What is a sovereign cloud?
Gain Jurisdictional Control and Data Compliance
Sovereign clouds offer continuous protection and secure accessibility controls to enable new value and opportunities for national growth. Protect and control confidential or restricted data with the data residency and data sovereignty that a sovereign cloud provides, ensuring compliance with changing data privacy laws using a trusted cloud that supports a nation’s digital economy.
Data Sovereignty and Control
Ensure that data is subject to only the jurisdictional control and authority of the nation state or international federation where your data is collected and resides.
Data Security and Compliance
Establish security frameworks and meet compliance standards to protect data and establish an information security management system (ISMS).
Data Access and Integrity
Leverage comprehensive data management, data lifecycle, data protection and storage services within your sovereign cloud deployment.
Data Independence and Mobility
Multi-cloud architecture flexibility enables easy data and application portability.
Sovereign Cloud Products and Solutions
Gain trusted, local cloud infrastructure that meets security, compliance and data sovereignty requirements with VMware sovereign clouds.
Cloud Verified Partner Solutions
Validated services from global partners based on VMware Cloud infrastructure
NSX
Full-stack network and security virtualization
Tanzu Greenplum
Models for complex applications in cybersecurity, predictive maintenance, risk management, fraud detection, and many other areas
VMware Cloud Foundation
Hybrid cloud platform
VMware Aria Automation
Infrastructure automation platform
Tanzu Data Services
Portfolio of on-demand caching, messaging, and database software on VMware Tanzu
We needed a solution that would provide security, assurance and UK sovereignty, while also giving us the ability to scale our services. UKCloud Health ticked all the boxes.
- Michael Shenouda, Medical Director, Open Medical Ltd
Benefits of Sovereign Cloud
Control Your Data
Your data remains under sovereign control and jurisdiction, preventing compelled access to data by foreign authorities.
Unlock the Value of Data
Realize the true value of your data with an established framework for data privacy, data mobility to trusted clouds, and advanced data services.
Boost Security
Protect your applications and data against rapidly evolving attack vectors with advanced security controls and data classification implementations.
Future-Proof Your Infrastructure
Prepare for changing data privacy regulations, security threats and geopolitics. Avoid cloud vendor lock-in with workload, application and data portability.
Improve Compliance
Achieve compliance significantly faster and more efficiently, and maintain continuous compliance.
Fuel Innovation
Build a national capability of digital resilience for the data economy. Develop a deep and wide pool of useful data to unlock true economic growth.
Use Cases
Define and Establish Secure Data Domains
By using a sovereign cloud, you can define and establish data domains and classification, leveraging resident block, file and object storage to store and manage data and encryption measures.
Demonstrate Compliance with Local Law
Use of a sovereign cloud demonstrates compliance with local jurisdictional requirements and legal entities, negating foreign control over national data.
Secure Connectivity to Sovereign Cloud Environments
A sovereign cloud endpoint allows connectivity to authorized, trusted and residency-restricted domains. Extending sovereign data enables collaboration and analytics, governed by data classification zones.
Migrate Workloads to Regulated Clouds
Form a trusted cloud data environment for sensitive and regulated workloads. Migrate applications and data from one sovereign cloud to a non-sovereign environment, between data classification tiers, or to another sovereign cloud.
Prevent Damage to Data with Integrity Rules
Maintain data integrity through enforcement of sovereign rules, policies and standards, such as micro-segmentation.
Key Questions about Sovereign Cloud
Sovereign clouds are architected and built to deliver security and data access that meets strict requirements of regulated industries and local jurisdiction laws on data privacy, access and control. They protect and unlock the value of critical data for both private and public sector organizations.
What is data residency versus data sovereignty?
Data residency refers to the physical and geographic location where customer data is stored and processed. This may be dictated by policy, tax or performance reasons.
Data sovereignty refers to data being subject to privacy laws and governance structures within the nation where that data is collected.
Do public clouds provide data sovereignty?
Generally, commercial public clouds provide data residency by building out regions in specific countries. While customer data may be resident locally, account information and metadata may not be. Resident data may be subject to compelled access by a foreign authority.
How are sovereign clouds different from public clouds?
Sovereign clouds ensure data sovereignty in two ways:
1. Data is subject to the jurisdictional control and authority of the nation or pan-national entity (such as the EU) where that data was collected, and other jurisdictions are unable to assert authority over the data.
2. All data (e.g., customer data, metadata, etc.) is resident or controlled within that jurisdiction.
Is sovereign cloud the same as “GovCloud”?
Some may think sovereign clouds are synonymous with “GovClouds” that target the public sector, but the concept of sovereign cloud is broader and applies equally to industry vertical or private sector services.
Sovereign Cloud Provider Ecosystem
Explore VMware Sovereign Cloud Providers
Securely move to your next stage in cloud transformation with a trusted VMware Sovereign Cloud Provider Partner.
Become a VMware Sovereign Cloud Provider
Join the VMware Sovereign Cloud initiative and deliver trusted cloud transformation capabilities and solutions to enterprises in regulated industries and public sector organizations.
Related Resources
Sovereign Clouds Unleash the National Data Economy
A secure, trusted cloud with a sovereign architecture protects data and complies with privacy laws governing information residency and sovereignty.
IDC: Deploying the Right Data to the Right Cloud in Regulated Industries
Controlling the location of data in the cloud to comply with data privacy regulations should be a key criterion in choosing cloud services that handle restricted data.
Return of Sovereign Cloud: Protecting and Unlocking the Value of Critical Data
Get guidelines and best practices for successfully building and operating sovereign clouds that protect critical data for private and public sector organizations.
IDC: Sovereignty and the evolution of Cloud
VMware is driving sovereignty technology and deployment models with Cloud Provider partners delivering a wider digital context that encompasses not just data control, but also the infrastructure and software that are created and relied upon to operate in the digital world.