Implementing Digital Sovereignty in the Journey to Cloud

Continuing with current cloud adoption plans is a risky strategy because the challenges of managing and securing sensitive data are growing. Businesses cannot afford to maintain this status quo amid rising sovereignty concerns.

Some 90% of organisations in Europe and 88% in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) now use cloud technology, which is a keystone for digital transformation – according to an IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by VMware. As it becomes a dominant IT operating model, critical data is finding its way into the cloud. Almost 50% of European companies are putting classified data in the public cloud.

While private on-prem cloud remains an organisation’s primary cloud environment for storing high-sensitivity data, 23% of those surveyed chose public cloud for this data class. Some 32% of companies use global public cloud providers to store confidential data.

Rising volumes of sensitive data in public cloud make sovereignty an imperative

Organisations are starting to value strategic autonomy to ensure resilience amid growing geopolitical and economic uncertainties. Digital sovereignty starts with data sovereignty, which forms the legal basis for organisations to ensure regulatory compliance. Data sovereignty is about making sure that data is subject to the laws and governance structures of the country it belongs to. With a large amount of sensitive data now hosted in cloud, sovereignty should influence an organisation’s future cloud strategy. This is becoming a priority as sensitive data volumes are growing exponentially.

The importance of sovereignty for EMEA organisations

The only option for customers to get sovereign cloud security is to engage with cloud providers which are well positioned in local markets.

Drivers for considering sovereignty:

• Relevance of data sovereignty cited as “very important” or “extremely important” by 88% of very large organisations (5,000 FTEs) and 63% of all EMEA organisations.
• In Europe, organisations are driven by the need for continuous compliance, regulations, and legal obligations.
• In META, organisations are driven by the introduction of internal/corporate policies.

Business drivers for data sovereignty:

• Customer expectations about privacy and confidentiality
• Need to protect future investments in data
• Continued macroeconomic volatility, ambiguity, and uncertainties are heightening interest in sovereign solutions
• Protection against future EU ruling that could impact your business

How VMware can help

Sovereign Cloud is all about choice and control. VMware’s offering addresses the strategic imperatives for data sovereignty on data security, protection, residency, interoperability, and portability: 

• Leveraging the VMware Multicloud Foundation 
• Innovating on sovereign capabilities (Tanzu, Aria, open ecosystem solutions) 
• Leveraging a broad ecosystem of sovereign cloud providers 

VMware is well recognised on trust and on several capabilities for data sovereignty needs: flexibility and choice/data security and privacy/control of data access/multicloud/ data residency. It is already deployed with more than 20 Sovereign Cloud Providers. 

Laurent Allard, Head of Sovereign Cloud, VMware, says: “To ensure success in their sovereign journey, organisations must work with partners they trust and that are capable of hosting authentic and autonomous sovereign cloud platforms. VMware Cloud Providers recognised within the VMware Sovereign Cloud initiative commit to designing and operating cloud solutions based on modern, software defined architectures that embody key principles and best practices for data sovereignty. More than 36 global and 14 EU VMware Sovereign Cloud Partners can deliver to customers cloud services in alignment with security and local regulations, while enabling sovereign innovation.”

To read the full InfoBrief click here. Find out more about VMware’s Sovereign Cloud here.