From the outset, AWS’ global cloud and AI infrastructure were designed to be sovereign, offering customers complete control over the location and movement of their data. This is supported by a set of technical measures and operational controls that ensure visibility and security, as well as AWS’ global infrastructure that provides exceptionally high resiliency, security and availability. AWS is designed to meet the needs of the world’s most security and privacy-conscious organizations. Most customers can meet their requirements with one of the six existing AWS regions in the EU, which are sovereign by design. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is designed to provide customers with additional choices to meet the EU’s stringent sovereignty requirements without compromising on the robust capabilities of AWS.
The AWS European Sovereign Cloud and the expansion of AWS Local Zones to three additional countries provide organizations with more options for deploying workloads in the cloud with the highest level of sovereignty and operational independence, while maintaining the breadth of AWS services they rely on to innovate and transform their businesses. AWS Local Zones are a type of infrastructure that allows customers to store their data in a specific geographic location to meet data residency requirements or run latency-sensitive applications. The AWS Local Zones announced today will be part of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud and extend the sovereignty controls of the AWS region in Germany to the entire EU. Customers with more stringent data isolation or data residency requirements will have the option to use AWS Dedicated Local Zones, AWS AI Factories or AWS Outposts in locations of their choice, including their own local data centers.
“Europe needs access to the most robust cloud and AI technologies. Expanding AWS innovation across Europe will help drive customers’ growth and AI ambitions,” said StĂ©phane IsraĂ«l, Managing Director of AWS European Sovereign Cloud and Digital Sovereignty. “Customers want the best of both worlds – they want to be able to leverage AWS’ full portfolio of cloud and AI services while ensuring they can meet their stringent sovereignty requirements. By building a cloud that is European in terms of infrastructure, operations and governance, we enable organizations to innovate while maintaining complete control over their digital assets.”
Managed, operated and secured in Europe
The AWS European Sovereign Cloud combines comprehensive, multi-layered controls to provide a robust solution for customers who need to meet stringent digital sovereignty requirements while benefiting from the breadth of AWS cloud and AI innovation. Everything required to operate the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is located in the EU: the talent, the infrastructure and the governance. There is no operational control outside the EU borders. Key features include:
- European operational autonomy: the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is physically and logically separated from other AWS regions. It is operated exclusively by EU citizens, is not critically dependent on non-EU infrastructures and, thanks to its unique design, can continue to operate indefinitely even if communications with the rest of the world are interrupted. To ensure continuity even under extreme circumstances, authorized AWS employees of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud who are EU citizens have independent access to a copy of the source code required to maintain the AWS European Sovereign Cloud services in exceptional circumstances.
- Full data sovereignty: The AWS European Sovereign Cloud offers customers complete control over where their data is stored. With the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, customers can store all the metadata they create (such as roles, permissions, resource names and configurations) entirely in the EU, including sovereign identity and access management (IAM), billing and usage measurement systems.
- Leading technical and compliance controls: Security is the foundation for digital sovereignty. Like other AWS regions, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is supported by the AWS Nitro System, which provides industry-leading, strong physical and logical security boundaries to enforce access restrictions so that no one, including AWS employees, can access customer data running in Amazon EC2. AWS also offers advanced encryption, key management services and hardware security modules to help customers further protect their content. Encrypted content is unusable without the appropriate decryption keys. AWS has also introduced the AWS European Sovereign Cloud: Sovereignty Reference Framework (ESC-SRF), an independently validated framework to meet customers’ sovereignty requirements. Customers can use the third-party validated ESC-SRF auditor report to demonstrate clear and enforceable sovereignty guarantees.
- European governance: AWS has established a dedicated governance structure in Europe, with a new parent company and three local subsidiaries based in Germany (GmbH), managed by EU citizens who are committed to complying with European laws and acting in the best interests of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. This includes an advisory board that provides expertise and accountability on sovereignty issues and is composed of three Amazon employees and two independent board members, all of whom are European citizens and residents.
Today, AWS announced that Stefan Hoechbauer, Vice President of AWS Global Sales Germany and Europe Central, has been appointed Managing Director of AWS European Sovereign Cloud. He will work closely with StĂ©phane IsraĂ«l, who will lead the AWS European Sovereign Cloud and be responsible for its management and operations. AWS also announced five new Advisory Board members: three Amazon employees – StĂ©phane Ducable, Vice President of EMEA Public Policy at AWS; Ian McGarry, Director of Amazon CloudWatch, and Barbara Scarafia, Vice President and Associate General Counsel Europe at Amazon – and two independent Advisory Board members, General (Ret.) Philippe Lavigne and SinĂ©ad McSweeney. General (Ret.) Philippe Lavigne most recently served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. McSweeney currently serves on various advisory boards and was previously Vice President of Public Policy at Twitter.
Investing in European innovation and digital skills
- The AWS European Sovereign Cloud has launched its first AWS region in Brandenburg, Germany. As part of its long-term commitment, Amazon plans to invest more than €7.8 billion in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany and create an average of 2,800 full-time jobs annually, adding approximately €17.2 billion to Germany’s GDP.
- The expansion of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal represents an additional planned investment in new state-of-the-art cloud and AI capabilities that will support local economic growth, productivity and innovation. By bringing its cloud capabilities closer to customers, AWS is giving organizations the tools they need for their digital transformation, while meeting stringent data residency and low latency requirements.
- Customers and partners using the AWS European Sovereign Cloud will benefit from the full power of AWS, including the same security, availability, performance, familiar architecture, APIs and leading security innovations such as the AWS Nitro System. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will initially include more than 90 services across multiple categories, including artificial intelligence, compute, containers, databases, networking, security and storage.
- Customers from the public sector and a variety of regulated industries across Europe have already signed up to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. These include EWE AG, the Medical University of Lausitz – Carl Thiem (MUL-CT), Sanoma Learning and many more.
- AWS partners have committed to offering their solutions for and within the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Launch partners include: Accenture, adesso, Adobe, Arvato Systems, Atos, Capgemini, Dedalus, Deloitte, Genesys, Kyndryl, Mistral AI, msg group, NVIDIA, SAP, SoftwareOne and many more.
European customers from various regulated industries, including government, healthcare, financial services, defense and aerospace, energy, telecommunications and more, can now leverage the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to drive their innovation while meeting their stringent compliance and data sovereignty requirements.
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Further links
👉 https://aws.eu/de/
Photo: pixabay
