Geopolitical and technological shifts are prompting European organisations to take a closer look at where and how their digital services are hosted and governed. As a result, digital sovereignty is moving higher on the agenda of IT and business leaders, with sovereign cloud solutions increasingly being explored for specific workloads and services. But while interest is growing, the market remains complex. Beltug’s Digital Sovereignty Checklist gives suggestions for targeted questions you can ask cloud providers to support informed, risk-aware strategic decisions.
Building on this, we also went directly to the major cloud providers, to ask them for their responses directly. The checklist as well as responses from Orange and Combell can be downloaded here (available for Beltug members after login).
24 / 09 / 26
‘Digital sovereignty’ is not a black & white, yes/no promise. When it is used as a cloud service selling point, it functions as a broad label rather than a precise commitment. Furthermore, different services may have different elements or levels of ‘sovereignty’. This makes it difficult to understand what ‘sovereignty’ really means in practice and to compare cloud offerings — and their risks. Especially when each organisation has its own mix of risk profiles, regulatory obligations, business models and strategic objectives to consider. Decisions around digital sovereignty require careful assessment and clear discussions, both internally and with the cloud providers.
To support our members, Beltug has created a practical checklist for these discussions. Developed with input from several Beltug members, it suggests some key questions you may choose to ask cloud providers, to help you assess sovereign cloud claims, identify relevant risks, and make well-informed decisions aligned with your strategic objectives.
This checklist is intended to provide inspiration; it is not a comprehensive list of questions to ask each provider or for each service. Its purpose is to help you focus your efforts after you have defined: what you need to protect, to what extent, and who should be involved. You can use it to better understand the sovereignty position of a current or potential cloud provider, to make an informed, risk-aware strategic decision.
To further support members in their decision-making, Beltug has invited cloud providers to answer the checklist and is publishing their responses. Their answers give our members a documented, comparable view of where each provider stands on sovereignty topics, offering exactly the kind of transparency the checklist was designed to encourage.
Orange and Combell are the first to respond; Beltug members can download their responses above.
The checklist covers several key sovereignty domains and topics:
Our warm thanks to all the members who contributed to the development of this checklist!
More information about this topic, including all downloadable documents, is available for Beltug members:
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The Beltug Team