In today’s geopolitical and regulatory climate, organizations and nations are increasingly embracing digital sovereignty—the ability to control and protect their data, infrastructure and operations within defined jurisdictions. The sovereign-cloud market is growing fast as governments and regulated enterprises demand local control, auditable supply-chains, and cloud-native resiliency. Estimates vary by analyst, but recent market reports put the market in the billions today with double-digit CAGRs through the next decade — meaning this is now a strategic buying and architecture conversation for IT leaders. (Polaris)
At the same time, enterprises recognize that operational resiliency and data protection are no longer optional but foundational. Together, these themes are driving the growth of sovereign cloud initiatives: cloud infrastructures built to ensure control, transparency and autonomy.
Recent, real-world sovereign cloud examples in the news
Below are representative, recent examples that show momentum across Europe and enterprise vendors:
Red Hat — “Confirmed Sovereign Support” for the EU (Nov 6, 2025): Red Hat announced a regionally staffed support model and localized operations for EU customers to help meet digital-sovereignty and continuity requirements — an example of a major open-source vendor re-architecting its support and delivery model to match sovereignty needs. (Red Hat)
OVHcloud & DEEP partnership — Luxembourg sovereign cloud (March 31, 2025): Postal group DEEP and OVHcloud launched a strategic partnership to implement a sovereign cloud in Luxembourg, reflecting government and national actors choosing local providers for critical services. (OVHcloud)
OVHcloud + Crayon collaboration to strengthen European data infrastructure (June 2025): Reuters covered OVHcloud’s partnership with Crayon to build European data infrastructure with local hardware and software sourcing — a concrete industry effort to build supply-chain-aware sovereign stacks. (Reuters)
GAIA-X advancing data spaces and federation (2024–2025): GAIA-X, the European federation initiative, has moved into implementation phases (data spaces, standards and governance), enabling interoperable sovereign ecosystems for public and private clouds. GAIA-X progress is a major catalytic force for sovereign clouds in Europe. (Gaia-X)
Sovereign Cloud Stack (2024): Numerous companies have joined forces to found the forum SCS-Standards inside the OSBA. The forum aims to continue the work on standardization and certifications for the levels SCS-compatible, SCS-open, and SCS-sovereign. By using the modular SCS Software stack, cloud providers can offer state-of-the-art Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Container-as-a-Service while being fully compliant with European data protection and security standards without depending on other vendors. (SCS)
Hyperscalers offering “sovereign” tooling (Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty): Major cloud providers are responding with sovereign-focused product suites and controls (e.g., Microsoft’s Cloud for Sovereignty releases and guidance), showing demand is big enough that even global providers must offer regionally compliant solutions. Note: the presence of such offerings does not remove the policy, audit or supply-chain reasons governments may choose local/open stacks. (Microsoft)
These news stories show three things: (1) national/regional governments and large enterprises are actively procuring sovereign capabilities; (2) local European providers and partnerships are emerging; and (3) both open-infrastructure vendors and hyperscalers are evolving product and support models to respond to the demand.
In this blog I’ll unpack the compelling case for data-sovereign clouds, highlight how open infrastructure stacks and native data protection solutions are enabling this transition—and show how vendors such as Red Hat, Canonical, Mirantis and Trilio are helping enterprises and public-sector organizations build resilient platforms aligned with this agenda.
1. Why Data Sovereign Clouds Matter
States, regions and large enterprises are asking: “Who controls the data? Who controls the infrastructure? Can we respond to local-regulation demands? Are we resilient to disruptions?”
For many governments and regulated industries, sensitive data must remain within jurisdiction, avoiding reliance on global hyperscalers whose operations may be subject to foreign laws or supply-chain risk. For example, Canonical describes a sovereign cloud as one where “nations or organizations maintain control over every part of their infrastructure, including data, processing, storage, and access.” (Canonical)
From an operational-resiliency standpoint, sovereign clouds reduce dependence on third-party global infrastructure and thereby reduce risk of geostrategic, regulatory or supply-chain disruption. As Red Hat states: “Technical support delivered within the EU region … aligns with sovereignty and service-continuity requirements.” (Red Hat)
For enterprises, these trends converge with IT priorities: avoiding vendor lock-in, maintaining auditability, and minimizing outages through local control and open infrastructure frameworks.
Thus, the logic is clear: if you want digital sovereignty, you must build infrastructure that supports it; and if you want operational resiliency, you must protect your data and workloads in ways built for the modern, cloud-native era.
2. The Role of Open Infrastructure in the Sovereign Cloud Vision
Open infrastructure—platforms based on open-source, interoperable stacks—plays a pivotal role in realizing sovereign clouds. Here are some of the reasons why:
With open instrumentation and transparent source code, open stacks enhance auditability, remove opaque vendor-lock-in, and allow full visibility of the software supply-chain. Mirantis put it succinctly: “Open source is the backbone of sovereign clouds… organizations are less dependent on single regions, single organizations and can spread the risk.” (TFiR)
Organizations can choose where to run workloads, how to configure their stack, and who is providing support—critical for sovereignty and control. Canonical emphasises that sovereign clouds give full autonomy over data, operations and technology. (Canonical)
Hybrid and private cloud environments (on-premises, edge, regional data-centers) rather than solely public cloud help ensure control over data location and jurisdictional compliance. OpenStack and Kubernetes distributions enable these models. (Lightbits)
For operational resiliency, modular open infrastructure allows enterprises to tailor redundancy, migrate workloads, and integrate with disaster-recovery programs more easily than monolithic proprietary stacks.
In short: for sovereign clouds, open infrastructure isn’t just a nice-to-have—it is often a must-have.
3. How Cloud-Native Data Protection Complements Sovereign Infrastructure
Control of infrastructure is only part of the equation. A sovereign cloud must also deliver data protection and resiliency—ensuring backup, recovery, mobility and rapid restore in the event of failure, breach or disruption. Here’s where modern protection solutions come into play:
Traditional backup tools built for legacy hypervisors like VMware only models struggle with containerized, distributed, multi-cloud or hybrid environments. They create gaps in recovery, visibility and agility.
More modern platforms, engineered for cloud-native contexts, support containerized workloads (Kubernetes/KubeVirt), OpenStack VMs and hybrid-cloud migration—key elements when an organization is migrating e.g. from VMware to OpenStack or OpenShift environments.
As one source notes: “Faster recovery times. Limited data loss. Efficient operations. Continued service. More resilient cloud-native applications.” (Trilio)
Solutions that support immutability, multi-cluster/multi-tenant recovery, application-aware snapshots and orchestration become enablers of operational resiliency—critical when sovereignty demands that your cloud must work even when external dependencies fail.
A good example: Trilio is specifically purpose-built for cloud-native data protection in OpenStack and Kubernetes environments. It describes its mission as helping organizations “build resilient cloud and container infrastructure in a rapidly changing IT landscape.” (Trilio) It emphasizes strong encryption, automation, fast recovery, and cloud-native architecture. (Trilio)
In essence: sovereign clouds require not just open infrastructure, but a data-protection stack that aligns with that infrastructure in a modern app context.
4. Vendor Ecosystem Spotlight: Red Hat, Canonical, Mirantis & Trilio Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat’s recent launch of “Confirmed Sovereign Support” for EU member states underlines how open-infrastructure vendors can align with sovereignty and control. The offering includes: EU-citizen support staff, localized operations, 24/7 support within region, and ecosystem of 500+ EU partners. (Red Hat)
From a sovereignty standpoint, this means organizations operating within the EU can depend on local control, auditability and continuity. From a resiliency viewpoint, this helps deliver business-continuity and regulatory compliance.
In the context of migrations (for example from VMware to OpenShift or OpenStack), Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud portfolio provides the platform ecosystems that sovereignty-driven clouds rely upon.
Canonical
Canonical emphasizes the “sovereign cloud” vision explicitly: control over data, operations and technology. Their infrastructure solutions support building private/hybrid clouds with full-stack automation, open source security and node-based pricing. (Canonical)
For organizations seeking sovereignty and operational control, Canonical offers a pathway away from proprietary lock-in, aligning well with both digital-sovereignty and business-continuity goals.
Mirantis
Mirantis, with its roots in OpenStack and Kubernetes, highlights how open infrastructure enables sovereign cloud strategies. Their messaging emphasizes digital self-determination and independence from hyperscalers. (OpenInfra)
In a recent interview, Mirantis’ CTO explained that open-source allows agility, customization and less dependence on single regions. (TFiR) For a migration-oriented enterprise (e.g., moving from VMware to an open infrastructure stack), Mirantis provides one of the credible platforms.
Trilio
Trilio sits at the intersection of data protection, cloud-native and open-infrastructure. It explicitly targets OpenStack, Kubernetes, KubeVirt and the VMware-to-OpenStack/OpenShift migration path. (Trilio)
Its feature set—cloud-native architecture, application-aware backups, policy automation, multi-tenant support—is ideally suited for sovereign cloud scenarios, where data protection, auditability and operational resiliency matter deeply.
For organizations building sovereign clouds, Trilio offers the confidence that data protection and operational resilience is aligned with the underlying infrastructure—not tacked on as an afterthought.
5. Putting It All Together: A Blueprint for Sovereign Cloud Success
Here’s a high-level blueprint for organizations (countries, regional clouds, large enterprises) pursuing data-sovereign clouds with operational resiliency and data protection built in:
Define Scope of Sovereignty
• Identify critical workloads that demand in-jurisdiction control (data sovereignty).
• Understand regulatory regimes, industry compliance, and geopolitical risk.
• Clarify desired levels of operational control, auditability and vendor independence.Select an Open-Infrastructure Foundation
• Choose platforms built on open source: OpenStack, Kubernetes/KubeVirt, hybrid cloud frameworks.
• Partner with vendors offering local/regional support, transparent supply-chains and modular stacks (e.g., Red Hat, Canonical, Mirantis).
• Ensure ability to migrate workloads (e.g., from VMware) and implement hybrid/edge models when needed.Embed Modern Data-Protection and Resiliency
• Use cloud-native data-protection solutions (e.g., Trilio) that support containerized workloads, OpenStack VMs, multi-cluster, and hybrid-cloud backup/restore.
• Automate backup, disaster recovery orchestration, policy-based restoration and audit trails.
• Make sure RTO/RPO targets align with business-continuity/operational-resiliency requirements.Align with Sovereign-Ready Support & Ecosystem
• Ensure operational support is local, regionally staffed and runs within the jurisdiction. (Red Hat’s EU-citizen support model is one exemplar) (Red Hat)
• Leverage partner ecosystems with local cloud operators, regional data-centers, and open-infrastructure integrators.Test, Validate & Evolve
• Run disaster-recovery drills, migration tests, and workload mobility scenarios.
• Monitor for supply-chain transparency, version control, audit logs, and endpoint security.
• Continuously improve automation, policy enforcement and cross-cloud interoperability.
6. Why This Matters for IT Directors & Infrastructure Leaders
As an IT Director migrating environments from legacy platforms (e.g., VMware) to modern open infrastructures (e.g., KubeVirt, OpenShift-Virtualization or OpenStack), you face a triad of imperatives: staying agile and modern, maintaining business continuity, and avoiding vendor lock-in/supply-chain risk.
By building or leveraging a sovereign cloud model:
You gain digital sovereignty—control over your infrastructure and data, minimizing exposure to external jurisdictions or opaque vendor dependencies.
You bolster operational resiliency—because open infrastructure + modern data-protection = faster recovery, fewer blind spots, better migration pathways.
You achieve effective data protection—because a purpose-built, cloud-native solution ensures backups and recovery aren’t an afterthought but part of the fabric.
Vendors like Red Hat, Canonical, Mirantis, BigStack and Trilio bring maturity, ecosystem, and credibility in the open-infrastructure arena. Their approaches align with the demands of sovereign clouds—transparency, auditability, local support, and hybrid-cloud integration.
Final Thoughts
The movement toward data-sovereign clouds is more than a trend—it is a strategic imperative. Organizations must think holistically: infrastructure, operations, data protection and governance all intertwine. By leveraging open infrastructure platforms and aligning them with modern, cloud-native data-protection solutions, you build not only for today’s workloads but for tomorrow’s demands of autonomy, resilience and control.
If you’re evaluating your migration path—from VMware to KubeVirt, OpenShift Virtualization or OpenStack—this is the moment to incorporate sovereignty, resiliency and data protection into your architecture. The tools and vendors already exist. The question is: will your cloud be built for control and resilience—or inherited lock-in and risk?
