Cloudcomputing or “informatique dans le nuage” is a new way of consuming IT today. This new trend fits into the development of new information and communications technologies.
But cloud computing also fits into the evolution of storage means. This has allowed to store more data on less heavy brackets . The storage media are now cheaper, less fat , safer, faster and have more capacity. It is therefore normal that cloud computing is increasingly acclaimed, its use is present in private life as in professional life.
The international data corporation estimates that the global market for products and cloud services accounted for 56 billion dollars and should represent in France in 2016, 6 billion euros. A study of a sample of Frenchman in March 2014 by Syntec Numérique BVA barometer states that 21% of the French population has adopted the cloud every day. This cloud computing market affects professionals as well. In December 2014 , 55% of French organizations use cloud sign, according to a study from the CloudIndex.
Faced with this exponential demand for cloud computing, many actors offer services in this evolving market. Besides the historical hosts, the giants of the web, but also telecom operators and recent players have made a place.
– The historical actors Among the historical actors , one finds the French companies Ikoula , OVH or Gandi.net Founded in 1998, Ikoula hosts more than 35 000 sites and maintains more than 5000 servers. This provider has invested in 2006 in its own Data Center (1750 square meters ) in Reims and in Paris. OVH has one of the largest server farms in the world (about 180,000 servers in October 2014) . Its servers are located in France in the cities of Paris , Roubaix, Gravelines and Strasbourg but also in Canada in the city of Beauharnois . Gandi is a French company created in 1999. Gandi means “ Gestion et Attribution des Noms de Domaine sur Internet “ . Its main activity is to sell domain names, but the company now also offers cloud computing offers.
– The main leading suppliers The web’s giants like Google , Apple or Microsoft were quickly established in the market by offering storage services in the cloud. Amazon and IBM have integrated sooner the cloud market (2000 and 2009 for IBM to Amazon ) mainly for professionals. But next to these giants of the web is the world’s leading cloud service : Salesforce . This company is basically a software company based in San Francisco , created in 1999. It became quickly a pioneer in cloud computing and the “software as a service” . Today it is the world leader in customer relationship thanks to the tools and services the firm has developed. – Telecoms operators The web giants were not the only ones to get a place in this promising future market . Telecoms operators , taking advantage of a significant customer’s base for mobile and web service , have not been slow to develop a range of cloud computing. Taking advantage of the explosion in smartphone sales , but also the development of 4G and the trivialization of public access wireless, telecommunications operators have quickly understood the interest they had to set up services cloud computing. In France , SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Orange share this loyal clientele using their telecom services and smartphones. – Emerging players Among the multitude of new players, many of which shall develop quickly , including Dropbox , which offers a service ” storage as a service .” Other players that Dropbox offer this service and are widely used , actors like SugarSync , Wuala , Bajoo or Rkube . Wuala is a free software online storage . The main difference compared to other providers of the same service lies in the fact that the set of files is encrypted directly on the computer of the user and the password is never transmitted. RKube solution is the French consumer online data backup . Founded in 2013 by Oodrive , a leader on the French market of cloud computing and software publisher “software as a service” for businesses since 2000, this service offers the basics of the ” storage as a service” but with a data security very high.
The actors are becoming increasingly numerous on the cloud computing market, although new players specialize in a form of cloud computing and the major players (web giants and historical actors) diversify their offer, all innovate in meaning : data security . Indeed, each player offers a range of more or less similar to its competitor using the method developed cloud computing , rates are most of the time about the same. So these players have understood that the particular interest to the user, was indeed the location of the data center and the means to protect their data works.
