Oracle to open first sovereign cloud regions for EU-based users in 2023

Oracle is set to open sovereign cloud regions across the European Union for private enterprises and public sector organisations to host applications and workloads of a sensitive nature.

In a blog post, authored by the vice-president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) product, industries and partners, Scott Twaddle, the company said the first two sovereign cloud regions will open in Germany and Spain.

“Cloud is not one size fits all,” he said. “As companies and governments move more mission-critical workloads to cloud, there is increasing demand for protection of sensitive data in public clouds that span national borders and jurisdictions.

“Countries and jurisdictions are placing more requirements on data within their borders, and organisations are asking their global cloud providers for more transparency and control over how and where there data is stored, handled and secured,” added Twaddle.

“To better serve our European customers, Oracle has built on this experience and plans to launch new sovereign cloud regions for the European Union in 2023.”

The company already operates six public OCI regions in the EU, located in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Marseille, Milan and Stockholm.

“The sovereign cloud regions will be logically and physically separate from existing public OCI regions in the EU,” he said. “Operations and support [for these regions will be] restricted to EU residents and specific EU legal entities.”

Each region will provide users with access to more than 100 OCI public cloud services, Oracle confirmed, which will be priced the same as services hosted in non-sovereign cloud regions.

Richard Wiersema, director of operations at Dutch government-focused IT service provider DICTU, welcomed the news of Oracle’s plans.

“With Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s offerings now in the EU, our options for storing data in a compliant manner could be expanded,” he said. “As a public sector enterprise within the European Union, the capabilities and features of Oracle’s sovereign cloud regions for the EU could, under the right conditions, be a useful alternative for our organisation.”

Meanwhile, Andrea Cesarini, Oracle business group lead at professional services giant Accenture, said the initiative aligns with moves his company is taking in response to the growing demand from end-user organisations for locally hosted cloud services.

“Our ecosystem partnership with Oracle and its sovereign cloud offering is an exciting step forward,” he said. “With Oracle’s sovereign cloud regions for the EU, we bring our clients the ability to host sensitive data and applications in a public cloud that is both within the EU and designed to facilitate customer compliance with EU data privacy and sovereignty regulations.

“This offering allows us to leverage any and every Oracle Cloud Infrastructure public cloud service for our future projects.”