Accelerate compliance with data mobility and independence from the Sovereign Cloud

Meeting compliance, privacy, and security regulations and protecting data access and integrity are key components of data sovereignty legislation, but relying on these alone is not always enough to achieve data sovereignty for your organization.

Currently, more than 50 countries have passed laws to regulate how data can move across national borders. For that reason, simply meeting data residency rules may not be enough for data sovereignty. To comply with regulations regarding cross-border data access, some companies have decided to drastically adjust their operations. For example, French and Austrian organizations were forced to stop using Google Analytics because it could potentially expose their citizens' personal data to "spying" from the US.¹ Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced in 2022 that it might stop its services in the EU if the data transfer issues between countries were not resolved quickly.²

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Strict restrictions on data traffic can have a devastating impact on the future of organizations and even on national macroeconomic prospects. For example, if Rotterdam Runners were unable to store all Dutch, Belgian, and German sales data in one centralized location, it would become a massive accounting headache. The accountants at Rotterdam Runners would have three times as much work because they would have to maintain separate accounts for each country, resulting in a significant increase in operational costs and lower productivity. With this strict restriction on cross-border data traffic, Rotterdam Runners might only sell shoes in the Netherlands and fail to utilize their market potential, which in turn would negatively affect the Dutch balance of trade.

Regulations surrounding data traffic are constantly evolving, requiring organizations like yours to have a flexible data infrastructure to future-proof operations and to work with specialists to ensure compliance with cross-border data traffic regulations. A Sovereign Cloud combines the knowledge of local compliance specialists with a modern IT infrastructure that is easily adaptable to changing data governance rules.

Ideally, a Sovereign Cloud forms a central component of a multi-cloud strategy that also utilizes public clouds for non-sensitive data. With a multi-cloud strategy, your organization can scale efficiently, control costs, and improve autonomous data sharing. By using a Sovereign Cloud that enables full interaction between all components of the multi-cloud or hybrid cloud, Rotterdam Runners can streamline their accounting and reduce operational costs.

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Data portability is an essential component of any effective Sovereign Cloud, as it allows workloads to be migrated whenever necessary. Using a Sovereign Cloud without this capability can limit the possibilities and functionality of your applications. According to the GDPR in the EU, data portability is an individual right, as citizens must have the ability to export, receive, or delete their personal data. To comply with GDPR rules regarding data portability, data must be stored in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.³

Data independence is also essential for an effective Sovereign Cloud. Separating data from the applications that use it prevents changes in the data structure from affecting the performance of your applications.

Navigating the volatile landscape of data privacy and data sovereignty rules can be a significant challenge. The Fundaments Sovereign Cloud can help your organization comply with rapidly changing Dutch and EU regulations without major impacts on your organization's IT resources. With expertise in data mobility, security, and privacy, the Fundaments Sovereign Cloud can provide an effective strategy and path to accelerate and simplify the race toward data sovereignty and governance.

If you would like to know how Fundaments became the first Dutch cloud provider with VMware Sovereign Cloud status, click here.

Sources:

1. New York Times, The Era of Borderless Data Is Ending, May 2022
2. New York Times, U.S. and European leaders reach deal on trans-Atlantic data privacy, March 2022
3. Deloitte, GDPR Top Ten #1: Data Portability, accessed July 2022

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