Supporting efforts toward sustainable digital technology
UnaBiz is operating in a highly competitive market. To set itself apart, the company covers every one of its clients’ needs—from designing data collection sensors to processing the data collected, and 0G connectivity thanks to the Sigfox 0G Network, which is available in over 70 countries. The company distinguished itself early on by focusing on this simple and energy-efficient technology to harness the full potential of the IoT, or the “Internet of Things.” “At a time when managing our energy consumption and protecting our planet have become key issues, we firmly believe that for many use cases, energy-intensive technologies such as 5G networks aren’t necessary when launching disruptive apps,” says Alexis Susset, CTO of UnaBiz. “Put simply, using the 0G Network to capitalize on the potential of connected devices is a commitment to sustainable consumption.”
“At a time when managing our energy consumption and protecting our planet have become key issues, we firmly believe that for many use cases, energy-intensive technologies such as 5G networks aren’t necessary when launching disruptive apps.”
Alexis Susset, CTO, UnaBiz
Bolstered by its own data processing infrastructure, the company decided in 2021 to abandon its two data centers in Paris and Toulouse in favor of moving its platform to Google Cloud. There were several reasons for this change. Essentially, UnaBiz wanted to become more reliable, more compliant, more secure, and more elastic (in terms of scalability) in addition to reducing the environmental impact of both its business model and, in turn, the apps deployed by its clients. “Deploying energy-efficient solutions in a building while using energy-intensive technologies just doesn’t make sense—all you’re doing is shifting the energy consumption,” Alexis Susset points out. “Our network technology is already designed to be as energy efficient as possible. With Google Cloud, we’re reducing the environmental impact of our solution with more energy-efficient data processing.”
Essentially, like many fast-growing businesses, UnaBiz had to overprovision its data centers to be able to take on new clients easily. “You’ve got twice the number of servers, CPUs or even amount of memory you actually need, and all this excess capacity is costly—not only for the planet, but also in terms of operating costs,” Alexis Susset explains. “With Google Cloud, there’s no need to overprovision. We can provision the resources that are actually necessary and scale up as needed. It costs less for us, for the client, and for the planet— particularly given that Google Cloud is also one of the most environmentally friendly clouds, with services offering exceptionally efficient integration.”
Optimizing performance while connecting with clients
In order to get the most out of Google Cloud’s energy efficiency, UnaBiz was quick to develop its platform, leaving behind its virtual architecture in favor of a serverless, containerized environment run on Google Cloud Run. Likewise, the company is taking full advantage of Google Cloud managed data services and is preparing to migrate its data to BigQuery and Bigtable. “Our entire approach is based on taking advantage of Google Cloud solutions to optimize scalability so we only consume the resources we really need, much like the core principles of Sigfox 0G technology – to only collect data that is necessary, and doing it in the most energy efficient manner. At the same time, managed services free up developers from tasks with low added value so they can focus more on innovation,” explains Alexis Susset. In particular, the company has recently expanded the geolocation service solutions it provides with the help of Google Maps Platform.
“Our entire approach is based on taking advantage of Google Cloud solutions to optimize scalability so we only consume the resources we really need. At the same time, managed services free up developers from tasks with low added value so they can focus more on innovation.”
Alexis Susset, CTO, UnaBiz
Finally, UnaBiz has also made the most of the Google Cloud centers located all around the world to make its platform available as close to the client as possible, optimizing performance while keeping latency times to a minimum. “Google Cloud has a truly worldwide presence, which gives us a competitive edge. We’re able to fulfill the wishes of those of our clients who want to store their data locally, while keeping our processing highly efficient by avoiding transferring data around the world—which requires a huge amount of bandwidth and leads to long response times,” notes the UnaBiz CTO.
With a culture of openness, and as an active open source contributor—with technologies, such as Kubernetes, Knative, Istio, Buildpacks, and more—Google Cloud is perfectly aligned with the open-mindedness that also defines UnaBiz, as evidenced by the integration of multiple LPWAN and non-LPWAN protocols on the company’s platform. Confident that the freedom of choice of technology given to their customers will open up many opportunities, inspire greater efficiency throughout the entire ecosystem and value chain, providing UnaBiz a long term competitive edge, the company is delighted to be working with a partner so closely aligned with UnaBiz’s own business philosophy of Less Is More: “Google Cloud is part of an organization that is extremely open and that is committed to being a business partner as well as a technological partner. Their consultants aren’t constantly trying to sell us more services; instead, they help us to develop our business by providing us with the solutions we really need. We really feel listened to and supported by a partner that only wants to help us grow. This level of attentiveness and support is extremely valuable,” concludes the UnaBiz CTO.
