Micro Logic: High-performance Canadian sovereign cloud for a hybrid future
Philippe Bedard, Vice President of Cloud at Micro Logic, and the company’s Lead Analyst for Large Opportunities, Robert Michon, stress that hybrid cloud is crucially important for nearly every enterprise. It’s a view that is consistent with Micro Logic’s cloud strategy from day one, one which saw it embrace a hybrid approach and launch Canada’s first sovereign cloud more than a decade ago.
“Clients rightfully need to keep some things on-premises, put others in the public cloud, and use a fully sovereign, private cloud for mission-critical workloads and data,” says Michon. “We embrace the fact that we are never going to be the only game in town and that our clients are going to want to move some data from point A to point B, and to point C and back again. That is why it is so important not only that our solutions work flawlessly with other clouds, but also that our clients not be subjected to fees that in effect lock their data in one location.”
This emphasis on data portability is a foundational philosophy at Micro Logic. It is a belief that continues to impact the company’s cloud offerings and the many services and solutions it provides around them.
“We believe in multi-cloud environments where our clients remain in total control of their data and can freely transfer it between their cloud environments at any time – it’s their data after all,” notes Bedard. “But it’s important to remember that ‘cloud only’ is not a good one-size-fits-all approach. There will always be use cases where an on-premises deployment is better. That’s why we built our company around the concept of hybrid cloud. We excel in offering cloud solutions – everything from Infrastructure-as-a-Service to a full array of managed cloud services – but we also provide components that help our clients build and maintain their own data centers. And of course, we are best known for providing Canada’s leading sovereign cloud.”
Bedard notes that high performance and cost predictability are key in any environment.
“Our customers have significant security and compliance needs and we do not compromise on resiliency,” he adds. “Our cloud, Cirrus, is a Canadian sovereign cloud that is different by design and engineered for top performance using the most advanced Intel CPUs, proven and innovative VMware by Broadcom technologies, and Nvidia’s latest GPUs and DGX systems – something we can do as Nvidia’s only AI Cloud Partner in Canada. We don’t believe in API, operational, and egress fees, but do feel it’s imperative our clients know what their infrastructure will cost.”
More than a decade of sovereign cloud experience
Relied on by numerous government agencies in Canada and enterprises in sectors like banking and healthcare, Cirrus builds on more than a decade of experience offering a fully sovereign cloud that addresses the most demanding requirements for compute, storage, and networking performance.
“We offered a sovereign cloud before sovereignty was an accepted issue,” says Bedard. “Data residency and data sovereignty of course are two different things. With Cirrus, our client’s data is safeguarded here in Canada in facilities where only our employees – fully vetted Canadian citizens – are allowed access. No third parties can interact with their data in any way.”
Bedard notes that Cirrus’ ironclad sovereignty is also beneficial to other organizations. This includes American brands that want to do business in Europe while simultaneously maintaining operations in North America. With Canadian equivalency to the General Data Protection Regulation, enterprises encounter fewer roadblocks when working to address Europe’s data protection requirements.
Cirrus is also a natural environment for organizations that want to deploy AI but safeguard data and intellectual property used by self-learning applications in a private environment – something that inherently benefits from Micro Logic’s partnership with Nvidia as well as Broadcom’s.
Notably, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) radically simplifies such endeavors and empowers organizations in their cloud and AI efforts. It’s a point that Michon believes many enterprises are just now realizing.
“We have more than two decades of experience working closely with VMware, and being named a Broadcom Pinnacle Partner is an exceptional new chapter in that relationship,” he says. “VCF is clearly the most powerful engine for creating, deploying, and managing an exceptional cloud and it now includes more valuable tools that enable enterprises to excel and realize the full potential of transformative technologies like AI. When you combine that with the fact that Broadcom is investing $2 billion in additional innovation – as well as the fact that a VCF subscription can be used, moved, and applied wherever the enterprise wishes – you have an offering that delivers the true agility and business continuity we pride ourselves on enabling at Micro Logic.”
Even so, Michon stresses that there is always more to it than technology, tools, and solutions.
“At Micro Logic, it really comes down to people,” he adds. “More than 75% percent of our employees are directly involved in engineering and bring deep technology expertise to their work. Our clients know not only that a Micro Logic employee is always immediately available, but that they can speak with someone in close proximity to their work at all times.”
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