Sovereignty is often discussed, yet rarely understood. Today, it’s essential for any organization to address across multiple levels – from DevOps to dev experience, from cloud to ops, data to infra – as the concept of sovereignty has never been more important.
The cloud provider conversation has been presented as a choice. Hyperscaler or sovereign. Extended functionalities or targeted compliance features. Convenience or control. The framing has helped make the problem visible, but it hasn’t pointed to a solution.
It’s also why many organisations can find themselves stuck.
In many ways, sovereignty isn’t which provider you pick but whether your platform gives you the freedom to change without painful consequences and at an acceptable effort. The companies that get this right will be the ones that want the freedom to change providers at will, not those who bet on understanding and working in the confines of the shifting regulation of data.
The extended functionalities, scale, and convenience offered by hyperscalers made cloud decisions ‘easy’. Rapid time to market and simplicity meant committing to a single provider seemed a pragmatic choice, especially if you are big enough to negotiate an enterprise discount program. But as tech and geopolitics grew closer, that context and reality grew apart. Relying on any single provider – hyperscaler or sovereign – is a risk organisations shouldn’t accept.
Talking to platform leaders – in Europe, the USA, globally – right now, a question keeps coming up: Not which cloud, but how do we avoid lock-in?
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