Get ready for an event that will leave its mark on 2025: clever cloud fest. comes to Nantes on February 6 and 7! 🎉

Clever Cloud is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and we're planning to pull out all the stops. Two crazy days of inspiring keynotes, workshops for sharing, testing, brainstorming, and round-table discussions with industry heavyweights.

Two days in which to discover the major new products, partners, roadmap and upcoming projects! It'll also be an opportunity to exchange ideas with peers, discover new partners and gain perspective on current issues. And of course, we're planning a wonderful evening to celebrate our 15th anniversary together!

We're expecting 150 brilliant minds to brainstorm on the future of the cloud. Customers, prospects, partners, institutions… everyone will be there!

📅 February 6 and 7, 2025

📍4 rue Voltaire, Nantes

So you want to be part of the party? Get your tickets now!

On Tuesday 26 November at 11:30 AM (GMT+1), we invite you to our webinar to discover the solutions we offer and understand how our platform can meet your technological and strategic challenges.

In an ever-changing technological landscape, technical teams are looking for solutions to simplify their day-to-day work while ensuring performance, availability, security, scalability and sovereignty. That's where Clever Cloud comes in: a French PaaS (Platform as a Service) designed to meet the needs of developers, DevOps, and technical decision-makers looking for a reliable, high-performance and sustainable platform.

On Tuesday 26 November at 11:30 AM (GMT+1), join us on Livestorm for our webinar and find out why Clever Cloud is the ideal solution for your projects.

Who will be the speakers?

• Florent Perreux, Chief Sales Officer, will present our offerings, our strategic vision and our DNA;
• Steven Le Roux, Chief Technical Officer, will take over with a demonstration of the platform and then present our technological roadmap.

Florent Perreux, Chief Sales Officer

Steven Le Roux, Chief Technical Officer

What will you discover?

During this 30-minute webinar, we will cover: :

• Overview of Clever Cloud ;
• Demonstration ;
• Roadmap and innovations ;
• Focus on reliability, security and performance;
• Q&A session.

With Clever Cloud, you code, we do the rest: auto-scaling, integrated monitoring, CI/CD, and much more.

When and where?

📅 Tuesday 26 November 2024

⏰ 11:30 AM (GMT+1) (duration: 30 minutes)

📍 Online on Livestorm

Find out why our Cloud is Clever!

Clever Cloud's promise is to deploy applications and services in an instant and maintain them in operational condition. But it also means offering you comprehensive tools to meet the needs of your teams: management interfaces, integrations, domains, backups, logs, metrics, etc.

Provide reliable and sustainable solutions, production ready

Sometimes this involves complementary solutions, such as Azimutt, Keycloak, MailPace or Matomo, available as turnkey services that you can deploy like any other add-on via our API, the Console or Clever Tools, etc.

In this field, the common approach is to let customers manage with a ‘1-click’ deployment of open source tools. Perfect for the demo effect and for having a minimal service to test. But what happens when you want to go further and use it on a day-to-day basis for your teams? What about the lifecycle of the application once deployed, updating it with the assurance of taking advantage of its new functions and the possibilities opened up by the synergies of the hosting platform?

This is how we initially imagined our Marketplace strategy, which we have been implementing more actively in recent years: to continue to build Clever Cloud by looking for solutions for our customers, a way of supporting them while enabling them to benefit from our experience, our automation capacity… and our ecosystem. That's why we're developing it with partners.

Our Marketplace is an offering that blends in with our native services, taking advantage of the strengths of our platform, our integrations and a unified payment system, but which is kept up to date by dedicated developers and teams who are experts in these solutions.

Would you like to be one of them? Come and talk to us.

Metabase: business intelligence (BI) brought to your team

In the case of Metabase, we worked with David Sferruzza, a long-time companion of Clever Cloud. David is a multi-entrepreneur (including Hook0, _icilundi and Wattflow), a trainer and a CTO who supports start-ups. When we had the opportunity to work with him on various add-on projects for our Marketplace, we said ‘Banco!’.

So, after a few weeks' work and an internal testing phase, Metabase in the Cloud is the first service available to all our customers. This open source solution connects to your MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL and other databases! Any user can easily use it to create their own questions, and knowledge of SQL is not necessarily required. This means you can make your data available to all your employees.

They can create graphs and dashboards, as well as reports that you will receive by e-mail or through tools such as Slack, and share these resources with third parties. You can also export this data in different formats, or use Metabase as a graphical interface for a read-only database. The possibilities are endless.

How to use Metabase on Clever Cloud

As with any add-on, it can be created using our API, Console or Clever Tools :

$ clever addon create metabase myMetabase
Add-on created successfully!
ID: addon_xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
Real ID: metabase_xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
Name: myMetabase

Your Metabase is starting:
 - Access it: https://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-metabase.services.clever-cloud.com
 - Manage it: https://console.clever-cloud.com/addon_xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

The Metabase Java application is now deployed with a PostgreSQL database, so there's nothing more to do. As soon as everything is ready, the management interface will display a configuration wizard asking you to create the administration account.You'll then be ready to add your first data sources, create Metabase questions and private and/or shared dashboards.

A service deployed the Clever Cloud way

Naturally, you benefit from the simplicity of Clever Cloud: you can adapt the size and number of instances manually or via our automatic scalability parameters, opt for a larger database via our automatic migration tool, define which version or branch of Metabase you want to deploy, etc.

If you'd like to take advantage of a Metabase Enterprise Edition (EE) licence within our hosted infrastructure in Paris, that's also possible. Finally, we have facilitated integration with MailPace, which is also available in our Marketplace. It can be linked to the application of your Metabase add-on and will be used automatically to send e-mails.

• Metabase documentation on Clever Cloud

As we have always advocated an open approach to the Cloud, not locking customers into one supplier, this solution works whether or not the data sources are hosted by Clever Cloud. You can easily import a self-hosted Metabase into our infrastructure, and the reverse is also possible.

This add-on is currently available in beta to all our customers. This means that it is fully functional and can be used on a day-to-day basis without any loss of data or functionality, but that we are currently in the process of improving its experience and the way in which you can deploy and use it. Don't hesitate to give us your feedback in our GitHub community.

Want to find out more? Feel free to deploy and use the service from our Console. A presentation by David and our chief DevRel Horacio will be held on Tuesday 12 November from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM on our Twitch channel.

Join us at the following events:

October 2024

ADN Ouest "Business and research: mission impossible?"

📅 1st October

📍 Nantes

Join Jean-Baptiste Piacentino and Carine Guillemet in Nantes for the seminar "Business and research: mission impossible?". Explore your research projects and ask your questions about funding.

Devoxx Morocco

📅 From 2 to 4 October 2024

📍 Marrakech

FrancoTech

📅 From 3 to 4 October 2024

📍 Paris

Join Florent Perreux, Ismaël Cissé and Jean-Baptiste Piacentino as he takes part in a roundtable discussion on AI at FrancoTech 2024. This event brings together more than 1,500 French-speaking players around the themes of AI, logistics and the energy transition.

5G professionnelle

📅 8 October 2024

📍 Paris

Come and meet Jean-Baptiste Piacentino and Sarah Medjek in Paris to find out about the advances and challenges of 5G, particularly in terms of cybersecurity, with real-life feedback.

Forum PHP

📅 From 10 to 11 October 2024

📍 Disneyland Paris, Marvel Hotel

Clever Cloud is a gold and platinum sponsor of this event. Come and discuss what's new in PHP with our team: Horacio Gonzalez, David Legrand, Sébastien Allemand, Florent Perreux, Ismaël Cissé, Sébastien Brunat and Carine Guillemet.

Volcamp

📅 From 10 to 11 October 2024

📍 Clermont-Ferrand

Join Rémi Collignon-Ducret and Manuel Luzarreta at this technology event in the heart of the Auvergne volcanoes. Clever Cloud is proud to be a Silver sponsor of this conference dedicated to IT enthusiasts.

Gitex Dubai

📅 From 14 to 18 October 2024

📍 Dubaï

Meet Quentin Adam and Erwan Rougeux at GITEX GLOBAL in Dubai, one of the world's largest trade shows dedicated to tech and AI. Come and discuss digital transformation with industry leaders, governments, startups and investors.

COBOL Webinar

📅 15 October 2024

Attend our webinar on 15 October at 11.30am hosted by Florent Perreux, Sales Director, and Fabrice Le Fessant, President of OcamlPro. Find out how to deploy your COBOL applications on the Clever Cloud with SuperBOL, with a live demonstration and practical advice.

P99

📅 From 23 to 24 October 2024

Don't miss the talk by Luc Lenôtre, Rust Software Engineer, "Writing a Kernel in Rust: Code Quality and Performance", at the P99 CONF. An event dedicated to performance optimisation for developers.

Choiseul Africa

📅 From 31 October to 1st November 2024

📍 Marrakech

Meet Quentin Adam and Erwan Rougeux at Choiseul Africa, an event on technological challenges and innovations in Africa. Around 800 decision-makers from Africa, Europe and the Gulf are meeting to discuss African development.

November 2024

UGAP SMART IT 2024

📅 7 November 2024

📍 Paris

Come along to UGAP SMART IT to discuss innovations in the IT sector. Meet the experts and discover the trends that are redefining the future of the industry.

ScalaIO

📅 From 7 to 8 November 2024

📍 Paris

ScalaIO, the event dedicated to Scala programming at EPITA, is an opportunity to meet other Scala enthusiasts. For two days, attend a variety of sessions with renowned speakers, organised by the Scala community.

Unlock your brain

📅 From 8 to 9 November 2024

📍 Brest

Join us at La Cantine Brest for this event and discover the latest trends in technology and innovation. Clever Cloud is proud to be a Bronze sponsor of this event. Talk to experts about the ideas that will shape the future of the sector.

Open Innovation Camp

📅 14 November 2024

📍 Rennes

Take part in Open Innovation Camp in Rennes, an event about collaboration between businesses and startups. Explore opportunities, exchange innovative ideas and forge partnerships to boost your growth.

Startup Weekend Nantes

📅 From 15 to 17 November 2024

📍 Nantes

December 2024

Imagine Summit

📅 5 December 2024

📍 Rennes

Come at the Imagine Summit in Rennes, a trade fair dedicated to innovation where Clever Cloud is a sponsor. Immerse yourself in the latest trends and innovations by talking to industry experts.

Meet Up Elastic Search

📅 From 11 to 12 December 2024

📍 Brest and Nantes

Attend the Elastic Search meetup in Brest and Nantes, hosted by David Pilato. It's the perfect opportunity to expand your knowledge and share your experiences.

What is Hexatrust?

Hexatrust is an association of French and European leaders in cybersecurity and the trusted cloud. Its mission is to promote excellence in the digital domain by bringing together start-ups, SMEs and ETIs innovating in the cybersecurity and cloud security sectors. The association strives to defend the interests of its members in dealings with public authorities, and to promote the French and European cybersecurity ecosystem.

Hexatrust's role

Hexatrust's mission is multi-faceted:

1. Advocacy: Representing industry players to the authorities.
2. Visibility: Increase members' recognition on the national and international markets.
3. Innovation: Leading a community of entrepreneurs to promote the exchange of ideas and the development of innovative solutions.

Why is joining Hexatrust important for Clever Cloud?

Collaboration and synergy

Unity is strength. Being a member of Hexatrust enables Clever Cloud to collaborate with other French and European industry leaders. This cooperation is crucial to developing even more robust cloud security solutions that meet today's cybersecurity challenges. We also share a common vision of the European digital age, and of the importance of digital sovereignty in protecting the data of our businesses and citizens.

Technology watch and peer-to-peer exchanges

Hexatrust has set up a number of working groups and organizes events enabling its members to exchange and share feedback on tools and issues. These actions are vital for Clever Cloud and its teams, to ensure the necessary monitoring of our products' security.

In line with our strategy

Clever Cloud has designed its platform to be secured by design: immutable architecture, avoidance of trusted networks (each peer on the same network is identified, authenticated and communicates in encrypted form), development or participation in the development of open source tools (Reverse Proxy Sozu and Token Biscuit). In addition to these best practices, we are ISO 9001 and ISO 27001:2022 certified. We are also in the process of obtaining HDS (Healthcare Data Hosting) certification and SecNumCloud certification.

Conclusion

Joining Hexatrust represents a springboard for Clever Cloud on its journey towards excellence in cloud data security. By joining this community of experts, we are reasserting our commitment while contributing to the evolution of the European digital landscape.

While Clever Cloud makes it easy for you to deploy your applications, our platform is also highly appreciated for its managed databases. Using our API, CLI or Console, you can create MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, ElasticSearch and, of course, our Materia KV serverless offering.

Like all our other solutions, our databases are not only easy to configure, they also come with turnkey tooling, whether for association with one or more applications, logging, metrics, management interfaces, etc. This tooling is constantly being improved to better meet our customers' needs.

This sometimes leads to in-house developments, such as our “Explorer”, which we'll be talking about shortly. But we also seek to associate ourselves with partners offering services that correspond to our philosophy, bringing value and simplicity to our customers. And that's what Azimutt offers.

Azimutt: a new way to explore your SQL databases (among others)

We've been following this startup, founded by Loïc Knuchel, for several years now. The engineer, who has also worked for Criteo, Zeenea and Doctolib, has created a tool for visualizing and exploring in detail the content of databases (tables, relations, constraints, etc.), especially for very large ones. But also to document them, to analyze them in order to identify possible problems and improve performance, and to carry out this work in a team in a pleasant interface, integrating AI functionalities.

The tool is entirely open source, and relies in part on its Gateway, launched as an external service, for all database connections. It can be launched on the user's machine or hosted on servers. As a result, nothing passes through Azimutt's infrastructure, and local databases can be explored too. You can also import your schema with a SQL file or define it using Azimutt Markup Language (AML).

Loïc decided a few months ago to devote himself fully to this project, so it was obvious for us to support him when he applied for our “UP” program. It was also an opportunity for us to go one step further and integrate Azimutt into the Clever Cloud marketplace, enabling everyone to distribute their services within our platform, for certain organizations or all our customers.

How to use Azimutt on Clever Cloud

So we worked with Loïc to offer Azimutt on Clever Cloud. We host our own gateway, which you benefit from, when you create an Azimutt add-on (your data on Clever Cloud, stay on Clever Cloud). By default, you'll have access to the free offer for easy exploration of your databases.

To collaborate as a team and improve understanding of your enterprise-wide data model, other plans are available. Payment will be made through your monthly invoice, like any other of our services.

As with any add-on, creation can be done via our API, the Console or Clever Tools :

clever addon create azimutt myAzimutt
clever console

Once the add-on has been created, you'll be presented with a page in which you simply type in the URI of a relational database to access it in the Azimutt interface. Your account will be created, your subscription configured, there's nothing more to do.

As we have always advocated for an open approach to the Cloud, not blocking customers to one provider, this solution works whether or not databases are hosted at Clever Cloud. This includes SQL databases an non-SQL databases such as MongoDB, MySQL PostgreSQL, AlloyDB, Amazon Aurora/SDS, Azure SQL, Big Query, Google Cloud SQL, Oracle, Snowflake, etc. The full list of connectors is available on the Azimutt website.

This is just the first step in the integration of Azimutt, which we'll further integrate into our platform and its managed database offering over the coming months. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please let us know in our GitHub community space. This will help us to improve this product, both on the Clever Cloud side and on the Azimutt side.

Want to find out more? Feel free to deploy and use the service from our Console. A presentation by Loïc and our head of DevRel Horacio will be held this thursday, October 24 from 1pm to 2 pm on our Twitch channel.

While we'll have a detailed look at all of this in future articles (you can get a glimpse of it in our public changelog), there's one subject that's close to our heart: our images.

Redesigning images

Each time you deploy an add-on or application on our platform, our orchestrator provides you with a virtual machine based on Exherbo Linux, for which we have built the kernel and binaries specifically to guarantee a classic, high-performance, up-to-date and secure GNU/Linux environment. This environment is configured in a standard way, mainly via environment variables.

This minimal system, specific to our needs and ready to be configured, makes up what we call our images. Over the past few months, we've radically changed the way we design them. Until now, we had different images for each of our runtimes/languages, or almost all of them. Updating and testing images was sometimes complex and very manual. So we simplified and automated all of this.

For several weeks now, we've had regularly-generated image, which differs very little according to needs, and which we put through a battery of drastic tests to ensure that any application will deploy smoothly as it evolves. Implementation has been smooth over the months, and we are now at the end of a process that has been transparent to all our customers.

Why tell you about it today? Because it's what will enable us to gradually review and improve the way you deploy applications on Clever Cloud. We've already laid a few building blocks here and there, like the integration of uv for Python, for example. But things are going to change much more significantly over the coming months and through 2025. One of our biggest runtimes is PHP.

PHP 8.4, sessions in Materia KV

Our discussions with the community at last year's PHP Forum gave us the opportunity to think about how we could improve things. One of the recurring requests was for us to be more responsive in our support for new versions of PHP. The changes we've made will enable us to test the move to PHP 8.4, expected at the end of November, more quickly. Once it's been validated and integrated into Clever Cloud, you'll be able to activate it via a simple environment variable update.

The flexibility of PHP sessions was also a recurring topic. Currently, they can rely on local persistent storage or a Redis database linked to your application. This summer, we worked to tailor our Materia KV technology to this need. A few days ago, we put a new version into production, with support for expiring keys and commands enabling it to be supported transparently for users.

• Deploy a demo PHP application with sessions in Materia KV

This is quite simple: retrieve the above repository content with git, Clever Tools, then create a PHP application as if it were to host its sessions on a Redis database, the code is identical:

clever create -t php --alias phpSessions
clever env set ENABLE_REDIS "true"
clever env set SESSION_TYPE "redis"

Once done, create a Materia KV add-on and link it to the application you've just created:

clever addon create kv phpSessionsKV --link phpSessions

After that, just deploy the application, and in a few seconds you'll have the expected result, taking advantage of everything that goes with the Clever Cloud platform: keeping it up and running, domains and TLS certificates management, logs, metrics, and so on.

clever deploy & clever open

How did we achieve this? When we designed Materia KV, we set out to create a different kind of key-value database, complementary to our current offering. It is therefore distributed and highly resilient (the data is written in three of our data centers in Paris), but can be used almost seamlessly, since it is compatible with existing ecosystems.

For example, it currently supports the protocol on which Redis is based, and can be used with similar commands or clients such as iredis, redis-cli, valkey-cli, graphical interfaces, etc. We will shortly be adding Dynamo DB and GraphQL.

• Learn more about Materia KV

Franken PHP, better deployment

Another topic close to our hearts is the integration of Franken PHP, developed by our friends and partners at Les Tilleuls. Mixing PHP with a Caddy web server in a rather elegant and unusual way, this solution allows us to think differently about the deployment and configuration of PHP applications, and is increasingly appealing in this ecosystem, which has largely regained vitality in recent years.

We tested it on Clever Cloud, and explained to some customers how to deploy it, via Docker or natively. Above all, we wanted to go one step further and integrate it directly into our images, to simplify its use within our platform. This will soon be the case, thanks to our work on simplifying and redesigning our images. At the same time, we'll be gradually improving our deployment of PHP.

At the moment, we're operating on the basis of the language's legacy, some of which dates back to versions 5.x or 7.x, which can sometimes hold us back in the developments we'd like to implement. After the release of PHP 8.4, we're going to stick to the “historical” operation of our PHP image, so that our customers can benefit from stability in the deployment of their applications.

But most of all, it will enable us to reinvent some areas by focusing on actively supported versions of PHP, with clear management of application and runtime lifecycles. We'll tell you more about this plan later in the year.

Let's discuss at PHP Forum

As you may have gathered, the PHP community is very important to us. That's why we're partnering with AFUP again this year. We'll be present at the 2024 PHP Forum being held on October 10 and 11 at the New York Hotel in Disneyland Paris. Don't hesitate to come and chat with us, we'll have a few surprises and exclusives to show off on site. It will also be an opportunity for you to share your feedback and requests. Because that's how we want to build the future of Clever Cloud: together.

The UP Programme is designed to support start-ups in their development, offering them an opportunity to benefit from a range of resources, training and technical support to help them take their projects to new heights.

The 5 winners of the Clever Cloud UP Programme

All the start-ups that applied were analysed by an internal Clever Cloud jury to select only those projects to which we were certain we could bring real added value. Five were finally selected.

Azimutt

Azimutt revolutionises the exploration and maintenance of complex databases. Thanks to its intuitive interface, it simplifies schema and data navigation, while offering suggestions for improvements to optimise your databases.

ETEOS

ETEOS innovates in the field of luxury goods management by guaranteeing the authenticity and traceability of valuable objects using advanced technologies such as blockchain and NFC chips. This solution ensures total transparency and strengthens consumer confidence, while increasing the value of brands.

EcoLLM

The first GreenAI start-up, EcoLLM is tackling the environmental impact of artificial intelligence. Their mission: to develop ecological AI solutions for more environmentally-friendly projects and programmes.

Melodium

Mélodium is an open source orchestration and runtime optimisation system that accelerates development cycles and continuous integration (CI), while reducing operational costs.

Bigfriend

Finding the right agency can be time-consuming. Bigfriend makes this task easier by sourcing the best agencies for your projects, impartially. They present you with three options to ensure the success of your project.

How do startups benefit from the UP Programme?

Clever Cloud's UP Programme is specially designed to support start-ups in their early or growth phase.

In addition to the cloud credits allocated for their first year, Clever Cloud offers a full range of services to support these promising projects. These include onboarding and personalised support with our engineers, monthly monitoring and technical support. Start-ups also benefit from workshops, masterclasses and mentoring to strengthen the skills of their team, while gaining visibility through the media, social networks and events organised by Clever Cloud. Finally, they can obtain a recognised certification in partnership with École Hexagone.

With these assets, the UP Programme aims to reduce the technical and financial barriers faced by startups, providing them with the tools they need to turn the cloud into a lever for growth rather than an obstacle.

The UP Programme supported by its partners

Clever Cloud's UP Programme benefits from the support of partners committed to the development of the start-up ecosystem. These include ADN Ouest, H7, Épopée Gestion and École Hexagone, whose support and commitment are helping to nurture the start-ups of tomorrow.

How can I join the UP Programme as a start-up?

Start-ups interested in the UP Programme can apply now using the form below. Don't miss this opportunity to benefit from unique resources to propel your project forward.

Minor update, bigger consequences

The global incident started after we initiated a minor rolling maintenance upgrade of Apache Pulsar (3.3.1). It enabled a new balancer algorithm for bundles placement optimization which caused troubles. We quickly detected it, kept the 3.3.1 release and rolled back the defective configuration. 

The initial problem, although fixed, resulted in a metadata conflict. We had to stop all messaging brokers to start only one, preventing metadata conflict between them, and succeeded in getting back to a nominal situation. But after that our infrastructure experienced I/O and memory pressure, causing some hypervisors to crash.

The unavailability of the Apache Pulsar messaging layer has led to the buffering of some telemetry agents on the virtual machines (VMs) running on hypervisors (HVs). They started to buffer in memory while messaging service endpoints weren’t available.

Reach the limits of our smaller VMs 

For small VMs it reached a memory limit which triggered a lot of pressure on the kernel. When it happens, the kernel tries to flush memory and caches, remove processes from memory to load them instruction per instruction from disk. This is generating a lot of I/O disk pressure on the underlying hypervisor. A few minutes after HVs load increased, we started to see kernel panics on some of them.

Small VMs are spreaded globally among our Availability Zones, so we ended up having an overloaded server infrastructure. As we needed the scheduler to manage the situation, the control plane was performing suboptimally and the infrastructure struggled to provide available resources.

So we had to shut down all non critical services and our SRE team redeployed one by one the overloaded small VMs. Then we started to regain control over all hypervisors and were able to take our infrastructure back to its optimal state.

What’s next?

For non minor releases, we use a simulation process that emulates a full environment where we inject changes. This validates upgrades and changes by observing the infrastructure behavior before going to production. This process wasn’t used for minor maintenance upgrades or (apparently) small changes in the configuration profile.

This incident taught us a lot and we identified some progress areas regarding our images, tools configuration and integration, or small VMs setup. We’ve taken some immediate actions and will work on more deep topics in the coming weeks. 

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused. Your trust is paramount to us, and we are committed to providing you with the highest level of service reliability. 

You can learn more about the schedule and technical analysis of the incident in our public postmortem. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

High stakes

While the costs of mainframe infrastructures and their software licenses continue to rise, many companies, mainly in the banking and insurance sectors, still rely on these technologies to run their mission-critical operations in COBOL.

Maintaining and upgrading these infrastructures is becoming increasingly difficult, both because of operating costs and the lack of qualified developers on these technologies.

Furthermore, mainframe implies numerous lock-ins, creating a substantial technological debt and blocking companies from switching to more flexible, up-to-date solutions.

A French partnership in response

In response to these challenges, Clever Cloud and OCamlPro have announced a strategic partnership aimed at simplifying and securing the migration of COBOL systems to modern, open environments. In concrete terms, OCamlPro offers solutions that enable COBOL code to evolve thanks to access to a powerful, modern, open-source tool, SuperBOL, developed around the free, open-source GnuCOBOL compiler.

Thanks to this offer, users will be able to convert their code from COBOL to C, facilitating their migration in a safe and secure way, whether in a public, private or on-premise cloud.

The aim is to offer simplified migration of code to the public, private or on-premises cloud, with sovereign, high-availability hosting, and automated operational maintenance. This will enable companies to regain control of their code, their data, and their IS more broadly.

A shared vision

Clever Cloud and OCamlPro share a common vision of IT, focusing on the importance of open source, strategic autonomy of code and data in Europe, and security. Both are committed to promoting robust open source solutions, offering transparency, innovation and freedom to users.

What's more, this partnership provides numerous guarantees in terms of security, as well as data sovereignty. As two French companies, governed by French law, this partnership assures customers that their data will be protected from extra-territorial laws such as FISA.

Coming soon

Starting September, Clever Cloud and OCamlPro plan to open a joint testing environment, enabling interested companies to test SuperBOL on their code. This will enable them to discover our solution and test it at a lower cost.

A webinar will be held in October to present the offer, its advantages and use cases. Stay tuned!

Want to find out more?

OCamlPro

OCamlPro, a consultancy specializing in the design of software tools for computer languages, is the biggest French contributor to GnuCOBOL, the only completely free COBOL compiler, and is developing SuperBOL, a free, modern, reliable and high-performance environment to help migration to GnuCOBOL. Today, GnuCOBOL is a proven open-source solution, used for example by ObjectWay for its banking software, with a strong and dynamic open-source community.

As part of this activity, OCamlPro has been supporting the DGFiP (Direction Générale des Finances Publiques), since 2022, in one of its biggest COBOL modernization projects, by extending the GnuCOBOL compiler to handle extensions specific to the GCOS mainframe, without modifying the COBOL source code. Every day, OCamlPro demonstrates its ability to intervene in depth on GnuCOBOL and meet its customers' most demanding needs.

Contact: SuperBOL team is at your disposal for any further information superbol@ocamlpro.com or here.