Why is the need for a sovereign Cloud growing?

Rapid changes in the digital landscape require organisations to be in even greater control of their data. In times of increased regulations and cyber attacks, among others, a sovereign Cloud contributes to having control over data. With a sovereign Cloud, data is stored in a specific country (or region) and managed in accordance with local laws and regulations.

Besides increasing regulations and cyber attacks, there are four more reasons why the demand for a sovereign Cloud is growing. Find out which ones they are below.

1. Rising data volumes
Have you ever wondered how much data you consume in a day? Think about sending e-mails, watching videos on YouTube or scrolling on Instagram. Thanks to the invention of mobile technology, the amount of data is increasing exponentially. Whereas 64.2 zettabytes of data were still being created in 2020, it is expected to be a whopping 181 zettabytes by 2025 (1). Thanks to this significant increase, it is now common for data to be shared and stored across multiple jurisdictions. While this can accelerate innovations, it also raises data sovereignty concerns.

2. Increasing regulations
Data protection laws and regulations are constantly changing. Several major data breaches have been uncovered in recent years. In 2021, it was revealed that thousands of employees of the Municipal Health Service (GGD) could access the personal and medical data of anyone who had been tested for corona, and in 2022, the Dutch crypto platform Bitvavo was affected, allowing some users to see other customers' data. Over 114,000 reports of data breaches have been received in the Netherlands in the past 5 years, making the Netherlands the leader in Europe (2). To reduce these risks, we are more and more frequently seeing countries implementing stricter regulations around data protection and privacy to protect nationally generated data.

3. Economic pressure
Due to persistent economic uncertainty and rapidly rising prices, economic growth in the Netherlands declined during 2022 (3). When countries support their local Cloud providers (sovereign Cloud), they can fuel their own economies, creating a cycle of investment and growth.

4. Public Cloud security
VMware research has shown that 42% of companies are very or even extremely concerned about critical data managed by US Cloud Providers (4). 62% even indicate that their current Cloud does not meet data sovereignty requirements.

5. Cyber attacks
A sovereign Cloud is built on an enterprise platform and customised by the Cloud provider to comply with local data protection laws and regulations. Certified providers use advanced security methods to secure applications and data in the Cloud against increasing cyberattacks.

6. Geopolitical changes
Geopolitical changes increase the need for sovereign Cloud. Think, for example, of the war in Ukraine or the corona pandemic. Many organisations want to ensure their continuity at all times and be less dependent on the large global Cloud providers.

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To briefly recap: the demand for a sovereign Cloud is high. This is partly due to increasing digitalisation and data generation. Reflect for yourself: you probably also went ‘digital’ during the corona pandemic because working from home was supposed to become the norm. An ideal solution, but this also sparked a discussion. After all, how is all that business-critical data properly secured? In addition, the question also arises: which powers can access my data? Think of superpowers like America, Russia and China. This has been accelerated by the wars in Ukraine and now Israel, among others.

In the coming weeks, we will publish a blog on this topic each week. In this series of 4, we will discuss topics such as data classification, Cloud strategies and the benefits of a sovereign Cloud.

Sources:
(1) Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/
(2) BNR, https://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/technologie/10514810/nederland-is-koploper-datalekken-binnen-europa
(3) CBS, https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/longread/de-nederlandse-economie/2023/de-nederlandse-economie-in-2022?onepage=true
(4) VMware, https://news.vmware.com/emea/apps-cloud/navigating-dora-with-a-cloud-smart-strategy

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