectors (for example, financial services vs. retail)?
Each sector has its own requirements and approaches Cloud adoption differently. There are sectors, such as finance or healthcare, where regulatory and legal requirements are more stringent, which is why the on-premise model is more significant there than in others.
As we like to say in the tech sector, there are no silver bullets. Each sector and each company has its own way of understanding and adopting the Cloud. Even within the same company, one might opt for a Private Cloud model for one project and choose another Public Cloud for a project with different requirements.
Cloud Security
In terms of security, what challenges do companies face when migrating to the Cloud?
The Cloud is much more secure than a traditional environment. Cloud providers offer advanced security and availability measures “by default” in our Cloud solutions—measures that are hard for a company to afford on-premise.
Additionally, Cloud providers have years of experience with these security tools and a volume of clients and use cases that very few companies possess.
However, it is also important to keep in mind that security is, in a sense, a shared responsibility. No matter how many measures we Cloud providers adopt, clients are responsible for the security of their applications and data, and it is crucial to know where each party’s responsibilities end.
What are the most effective security measures you recommend implementing when working in the Cloud?
To ensure security when working in the Cloud, it is advisable to use a zero-trust model and a principle of least privilege, along with a strong emphasis on at least two-factor authentication and Identity and Access Management (IAM).
Regarding data, it is recommended to encrypt it to ensure maximum privacy both at rest and in transit.
At the communication level, network segmentation, the use of firewalls, web application firewalls (WAF), VPNA VPN, short for Virtual Private Network, is a …, etc., are also minimum requirements in this area.
Implementing observability services is becoming increasingly essential, not only for forensic analysis but also for real-time detection of any anomalies. Additionally, regularly conducting penetration tests and security audits is crucial.
How do you address security in Multicloud environments, especially considering the increase in cyberattacks on Cloud platforms?
Managing security is more complex in Multicloud because the same security measures applied in an individual Cloud must be applied uniformly across all involved Clouds. Therefore, unified management of security and compliance policies is of utmost importance in this Multicloud model.
The Role of Partners
What role do partners play in the success of a Cloud migration?
Partners are essential because they provide the specialized services and customization that clients require, transferring their expertise and experience to the Cloud providers who deploy the infrastructure to implement what the end client wants: an IT solution.
That is why at Arsys, we have a broad range of specialized partners for these types of services that we frequently turn to for migrations and support for our clients.
How do you ensure that migration projects are well supported from planning to execution and maintenance?
We rely on our specialized partners, who have vast experience and know-how in these types of projects.
What additional services do you offer to help companies manage their infrastructure in the Cloud after migration?
We have different levels of Technical Support that take care of all aspects of project accompaniment, with the possibility of having direct 24/7 access to a team of Technical Account Managers (TAM) as the sole technical contact or the role of the dedicated Service Manager to review all aspects of comprehensive service management, including optimization and quality.
Additionally, we offer a broad range of complementary solutions, both our own and from our partners, for the various professional and managed services that our clients may demand.
Sustainability and the Future of Cloud
Do you consider that sustainability is becoming a key factor when choosing Cloud solutions?
There is an increasing concern about sustainability throughout society, and at Arsys, we are very committed to reducing the environmental impact of our activities as Cloud providers.
Proof of this is that our main data centerA data center or data processing center (DPC) … in Spain has been powered by renewable energy sources since 2015, utilizes high-efficiency water cooling, and employs innovative IoT and Artificial Intelligence-based cooling systems. All our measures always combine environmental respect and high availability of all hosted services. We have excellent energy efficiency indicators in our data center (PUEThe PUE index (Power Usage Effectiveness) is used…, WUE…) and, in addition, we hold specific certifications in this area, such as ISO 50001 and ISO 14001.
How are you helping companies reduce their carbon footprint and energy consumption through Cloud solutions?
Our sustainability measures directly translate to all the services we host, so all our customers benefit from these measures.
How do you see the future of the Cloud, and what new trends do you foresee will shape the evolution of Multicloud environments in the coming years?
The Hybrid Multicloud model, in which various types of Clouds and providers (Public, Private, on-premise…) coexist, is the present and the most immediate future of the Cloud. Built on open-source standards like containers and Kubernetes.
We will also see more and more SaaS… They are the final service that clients really want once they decide to outsource, and they are becoming increasingly specialized and vertical.
The generalist Public Cloud model we see today from hyperscalers will become increasingly complex, global, and may not be the most economical and suitable solution for many companies. So we will see more specialized, simpler, cheaper, and local Public Clouds. They will also coexist with dedicated and customizable Private Clouds and the on-premise model for legacy systems. In the short term, all cloud models will grow due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence and its massive need for computing and storage.