A sovereign cloud is a semi-public cloud service owned, controlled, and operated by a specific cloud service provider that provides services to a specific country or region, and sometimes to a specific region. It can belong directly to a local administration or be managed by a consortium of companies and institutions.
In many cases, sovereign clouds are owned by private companies that work closely with governments. The goal is to provide an IT infrastructure capable of supporting specific government services, protecting particularly sensitive data, and complying with laws and regulations specific to each country or region.
When first formalizing and defining the idea of cloud computing, some cloud experts considered the term sovereign cloud. But the concept didn’t quite catch on and the industry focused on very large cloud service providers serving all countries. This is our current cloud address.
Even organizations that have moved to sovereign clouds will likely continue to need large-scale clouds for certain systems that are not cost-effective to run in sovereign clouds. In fact, sovereign clouds are simply part of multicloud deployments. Embracing multicloud and its flexibility seems to be one of the reasons for the renewed interest in sovereign clouds today.
Sovereign Cloud Benefits
Sovereign Cloud provides enhanced data control and ownership, allowing data to be stored and managed in accordance with local laws and regulations. This includes storing data in a specific country or region. If it’s a public cloud, you run the risk of your data being moved out of the country. There is no malicious intent for reasons such as backup or restore operations. Sovereign Clouds avoid this risk because they physically exist in the countries they support.
Sovereign Cloud offers enhanced security measures. It provides encryption, access control and network segmentation tailored to specific countries or regions. Of course, large public clouds can provide the same or better security services. However, Sovereign Cloud’s security system is tailored to the laws and regulations of a particular country and better supports data security arrangements for that country.
Sovereign Cloud offers a higher level of service availability and reliability than commercial cloud services. This part is the claim of the sovereign cloud service provider. In fact, it may be, since these systems are physically closer to users and connected applications.
Sovereign Clouds can be tailored to meet specific country or institution needs, such as compliance requirements, data storage and processing capabilities. Sovereign Clouds can also contribute to job creation and local economic development, as governments and related organizations invest in the maintenance of necessary buildings and infrastructure.
By providing a transparent and trusted data management framework, Sovereign Cloud helps build trusted relationships with local citizens and customers concerned about privacy and data security. Additionally, being independent of commercial cloud service providers reduces reliance on foreign technology and infrastructure.
Again, this is just a concept. To use the best analogy, you think your local convenience store has better products than the big market. Both buy vegetables from the same farm.
Disadvantages of sovereign cloud
So why aren’t companies using dedicated sovereign cloud services? There are several reasons. Sovereign clouds may not be compatible with other cloud infrastructures, which can create interoperability and data exchange issues.
Although sovereign clouds are created with the aim of improving data privacy and sovereignty, there are also concerns that governments will use them to collect and monitor citizen data. It is a violation of the right to privacy. Many enterprises prefer large public cloud services to sovereign clouds for this reason. Remember that local governments often own sovereign clouds.
Sovereign Cloud is slow to introduce new technologies or services. Innovation capacity and competitiveness may be limited. Consider an AI service that is growing in popularity. Sovereign Cloud is unlikely to be able to offer these services, given that it doesn’t spend billions of dollars on research and development like the big cloud service providers.
Organizations that rely on sovereign clouds compromise their flexibility and autonomy by relying too heavily on government or consortium operations.
I suspect that as multicloud becomes a popular architecture, the use of sovereign clouds will become more common. Some companies serving certain countries will move to sovereign clouds to comply with local regulations and laws. The sovereign cloud is a viable option for many businesses and should always be considered part of a cloud computing portfolio.
editor@itworld.co.kr
