5 questions to...
Ingrid Collu
Interview with the Infrastructure Services Director of Engineering.
Ingrid Collu is Infrastructure Services Director of Engineering, where she leads an organization dedicated to managing and evolving the infrastructures of over 400 clients.
With more than 14 years of experience in the IT sector, she has developed cross-functional skills in both industrial and consulting contexts, contributing to the digital transformation of large enterprises through increasingly agile, automated, and secure approaches.
Her leadership is distinguished by a strong business-oriented vision, a focus on scalable operational models, and the adoption of innovative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and automation. She believes in IT as a key enabler of change, creating real and sustainable value for businesses.
1. WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHALLENGES COMPANIES FACE WHEN MODERNIZING THEIR DATA CENTERS, AND HOW DOES ENG HELP ADDRESS THEM?
Today, companies face a complex challenge: rethinking their infrastructure model to make it more flexible, secure, and efficient, while responding to growing pressures around time-to-market, sustainability, and cost optimization. Data center modernization is not merely a technological issue, but a true business accelerator.
The most critical aspects involve ensuring operational continuity during migration, integrating hybrid and multi-cloud environments, managing data governance, and enabling intelligent automation of infrastructure processes.
We address these challenges with an end-to-end approach, providing deep expertise, proven methodologies, and proprietary technologies to support companies throughout the transformation journey. Our strength lies in combining engineering capability with strategic vision, offering tailored solutions that enhance operational resilience and enable continuous innovation.
We are a partner for change: for us, evolving a data center means laying the foundation for our clients’ digital future. That’s why we operate our own data centers, delivering services to both the Engineering Group and over 400 national and international clients. Our integrated network consists of three data centers located in Pont-Saint-Martin (AO), Turin, and Vicenza, all designed according to the highest technological, quality, and security standards.
2. WITH THE GROWING ADOPTION OF HYBRID CLOUD, WHAT ARE THE BEST PRACTICES FOR ENSURING SECURITY, SCALABILITY, AND OPERATIONAL CONTINUITY?
Hybrid cloud is currently the most effective response to the need for flexibility: it allows companies to integrate on-premise, private, and public cloud environments, tailoring IT infrastructure to actual business priorities. But for this strategy to be successful, it must be built on solid pillars: security, scalability, and operational continuity.
Best practices are rooted in a well-defined architectural approach, centralized governance, and the adoption of technologies that enable automation, proactive monitoring, and segmentation of data and workloads. At Eng, for example, we combine cloud-native solutions with the robustness of our three certified data centers – in Pont-Saint-Martin, Turin, and Vicenza – designed to ensure maximum reliability and resilience.
These facilities allow us to support hybrid environments while maintaining high standards of physical and logical security, and to ensure operational continuity even in critical scenarios. The Vicenza data center, in particular, is ANSI/TIA-942-B certified with Rating Level 4, the highest possible level. The Pont-Saint-Martin site uses an innovative geothermal system to maximize energy efficiency and sustainability.
Another crucial element is cybersecurity, which must be embedded from the architectural design phase. We’re talking about Zero Trust approaches, centralized identity management, granular access control, and advanced threat detection and response (XDR). In a hybrid context, where the perimeter is no longer physical but logical and distributed, protecting data and applications means protecting business continuity.
Today, simply “having infrastructure” isn’t enough - you need smart infrastructure that can scale with the business and protect it even in the most critical moments. This requires dynamic solutions designed to evolve over time and respond effectively to real business priorities.
3. AUTOMATION AND AI ARE TRANSFORMING IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT. WHAT EMERGING TRENDS DO YOU SEE IN THIS AREA, AND HOW IS ENG INNOVATING?
We are living in an extraordinary time, where automation and Artificial Intelligence are no longer just tools for efficiency, but true enablers of a new operational model. IT infrastructure is no longer a simple ‘support engine,’ but a dynamic, intelligent system that learns, adapts, and even anticipates business needs.
Among the most relevant trends, we see the growing adoption of AIOps models, which combine Big Data, Machine Learning, and Analytics to automate monitoring, incident management, and performance optimization in real time. Another strategic frontier is Infrastructure as Code, which makes the entire infrastructure programmable, replicable, and manageable like software.
At Eng, we’re investing heavily in this direction by developing a structured internal automation program for all operational processes. This includes intelligent workflows, technical support chatbots, predictive maintenance algorithms, and automated provisioning tools. Our goal is twofold: to increase the speed and quality of service delivery, and to free up resources from repetitive tasks to focus on innovation.
This transformation is also cultural: it means moving from reactive management to a proactive and predictive vision of infrastructure. A change we support through deep expertise, proprietary platforms, and ever-tighter integration between infrastructure, data, and AI.
The future? It will be made of self-driving infrastructures: elastic, intelligent, and natively integrated with business processes.
4. HOW CAN COMPANIES ENSURE SECURE ACCESS TO THEIR DATA AND APPLICATIONS?
Ensuring secure access to corporate data and applications is now a strategic, not just technical, priority. In a world where users, devices, and applications are everywhere, the traditional “perimeters” no longer exist — security must be distributed, dynamic, and intelligent.
Our best practices are based on a Zero Trust approach, built on a key principle: never trust by default, always verify. This means implementing granular controls over identities, devices, and access context, with strong multi-factor authentication, network segmentation, and end-to-end encryption.
Secure access isn’t just about technology - it’s about governance. We apply security by design, embedding protection from the early stages of architectural and application process design. We use advanced identity management platforms (IAM), network security solutions, and intelligent threat detection and response systems (XDR, advanced SIEM).
Our proprietary data centers - in Pont-Saint-Martin, Vicenza, and Turin - play a crucial role in this multilayered protection, thanks to certified physical and logical security standards, redundant infrastructures, and centralized management that ensures compliance, continuity, and responsiveness.
Securing access today means protecting the heart of the business — and we do so with a holistic approach that integrates people, processes, and technologies in a shared vision of digital resilience.
5. MANY COMPANIES WONDER WHETHER IT’S BETTER TO MANAGE IT INFRASTRUCTURE IN-HOUSE OR OUTSOURCE IT. WHAT FACTORS SHOULD THEY CONSIDER TO MAKE THE BEST DECISION?
The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The choice between in-house management and IT infrastructure outsourcing depends on company strategy, digital maturity, and medium- to long-term objectives. What truly matters is making an informed decision - one based on data, expertise, and a clear understanding of where the business wants to go.
Companies should ask themselves key questions: How strategic is IT to my core business? Do I have the internal skills to ensure security, continuity, and innovation? Do I want to retain operational control, or would I rather free up resources to reinvest in high-value initiatives.
Outsourcing is not just a lever for efficiency - it’s a transformation accelerator, especially when entrusted to reliable, structured partners.
We offer a hybrid and flexible model that allows clients to outsource infrastructure management without losing visibility or control. Thanks to our proprietary data centers and highly specialized vertical teams, we guarantee measurable service levels, advanced security, and faster time-to-market.
What we offer is evolved outsourcing - no longer focused solely on “keeping IT running,” but on helping it grow alongside the business. It’s a model that enables organizations to focus on what they do best, while we take responsibility for making their infrastructure agile, secure, and future-ready.
IT infrastructure is no longer a simple "support engine", but a dynamic, intelligent system that learns, adapts, and even anticipates business needs.
Ingrid Collu
Infrastructure Services Director of Engineering
