Cloudar Expands Beyond Belgium: New Office in Utrecht Marks Dutch Growth
Cloudar, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner in Belgium, is expanding beyond its borders after more than a decade. A new location in Utrecht will facilitate further growth in the Netherlands. We discuss Cloudar’s plans with Steyn Huizinga.
Steyn Huizinga, Managing Partner at Cloudar NL, is leading the company’s Dutch expansion efforts. With ten years of AWS expertise, he brings the necessary experience to develop this new market. Cloudar was founded in 2014 and has always had a strong focus on AWS, a defining characteristic that sets it apart from other cloud specialists in both Belgium and the Netherlands.
Smart in Belgium and the Netherlands
While Cloudar has primarily focused on Belgian customers in the past, it has always operated beyond the border, Huizinga explains. “After a delay due to COVID, now is the right time to open a dedicated Dutch office, allowing us to fully concentrate on the Dutch market.” According to Huizinga, it is important that Cloudar is not just seen as “those smart guys from Belgium,” but rather as “those smart guys from Belgium and the Netherlands.” The Belgian team will continue focusing on its home market, while the Dutch team will be dedicated to local customers.
The growth ambitions for the Netherlands are significant. “We aim to attract around ten new colleagues by the end of 2025, with plans for even stronger growth in the second year to meet demand,” says Huizinga. That demand is particularly high in Azure-dominated Netherlands, he notes.
AWS Premier Consulting Partner
Achieving AWS Premier Consulting Partner status is no small feat. With only a few hundred partners worldwide holding this title, Cloudar is part of an exclusive group. Maintaining this status requires complete dedication to AWS, with stringent certification requirements for a significant portion of the workforce. Cloudar successfully meets these requirements with a relatively compact team, allowing it to be mentioned alongside much larger market players.
Cloudar’s AWS expertise is demonstrated through six AWS Competencies and five Service Validations across various domains. Given the vastness of the AWS portfolio, excelling in all services is impossible. Instead, Cloudar specializes in five core areas: security, cloud-native development, containerization, FinOps, and AI technology.
A key part of Cloudar’s approach is balancing innovation with responsible cloud usage. Many organizations start enthusiastically with AWS but later face unexpectedly high costs or overlooked security requirements. Cloudar advocates a ‘job-zero’ approach, integrating security and FinOps from the outset to prevent unpleasant surprises down the line.
By focusing exclusively on AWS, Cloudar stays close to the source of innovation. The company gains early access to AWS roadmaps, allowing it to anticipate new developments. This position in the AWS ecosystem enables Cloudar to respond quickly to changes and advise customers on the most effective implementations. For example, a container workload can be deployed in seventeen different ways on AWS, and Cloudar helps determine the optimal approach for each specific case. However, AWS can still surprise everyone, so consultants must be well-versed in the existing offerings.
In 2024, Cloudar achieved the AWS Sovereign Cloud Competency, aligning with the growing need for cloud sovereignty. The company embraces the mantra “encrypt everything” to ensure maximum data security. Additionally, Cloudar leverages AWS to approach IoT data in a more human-centric way rather than solely relying on dashboards.
Different Customer Preferences
Huizinga notes clear differences in cloud preferences among customer segments: “ISVs often prefer to run their IT on AWS, while enterprise customers typically adopt a multicloud approach.” In such cases, Cloudar collaborates with Azure-focused colleagues, ensuring that Cloudar’s expertise remains dedicated to the AWS portion of a customer’s cloud strategy.
Choosing between cloud providers can be complex and should always be based on a clear cloud strategy, Huizinga emphasizes. “Organizations need to determine why they use Cloud X or Y for specific situations.” This is particularly important when internal IT operations run on Azure, while customer-facing platforms such as websites or retail environments operate on AWS. “You don’t want data to be transferred unnecessarily between different clouds.”
Dutch Customers Already on Board
For Cloudar, expanding into the Netherlands is a natural step in its growth journey. The company already serves several Dutch clients, including Coop, Mediahuis (operating in both Belgium and the Netherlands), and RGF, an HR service provider. “Our approach is focused on helping organizations leverage Amazon’s cutting-edge technologies for competitive advantage while maintaining the fundamental aspects of a solid cloud infrastructure,” says Huizinga.
Huizinga observes that many companies adopt a multicloud strategy, with Microsoft Azure commonly used for office applications. AWS is frequently the preferred choice for customer-facing platforms, portals, and digital initiatives. “Of course, this is the perspective we see from our AWS-focused standpoint,” he adds.
According to Huizinga, AWS’s ‘model freedom’ philosophy provides a key advantage, particularly in AI. “AWS aims to offer customers as many AI options as possible, giving organizations the flexibility to choose the best solution for their specific needs.”
