Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#281

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #74

Tomte wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything the federal government does is a huge contract. Of course, in a hypothetical paradise it wouldn't have to be. But in the real world, it is. That's still no reason to be surprised.

From what I know, SAP and Deutsche Telekom were chosen because: - SAP built an app on very short notice where Germans traveling abroad could register for one of the government-organized flights back to Germany. The government was satisfied with how this played out, therefore they were the first choice for building the app part. - Telekom is already operating several backend services for the RKI (the German counterpar…

[deleted]

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#282

Post by joelbluminator » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

Pedrit0 wrote: post #209

Europe has to start from somewhere in a market currently dominated by the US and the Chinese... This project may look like a joke for people in the Silicon Valley but everything we do in Europe looks like a joke for Americans. They laugh at the EU, at our spaceship program, at our industry, at our techs... Whatever we do they say we are old and finished. OK have good times laughing. Meanwhile we go on progressing. Di…

How the U.S looked the last few years they are in no position to laugh at anyone. In fact most Americans I talk to in Europe seem quite humble.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#283

Post by KineticLensman » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #246

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just Germany though. The UK is absolutely obsessed with making phone calls. Lots and lots of completely useless phone calls. Most of them could easily be replaced by an online booking system. Others serve no purpose at all, because all that's required is for them to take some action. Same with US corporations. I recently tried to sign up for Microsoft's partner network because that's required for an Office 3…

Believe me, the UK is ages ahead of Germany in terms of digitization.

Can't comment on the UK / Germany comparison directly, but I still continue to be pleasingly surprised by the quality of access to functions provided by gov.uk. E.g. I recently renewed my passport wholly online, registered my car, checked that the Govt had a record of my car's MOT (roadworthyness) certificate, etc.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#284

Post by baryphonic » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

> German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home!

That quote is quite funny, but I have to wonder: Who speaks to sales before spinning up infrastructure on AWS? The only cases where I see it making sense are when either an entire large enterprise or a non-profit are switching over to AWS and want better rates. For most companies and individuals, not having to speak to sales is the norm.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#285

Post by rcarmo » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:18 PM UTC

zeeZ wrote: post #225

tannhaeuser wrote: post #59

Does anybody have any technical details to share about Gaia-X? I mean service discovery, interchangeable services/interfaces, etc. has been around since the SOAP days (~ 2003) at least. Cloud can mean many things. Does there exist anything at all or is it just talk at the political level atm? Do they intend to fund new research into bringing these things, or will they pick existing tech?

GAIA-X: Technical Architecture: https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Publikationen/gaia-x-techni... More on the project: https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Dossier/gaia-x.html

The "technical" architecture reads like an extensively annotated UML diagram about... generics. There are a lot of guiding principles, a lot of references to data sovereignty, but after reading it I have zero clue of what they are going on about.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#286

Post by viraptor » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #276

viraptor wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? Years of experience running their own massive platform before entering the market of renting those services to others? > they can definitely build software So can OVH and Rackspace. So why would this project take off better than those established companies? Don't get me wrong, I'll be cheering this to succeed, but how is this effort different?

Cern has more than enough folks that have run systems that are harder to run cloud scale compute. Even if running a DC is rocket science (it isn't), it is no particle physics. The EU should absolutely have its own homegrown tech stack, from silicon to billing. I'd start with an EU run internet backbone and federated object storage in each member state.

CERN still runs on openstack for the non-specialised projects, I believe. They do improve the project, but it's not their own solution.

I can't see Gaia-x mentioning a ready solution anywhere and it seems very secret and proprietary for a project that's meant to be transparent, federated, and lunching end of this year. (Unless I missed something?)

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#287

Post by adambyrtek » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

baryphonic wrote: post #284

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

> German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! That quote is quite funny, but I have to wonder: Who speaks to sales before spinning up infrastructure on AWS? The only cases where I see it making sense are when either an entire large enterprise or a non-profit are switching over to AWS and want better rates. F…

That's the whole point, OP is saying that for German press this is still a new and baffling concept.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#288

Post by this_user » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

4636760295 wrote: post #275

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

As a counter point, I have seen technology adopted in the EU in ways that the US has lagged far, far behind. Probably the best example of this is chip & PIN for credit cards. In the US we finally have chips, but still no PIN.

That is more the exception than the rule, though, even in the payment space. Here is a more typical example: A few years ago German banks realised that PayPal was eating their lunch, so they decided to start their own payment processor called "PayDirekt". In typical German fashion it was not only 15 years late, but also overly bureaucratic. As merchant you have to sign individual contracts with each bank whose cards you would like to accept. Naturally, it has largely failed to gain traction despite extensive marketing to end users.

Another more recent example was Apple Pay launching in Germany. The German banks thought they could do their own mobile payment apps instead rather than work with Apple. Once again, it failed, and now, tail between their legs, they have begun signing up with Cupertino after they started losing customers to mobile-first banks like N26 who supported Apple Pay all along.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#289

Post by mandevil » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

4636760295 wrote: post #275

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

As a counter point, I have seen technology adopted in the EU in ways that the US has lagged far, far behind. Probably the best example of this is chip & PIN for credit cards. In the US we finally have chips, but still no PIN.

Isn't that because credit cards came later to the EU, so they had better standards because they didn't have to worry about supporting huge quantities of obsolete technology? I don't know the exact details on credit cards, but I know that's true for CDMA vs. GSM and NTSC vs PAL. In the US there were so many black and white TV's already out there that they couldn't abandon them, hence NTSC (which allowed the older black and white TV's to just read the Red channel). In Europe, with out those huge numbers of already existing TVs to support, they could go straight to a clearly better standard, PAL.

This is a common problem, see _The Innovators Dilemma_ by Clayton Christensen.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#290

Post by Pedrit0 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #263

Pedrit0 wrote: post #209

Europe has to start from somewhere in a market currently dominated by the US and the Chinese... This project may look like a joke for people in the Silicon Valley but everything we do in Europe looks like a joke for Americans. They laugh at the EU, at our spaceship program, at our industry, at our techs... Whatever we do they say we are old and finished. OK have good times laughing. Meanwhile we go on progressing. Di…

> Europe has to start from somewhere in a market currently dominated by the US and the Chinese... Yes, and it has to start by copying them. Copying to the letter, like following a recipe, humbly. That's how absolute beginners learn. Not by proclaiming absurd moonshots (by the way, it's "France and Germany", as usual, not the EU) and insisting that we'll build something different, new and innovative and blah blah. Jus…

I think you did not get the purpose of the project and its context. 1. What should we copy ? We already have cloud companies in Europe. The issue is not about a lack of knowledge about cloud technologies. It is a matter of market share. Our companies are not big enough to provide adequate services to european states and sensitive industries. 2. The goal is not to create from scratch a European cloud giant that would be able to challenge Chinese and US powerhouses. It is just way not to rely on them as they cannot be trusted in any manner when it comes to data management and fair competition. As stated many times by Trump and Xi Jiping, EU is a competitor or even worse an enemy. In Europe we share this same bellicose analysis too now. And cloud is a battle among others, but an important one.