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Understanding the Sovereign Cloud

This point of view outlines how organizations can leverage sovereign clouds to protect their data, achieve operational autonomy and ensure regulatory compliance.

Insights

Understand the core principles that define true cloud sovereignty
Decode the key aspects of sovereign cloud and the design considerations
Navigating the Sovereign Cloud landscape

Introduction

Over the past few years, Organizations around the world have rapidly adopted public cloud services. While public cloud offerings provide scalability and cost-effectiveness, they often lack the guarantees of jurisdictional control over data, infrastructure, and operations, creating a potential risk of foreign government influence, unauthorized access to sensitive data, and non-compliance with local regulations.

This fuels the need for sovereign cloud that ensures data protection and operational autonomy within specific jurisdictions and enabling Organizations to confidently execute business functions of national importance.

Data protection in the Digital age

What is Sovereign Cloud?

A cloud computing environment that is hosted, governed and managed within a specific country or region, prioritizing data security and compliance with local laws.

Core principles of Digital Sovereignty

Addressing the customer’s needs to meet sovereignty and regulatory requirements, includes

Core principles of Digital Sovereignty

Data Sovereignty refers to the organization’s ability to retain full control of the data of the enterprise by hosting it within its borders and ensure even the service provider (like cloud provider) cannot deny access to the data.

Operational Sovereignty refers to the ability of an organization to monitor, operate and control the entire technology landscape with process and people on which organization or the defined jurisdiction authority have complete control, ensuring business continuity and regulatory compliance.

Technological Sovereignty refers to the ability of an organization to choose and adapt technologies according to their own needs, and technology vendors cannot deny access to current technology and/ or any of its future directives.

Who needs Sovereign Cloud?

Global enterprises:
To meet the growing international demand for data protection and comply with regulations like the US CLOUD Act, China's Cyber Security Act and GDPR when data traverses’ national boundaries.

Regulated industries:
To adhere to specific industry requirements such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, BaFin, and EBA, ensuring proper controls and continuous compliance in sectors like healthcare, finance, and utilities.

Governments:
To safeguard confidential information and meet stringent security and operational standards, including personnel restrictions, as demonstrated by the US government's use of FedRAMP-compliant clouds.

Real-World Applications

Here are some real-world examples of sovereign cloud

Gaia-X project in Europe
An initiative driven by the European Union (E.U.) and several European countries to establish a federated, secure, and privacy-preserving data infrastructure.

Generation Cloud
An initiative by the French government, designed to meet their security and compliance needs, ensuring data is governed by French law and inaccessible to foreign entities without French authorization.

Architecting your Sovereign Cloud

The minimum required capabilities

A sovereign cloud will offer varying degrees of the following six capabilities depending on the requirements

Strict Access Controls restricting access to authorized users, software, systems, and services only
Data Residency controlling over physical location of the cloud infrastructure
Mandatory Compliance with specific governmental, regulatory, or industry requirements
Operational Support from CSPs that meets high customer expectations & complies legal requirements
Dedicated Network Capacity isolating the environment from the global footprint of the CSP, internet (if need be) and other normal customers
Sophisticated Encryption offering CSP-managed keys or Customer-managed keys

Design Considerations

A well-thought-out design ensures that the sovereign cloud environment meets the specific requirements while providing the necessary performance, reliability, and security for the critical services.

Architecture

Design to meet the specific security and compliance requirements of a particular country or region

Use a distributed architecture with multiple data centers located within the country or region

Security

Design to protect from protected from unauthorized access, data breaches, and other security threats

Use a variety of security measures, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems & data encryption

Regulatory

Design to meet the specific legal frameworks and data protection regulations set by governments

Store and process the data in the defined jurisdiction (Ensuring the primary copy of the data or any of the replicas does not leave the defined jurisdiction)
Restrict cross-border data transfers

Data Governance

Design to meet the specific requirements of the country or region where the cloud is being used

Establish a set of policies and procedures for managing the data, such as
- Who can access the data
- How the data can be used
- How the existing data can be deleted

Key Aspects & Essential activities

The following details are the key aspects and vital tasks necessary for the effective implementation and management of each pillar within a sovereign cloud architecture.

Technological Sovereignty

Technology transparency | Interoperability | Reversibility & Portability | Partner Ecosystem

Own the technological responsibilities
Prioritize open source when making technology selection
Avoid vendor locked-in, build technology-agnostic services
Control the technology and product roadmaps underpinning cloud landscape
Benefit from “build once, run everywhere” allowing to switch between providers
Ensure all partners within the ecosystem adhere to the same sovereignty standards & access rights

Operational Sovereignty

Operational Resilience | Regulatory Compliance | Technical & Organizational measures

Ensure only authorized users (as legally allowed) can access and have robust control with Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Choose open-source software and APIs to gain full control and transparency
Engage a trusted partner to continuously monitor compliance
Verify that vendor/partner has necessary national & international security certifications
Ensure ongoing compliance with regulatory and cybersecurity requirements

Data Sovereignty

Data Residency | Ownership/Privacy | Access & control | Data Usage Transparency

Make sure data complies with local data laws by staying within specified area
Make sure all data is encrypted and a trusted provider within the specified area owns the key
Stay in full control over data’s storage, processing, deletion and transfers
Make sure your cloud provider regularly validates compliance

Navigating the Sovereign Landscape

How Sovereign Cloud Empowers Organizations

Presented below is a comprehensive overview of how the sovereign cloud empowers organizations in the modern digital landscape

	Greater Control gives enterprises complete control over the technology that is supporting their business operations, and control over their data
	Better Compliance helps organizations meet diverse and evolving digital sovereignty regulations globally
	Granular Access enables granular control over data access based on various criteria like citizenship and location
	Robust Security employs advanced encryption for robust data security and swift, secure access

Key Vendors & Offerings

Sovereign cloud vendors provide cloud services that meet the specific regulatory, laws and compliance requirements of their customers in different countries and industries.

Vendor	Features Offered	Sovereign Cloud offerings
	Provides data control and flexibility with sovereignty-first approach	AWS European Sovereign Cloud AWS Dedicated Landing Zones
	Provides Unmatched control & oversight, and Air-gapped option for the most sensitive data	Google Sovereign Cloud Google Cloud Dedicated Google cloud air-gapped
	Enables data residency, security and compliance for Sovereign regions	Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud Oracle Government Cloud Dedicated Region \| Oracle Alloy
	Prioritizes global data sovereignty	IBM’s Enterprise Cloud for Regulated Industries

Key Takeaways & Future Directions

Sovereign clouds are tailored to comply with a specific country’s laws and regulations
They ensure that the entire data lifecycle remains physically within a designated jurisdiction
Sovereign clouds can be implemented in private clouds or purchased as a cloud service
Global businesses typically require distinct sovereign cloud instances for each jurisdiction where they operate or serve customers
As more organizations expand their reach globally and governments become increasingly focused on data protection and national security, the adoption of sovereign clouds is likely to accelerate significantly

Conclusion

The adoption of a Sovereign Cloud strategy marks a crucial step in the digital evolution. This is no longer optional but a necessity for organizations and governments navigating the complexities of data protection, regulatory compliance, and digital autonomy in today's evolving global macro conditions, threats and the responsibility of the governments in protecting their national interests and their citizens. Active participation of sovereign cloud providers, technology partners, regulatory bodies, industry-specific consortiums, research institutions, and other stakeholders strengthen its deployment and impact.