A birthday treat: Fundaments introduces new service

22 years of Fundaments

A lot has happened in those 22 years. Larik-Jan Verschuren, CTO of Fundaments, looks back on this period.

Larik-Jan, what are you most proud of?
A lot has happened in 22 years: the IT world has changed enormously. And with it, the view and needs of our customers. I am proud that with Fundaments we have always been able to keep up with these changes: side-by-side with our customers. In recent years, we have shown that it is precisely this cooperation that creates a nice mix of the right products and services, from different suppliers. An offer with which we can provide our MSP partners and ISV end-users with what they need, while at the same time offering them the opportunity to take that extra step into the future. Our suppliers also see this. A great example of this is our ‘Cloud Verified’ status from VMware. A wonderful recognition!’

What do you recall the most from the past 22 years?
Change as a common thread: of course the technology that has taken and continues to take off. The sky is the limit. But actually much more how that flight keeps changing the daily practice of our customers. And offers more and more opportunities.

Certainly the past two years have been special in this. Working from home has really caused a turnaround. This was also possible because we had already come a long way ‘in the Cloud’. The Fundaments Cloud - our infrastructure - offers more and more ‘under the bonnet’. With the possibility and convenience that all services can be accessed online: at any time and wherever you are. But again, this brings huge challenges that we sink our teeth into. Because the data exchanged when consulting services online must be really well secured.’

Where do you see Fundaments in the future?
Innovation has always been very important for Fundaments. Thanks to our people and our investment in their development, we're not just another Cloud Service Provider that follows the ‘usual suspects’ route, but we're a Cloud provider that really thinks about what's technologically possible and how this benefits our Cloud users the most. Our ambition to be innovation leaders in the Netherlands ultimately ensures that we just want to be the best. I therefore see us as the knowledge leader in design and the leader in delivering and managing mission-critical Cloud in the Netherlands. We distinguish ourselves through our high quality and because our services are housed in a sovereign Cloud, in which information security, data locality and quality form the basis.

In addition, we continue to develop ourselves, also because we are part of INTERSTELLAR. This group has a wide range of specialisations in its ranks, which also allows us to further expand our services in areas such as cybersecurity. I believe that by bundling specialisations, we can now serve the market very completely with relevant services.

But we also look at issues in the market from our own ‘kitchen’. For our Independent Software Vendors (ISV), we have been providing management services for their platform for many years and have seen that software development has become different through the use of containerisation, With Docker and now with Kubernetes, there has also been a desire there to be able to use these kinds of services. And yes, these services can also be found today in the public Clouds of Azure, Google and Amazon, but precisely because it is fully managed at Fundaments with a team of experts, with certified processes and from a sovereign Cloud in the Netherlands, it creates a solid platform where development and hosting can be done from a partnership.’

New service: CPaaS
As an ISV, delivering Software as a Service (SaaS) is central. For this, it is important to develop features and launch new functionalities in a secure, fast and scalable way. For that, you need a good foundation. To properly manage a complete container infrastructure with various application functions, a management platform is needed. Kubernetes constitutes one of the most important solutions in today's market. To be completely unburdened in hosting and maintaining this Kubernetes platform, Fundaments has developed a new service: Container Platform as a Service (CPaaS). This allows the platform user to focus on developing application code and Fundaments takes care of the rest: 24x7 management of the infrastructure and proper functioning of the Kubernetes components. But even if non-containerised components are required around that, it is precisely that part that Fundaments can fill in well: secure access, fully monitored by a Security Operating Center (SOC), linked to a fully managed database or, in fact, also additional measures on continuity and backup. Very often a development towards a containerised environment is a journey, where server-based technology coincides with containerisation.’

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