computer science

OVHcloud

OVHcloud is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand OVHcloud rather than just read about it. In short: OVHcloud, legally OVH Groupe SA, is a French cloud computing company which offers VPS, dedicated servers, and other web services. The company was founded in 1999 by the Klaba family and is headquartered in Roubaix, France.

Key takeaways

OVHcloud belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect OVHcloud to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of OVHcloud from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

OVHcloud, legally OVH Groupe SA, is a French cloud computing company which offers VPS, dedicated servers, and other web services. The company was founded in 1999 by the Klaba family and is headquartered in Roubaix, France. In 2019 OVH adopted OVHcloud as its public brand name.

History and growth OVH was founded in November 1999 by Octave Klaba, with the help of three family members (Henry, Haline, and Miroslaw). In August 2023, it was announced OVHcloud was in exclusive negotiations for the acquisition of the Cologne-headquartered edge computing software company, gridscale GmbH. According to W3Techs, OVH is used by 3.1% of all websites.

Funding In October 2016, OVH raised $250 million in order to raise further international expansion. This funding round valued OVH at over US$1 billion. In the fiscal year of 2016, OVH reportedly had around $343 million in revenue. In 2018 OVH announced its five-year plans to triple investment starting in 2021. Which represent between 4.6 and $8.1 billion U.S. dollars (4 to 7 billion euros). In October 2021, OVHcloud filed its IPO and is listed on the Euronext Paris, the Paris Stock Exchange as OVH. In December 2021, OVHcloud became part of the Paris SBF120 index.

Operations As of 2021, OVH had 30 data centers in 19 countries hosting 300,000 servers. The company offers localized services such as customer service offices in many European countries, as well as in North America, Africa, and Singapore. As of 2019, OVH is considered one of the largest cloud computing providers in the world, with over a million customers and one of the largest OpenStack deployments in the world, and a network capacity totaling over 20 Tbit/s As of 2017, OVH was known for its offering of email hosting service, considered one of the largest in the world, in addition to its general Internet hosting services. OVH uses in-house design and manufacturing, including custom-made servers (based on standard components) and a modular shipping container architecture. In 2019, the Canadian data center (Beauharnois, Quebec) was considered a leading example of the OVH model. In March 2025, OVHcloud US announced that it has expanded its network by introducing a Local Zone in Seattle, enhancing data processing speeds and connectivity for Pacific Northwest businesses. This addition aims to lower latency and support various cloud applications in the region.

Partnerships As of 2016, OVH was one of the sponsors for Let's Encrypt, a free TLS encryption service, and OVH's hardware supplier is Super Micro Computer Inc.

Certificates In March 2025, OVHcloud obtained the SecNumCloud 3.2 qualification for its highly secure cloud platform, Bare Metal Pod. Awarded by the French Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI), this certification acknowledges the platform's adherence to stringent security standards. The qualification further supports OVHcloud's efforts in providing secure cloud solutions for public and private sector organizations, addressing strategic autonomy requirements and ensuring compliance for sensitive operations.

Incidents In March 2021, OVH suffered a large fire at its datacenter in Strasbourg, France. SBG2 had been built in 2016 with a capacity of 30,000 physical servers. SBG2 was declared a total loss, with early reports indicating damage to SBG1, and services across all four Strasbourg locations experiencing disruptions. The company's chairman, Octave Klaba, took to Twitter to confirm that all its staff were safe. All customer data and backups stored in SBG2 were lost. SBG1 was damaged partially while SBG4 remained intact, and SBG3 was intact but without power, though the servers at the latter sites were taken offline temporarily. In September 2021, the company filed a report with the Autorité des marchés financiers documenting the estimated damage at about €105 million. In 2023, OVH was ordered to pay €250,000 to two customers that had lost data, and more than 130 other customers are engaged in a class-action lawsuit against the company.

Controversies

WikiLeaks In December 2010, French Gizmodo edition revealed that WikiLeaks selected OVH as its new hosting provider, following Amazon's refusal to host it. On December 3, the growing controversy prompted Eric Besson, France's Industry Minister, to inquire about legal ways to prohibit this hosting in France. The attempt failed. On December 6, 2010, a judge ruled that there was no need for OVH to cease hosting WikiLeaks. The case was rejected on the grounds that such a case required an adversarial hearing.

References

External links Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with OVHcloud

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what OVHcloud claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to OVHcloud before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about OVHcloud ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of OVHcloud

In research: OVHcloud appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses OVHcloud in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: OVHcloud is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cloud computing providers, Commercial building fires, Companies listed on Euronext Paris, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for OVHcloud outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study OVHcloud in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what OVHcloud means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain OVHcloud out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is OVHcloud in simple terms?

Why does OVHcloud matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study OVHcloud?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on OVHcloud.