AWS Flips Switch on Euro Cloud as Customers Fret About Digital Sovereignty

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

EU-only ops, German subsidiaries, and a pinky promise your data won't end up in Uncle Sam's hands:

Amid continued trade and geopolitical volatility between Europe and the US, Amazon Web Services is making its European Sovereign Cloud generally available today and plans to expand so-called Local Zones.

Amazon says the cloud is "entirely located within the EU, and physically and logically separate from other AWS Regions." It will initially offer 90 services from compute to database, networking, security, storage, and AI.

It is "independently operated" by EU residents and "backed by strong technical controls, sovereign assurances, and legal protections designed to meet the needs of European governments and enterprises for sensitive data." Only authorized AWS staff running the European Sovereign Cloud will have access to a "replica of the source code needed to maintain" services.

The footprint of this cloud is being extended from the AWS Region in Germany across the EU to allay customers' concerns. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal are set to kick off AWS Local Zones.

AWS says customers with more stringent requirements for data isolation or data residency can use its Dedicated Local Zones, AI Factories, or Outposts in the preferred locations they select, including on-prem.

For the uninitiated, AWS Local Zones are built to provide low-latency access to services in specific cities. This same capability is provided by AWS Dedicated Local Zones, but these are created for the exclusive use by one customer or community so by their nature are meant to offer additional security, governance and data residency features for sovereign workloads.

Customers will keep all metadata they create (roles, permissions, resource labels, and configurations) only in the EU, including sovereign Identity and Access Management (IAM), billing, and usage metering systems.

EU citizens "obligated to abide by European law" will run a new parent company and three local subsidiaries incorporated in Germany that manage the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. An advisory board was also set up, comprising three Amazon staff and two independent board members.

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