OVH: The cloud should be open, reversible, interoperable

OVHcloud is perhaps best known for cloud computing, hosting, and dedicated servers in its network of datacenters but the company has also made news in other arenas. For instance, taking on Microsoft in the European courts or the fire at one of its datacenters that destroyed customer data. Backups? It's the cloud, right? CEO …

[Mike 137]

Is it a backup at all?

"Many customers, especially small customers, were not really very interested in that and they believed 'because it's in the cloud... my backups are secured.'"

It's not a backup unless:

[1] you control the backup schedule and parameters

[2] you've tested it and proved you can re-install without error

[3] you know where it's stored and have verified that storage is secure against foreseeable hazards

Otherwise it's just an untrusted temporary copy hanging about somewhere. The fantasy that you can forget about security once you migrate your data to the 'cloud' is just that - a fantasy. If you're not in control, you haven't any control, and if you haven't any control you'll lose your data some day.

[Potemkine!]

"The cloud should stay open," says Paulin. "Reversible, interoperable."

Stay? Because it is already??

[Anonymous Coward]

no regulation

" "We have decided to increase the level of resilience," he says, "above all the regulations."

This comprises, according to Paulin, containerization, fire extinguishing systems, and batteries. The opening of a new datacenter is being delayed "just to readapt with higher standards of security and safety of our servers.""

"Above all regulations", you say ? As far as I know, there is strictly none in France, for a DC, about fire suppression. This may also be because a "DC" is not even defined in french laws.

So, not too difficult to do anything vs. sweet f**k all, like in Strasbourg !

This is actually the realm of SSAE rather than regulation.

And yes, it is a no brainer to have an automatic fire suppression system in any proper DC, like everyone sane is doing.

[John Klos]

Paulin's "Stay open" == make money off of abuse?

OVH is a veritable cesspool. They calculatingly intermix legitimate clients with spammers, scanners and spammers, and they ignore abuse complaints. They know exactly what they're doing.

Paulin wants "open" because he doesn't want Google and Amazon to have a monopoly on hosting scammers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Paulin's "Stay open" == make money off of abuse?

Yup. We're having discussions with upstream network providers to ban their IP address ranges wholesale. They're not the only ones but they do feature prominently in our traffic reject logs.

[Paul Eagles]

Re: Paulin's "Stay open" == make money off of abuse?

Agreed 100%.

OVH is so slow to deal with abuse reports that they're complicit with the scammers. I've reported a few phishing sites to them and was aghast at how long it took them to deal with it.

You picked the right term - OVH is indeed a cesspool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Paulin's "Stay open" == make money off of abuse?

Actually looking at Spamhaus data Microsoft, Google and Amazon are already far worse:

https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/networks/

https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/botnet-isp/

[philstubbington]

Re: Paulin's "Stay open" == make money off of abuse?

I don't think absolute numbers tell you very much. How many people use Microsoft, Google and Amazon versus OVH?

[nonsequitur]

...and fireproof. Don't forget FIREPROOF.

[Paul Eagles]

Reworded opening line

Can I suggest a change to the first sentence.

Instead of "OVHcloud is perhaps best known for cloud computing, hosting, and dedicated servers in its network of datacenters but the company has also made news in other arenas" I would suggest ""OVHcloud is perhaps best known for hosting scammers & phishing sites, not giving a shit about abuse reports, cloud computing, hosting, and dedicated servers in its network of datacenters but the company has also made news in other arenas.

My version is a little more accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

… have we gone back in time?

This sounds like the sort of nonsense vendors tried to get away with in the Wild West of the internet in the 1990s! If Microsoft don’t get the case chucked out of court it’s only because the EU (and I’m a European) favour an EU vendor however rubbish they are over a global corporation.