Nordcloud, an IBM Company

📅 Week 6 — Stop Writing BCDR Frameworks. Start Building Real Resilience. I’m posting early this week from the peaceful Dordogne countryside in France, where the only outages come from Limousin cattle blocking my road. And honestly, it’s the perfect metaphor: Progress stalls when we treat BCDR as paperwork instead of a living program. Headline: Your BCDR strategy is probably a one‑off project and that’s terrifying! A BCDR framework or set of documents alone won’t protect you. It doesn’t evolve, and it won’t survive real‑world change. Meanwhile, your IT landscape is constantly shifting, new SaaS platforms, AI tools, cloud workloads, infrastructure regions, and dependencies. If your BCDR capability doesn’t evolve along with it, you’re already behind! The two BCDR traps I see everywhere: 1️⃣ Top‑Down: Perfect BC governance, but no DR action → paralysis by analysis. 2️⃣ Bottom‑Up: Quick DR fixes, no BC alignment → cowboy recovery. Both fail. Both create risk. The fix: Dual‑Track BCDR Resilience Program. You must do both at the same time: - Fix high‑risk IT systems and business critical workloads now. - Build the long‑term resilience program in parallel. This is how mature organisations reduce risk today while building capability for tomorrow. My five‑step BCDR program engine: 1. Foundation. → 2. Analysis. → 3. Strategy. → 4. Implementation. → 5. Evolution. That last step never ends, your business and IT landscape changes every day. Lessons Learned — Do's & Don'ts: ✅ Do: Turn your BCDR framework and program into a daily operational capability, repeatable, testable, and reliable. ❌ Don’t: Skip BC or DR steps. Every shortcut makes your BCDR fragile. BCDR isn’t a paper‑tiger exercise. It’s a discipline. 💬 C‑level challenge: When did you last see a real dashboard of your critical business workloads’ BCDR maturity, not just a “green” status report? 🔗 More insights: https://lnkd.in/euY2uSY4 #BCDR #Resilience #ProgramManagement #ContinuityPlanning #CISO #CIO #Nordcloud #IBM

Stronger together. One team. Today marks an exciting milestone as Nordcloud, an IBM Company integrates fully into IBM; bringing together two strong cultures, complementary strengths and a shared ambition to help our clients move faster and realize more value in the cloud. For quite some time, I’ve been living with a foot in two worlds: Nordcloud and IBM. The space in between has been interesting, sometimes challenging, and often full of learning. Bridging different ways of thinking, different cultures, and helping connect the dots where they didn’t always naturally align. But what I feel in this moment is different. There’s a real sense that I don’t have to stand in the middle anymore because there’s no longer a “middle” to bridge. From here on out, we’re moving forward together as one team. What stands out most for me in this integration isn’t just the compounded technology or scale. It’s the people. The energy, the openness and the willingness to learn from each other as we build something bigger and better than either organization alone. A huge thank you to my three incredible direct teams: - Software Engineering lead by Katarzyna Sołtyk and Jakub Woźniak - Cloud Foundation lead by Mariusz Preiss - Go To Market: Jonna Iljin, Tomasz Dominiak, Tariq Yousaf You’ve shown resilience, dedication and an ability to conquer any challenge. Your commitment, drive and focus inspires me everyday and made our achievements as a company possible. A big thank you as well to: - The Nordcloud CTO Community for driving technical excellence: Pasi Katajainen, Petri Salminen, Hans Christoffersson, Simon Casey, Michel Tardio, Aron Jose Francis AmaldossRichard Zimmermann, Mario Kleinsasser, Julian Mindermann, Tommy Korhonen, - And my fellow Nordcloud Leadership team members for the collaboration, trust and shared vision: Mark Bennett, Edwin van Voorbergen, Indrayudh Ghosh, Maria Ihamuotila, Henrik Møller-Nielsen, Mette Lemming Christensen, Luke Harrigan, Anneli Kymäläinen, Andy Walker, Daniel Unkelhäußer, Antero Vuorio, Peter Bakker, Gert-Jan Berden, Sari Aumo, Christiaan de Ridder, Daniel Stenman, Jeroen Greive And for course nothing would be possible without the #NordcloudNinjas. Thank you all for always putting the client first and embodying our culture in everything you do. There’s still plenty to evolution to come, but what’s already clear is this: We’re stronger together as one team; aligned around delivering real impact for our customers. I look forward to what we build next together #cloud #data #AI

Time for reflection. After a long haul, today marks the next phase of Nordcloud, an IBM Company integration into IBM: we officially become IBMers. I started with Nordcloud more than a decade ago, when we were still a small, scrappy start-up mainly operating out of Finland. We often had to look bigger than we were to convince partners and clients of our capabilities and drive. Back then, the market focus was clearly on #AWS, and our goal was simple: help customers use the platform to the fullest. The mentality was to disrupt the status quo, maximise customer value and show a modern way of building and running systems in the cloud — with integrity and honesty towards our clients. We called it the “hold my beer” attitude. In many ways, that spirit is still with us. Over the years we went through many phases, ups and downs. In 2017 I moved to Germany to help grow our footprint in Central Europe, and we were rather successful, I must add. I remember the long days and nights managing teams and projects, while trying to grow the company image and business in DACH with Thomas Baus. We earned frequent traveller status with DB: planning workshops, sales and partner meetings on the way out, sending invoices on the way back. True entrepreneurial years :) Nordcloud’s growth and success in cloud did not go unnoticed. We appeared in analyst reports such as Deloitte’s Tech Fast 50, and Gartner quadrants and our partners recognised our capabilities several times. Witnessing the scale-up, the growing pains and the successes has been wonderful — even if sometimes frustrating. Roughly five years ago, IBM saw the impact Nordcloud was making and acquired us to strengthen its public cloud know-how in EMEA. Since then, it has been an interesting ride: learning how a truly global technology and consulting company works with clients, manages offerings and partner programs, and drives efficiency and repeatability at scale. We had to grow up, refine processes, roles and responsibilities — and we did the hard work. I’m pleased to say we never lost our customer-facing enthusiasm, flexibility, or that “hold my beer” attitude clients value. We can still be quirky, and always painfully honest partners for our clients. Now the next chapter starts. We will keep operating with the same customer obsession, only under different branding. With the integration, we can influence even more clients across EMEA and beyond on how they use hyperscaler technologies and change the way they operate. We also get to keep learning from the wider IBM family, beyond hyperscaler platforms, as we build solutions across tech stacks, locations and cultures. Together with IBM and the hyperscalers, we are now in a great position to help lead transformation at larger scale — especially as AI changes IT, software development, and the relationship between clients and consulting partners. We get to be part of defining that next chapter… at scale. New beginning for sure!

🏎️ A new quarter begins - it’s less about a calendar date and more about the opportunity to start fresh with new energy and focus. My red Ferrari shirt with the 👁️🐝Ⓜ️ logo is a reminder today of what truly matters: not just speed, but making sure we’re all heading in the right direction together. A successful quarter isn’t built by pressure, but by people who support each other, share ideas, take ownership, and celebrate wins together. Motivation grows where trust lives, where every voice is heard, and where challenges become opportunities. And even though it’s vacation time for many, I think it’s so important that we all take a moment to recharge. When we give ourselves space to rest, we come back stronger, more creative, and ready to make a real impact. I’m excited for the weeks ahead—after all, when we balance energy with rest, we can achieve something truly great. Wishing everyone a restful break and a powerful start to the new quarter!🐝 IBM & Nordcloud, an IBM Company

Today is a significant day for IBM, Nordcloud, an IBM Company and our hyperscaler partners: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Nordcloud formally integrates into IBM today in 8 out of 10 countries. This is an exciting time – to bring the combined strengths of Nordcloud (an agile, cloud-obsessed company) with IBM’s enterprise-scale, AI and asset-infused capabilities. We have already been working together for 5 years and seen the growth together. The journey doesn’t stop here, it accelerates. We will continue with many of the Nordcloud ways of working, cloud assets and hyperscaler insights to drive enhanced value to our clients. For clients, this brings broader capabilities together seamlessly. For our Nordcloud people, this is an opportunity to deepen technical careers. And for our hyperscaler partners, this enables us to scale better together. I am excited about what the future holds for the next step on our cloud journey together! Thanks to the Nordcloud leadership for driving the business forwards : Anneli Kymäläinen, Daniel Unkelhäußer, Antero Vuorio, Andy Walker, Lysa Banks, Maria Ihamuotila, Mette Lemming Christensen, Henrik Møller-Nielsen, Edwin van Voorbergen, Indrayudh Ghosh, Luke Harrigan, Christiaan de Ridder, Sari Aumo, Peter Bakker, Gert-Jan Berden, Daniel Stenman, Jeroen Greive And our integration team led by James Robinson, Jose Luis Palomar Silvestre, Doris Reich-Rohrwig, Judith Mihram and many more ! Thanks too to our IBM EMEA and global sponsors: Mohamad Ali, Andy Baldwin, Varun Bijlani, Rahul Kalia, Dave McCann, Salima Lin, Bal Krishan, Robert Wickel, Javier Olaizola Casín, Kamal Singhani, Rhodri Arrowsmith, Christine Rupp, Roger Arpagaus, Anuj Malhotra IBM Consulting #cloud #AI

The era of "our data, our rules" is ending. The EU Data Act is changing the balance of power. Data portability. Open ecosystems. Less vendor lock-in. Whether you're running cloud platforms, SaaS or connected products, these changes will influence your architecture, contracts and long-term cloud strategy. In our latest blog, Sander Nieuwenhuis explains what matters, what happens next, and how to prepare before the next wave of obligations arrives. Because the organisations that prepare early won't just stay compliant. They'll be better positioned to innovate. Read more 👇 https://lnkd.in/dKbM53in #EUDataAct #DigitalSovereignty #CloudStrategy #DataGovernance #Compliance #NordcloudNinjas #NordcloudBytes

You don't build a Plan B when you need it 🥸. You build it before you do. That's exactly why digital sovereignty has become such an important conversation. Not because organisations should panic. But because the best decisions are made before they're forced upon you. In our latest blog, Jari Lietzen explores why so many organisations are still hesitating, why digital sovereignty isn't a one-size-fits-all destination, and how to turn uncertainty into practical, justified action. Because sovereignty isn't about moving everything. It's about understanding what actually needs protecting, and making informed decisions before someone else makes them for you. Read the blog ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dA428cuj #DigitalSovereignty #CloudStrategy #CloudComputing #CyberSecurity #CloudTransformation #NordcloudNinjas #NordcloudBytes

This is where most FinOps journeys stall. Not because of technology. Because of how organisations work. Welcome to the Work Zone: 🌀 endless reporting, no action 🪦 governance ignored in practice 🕳️ accountability that never lands Effort without impact. Because FinOps isn’t a dashboard. It’s a way of operating: → shared ownership → real decisions → alignment across teams Without that… you don’t move forward. You orbit the problem. 🪐 Break out of the loop: 👉 Get the FinOps Galaxy Field Guide: https://lnkd.in/dpRnEiNF #FinOps #CloudOperatingModel #CloudGovernance #FinOpsCulture #CloudStrategy #DigitalTransformation #NordcloudBytes #NordcloudNinjas

Cloud doesn't become expensive overnight. It becomes expensive when nobody's looking 🥸. One forgotten virtual machine. One oversized reservation. One disk that's been sitting there since a migration two years ago. Multiply that across hundreds of autonomous teams... ...and suddenly your cloud bill has a life of its own. That's exactly where one global manufacturing organisation found itself. Cloud adoption had accelerated, but financial governance hadn't kept pace. Teams made their own cloud decisions, internal billing had become increasingly complex, and no one had a complete picture of cloud consumption. The answer wasn't asking people to spend less. It was helping them understand what they were spending in the first place. Together, we introduced FinOps practices that helped the organisation: ✅ Improve cloud cost transparency ✅ Optimise Azure reservations based on real usage ✅ Eliminate unnecessary cloud waste ✅ Automate VM shutdowns ✅ Strengthen internal billing and cost allocation ✅ Build a culture of cloud cost ownership The results? 📉 Annual cloud savings through continuous optimisation 💿 10x fewer unused disks (and counting) 🤝 Better collaboration between IT, Finance and engineering teams 📊 Greater visibility into cloud spend across the organisation Because the best way to reduce cloud costs... ...is to stop treating them as someone else's problem. Read the full story 👇 https://lnkd.in/d-9hgV8f #NordcloudNinjas #NordcloudBytes #FinOps #Azure #CloudCostManagement #CloudTransformation #Manufacturing

EU keeps aiming at a more open market, risk based approaches and independence. Recent examples are AI Act(https://lnkd.in/ecBJjt7R) and NIS2 (https://lnkd.in/efBwRFtK). The Data Act aims to make sure that the people that own the data are also in control of data. It enables you to move your data in and out of ecosystems (including cloud!) more easy. Avoiding data lock-in and promoting data portability - which is great news for AI model training and data management. Read all about it in my new blog: https://lnkd.in/ePG5DuvE