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Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

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Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#101

Post by qwertox »

I think their intention is to be an alternative to OEDIV [0] (Oetker* Daten- und Informationsverarbeitung KG), targeting European companies and governments.

If you understand German and want to take a look at OEDIV's remarkable datacenter, der8auer posted a video [1] around two years ago giving a tour through their datacenter. Small but high-quality. This is what Schwarz Gruppe is after, though not as closed as OEDIV.

[0] https://www.oediv.de/en/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMFo74rArBw

* Yes, Oetker, the pizza-maker.

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#102

Post by nextos »

mathverse wrote: post #89
nairboon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the old-school mentality of pay hierarchies: Managers must earn more than subordinates. Thus if the salary expectation of a high skilled engineer is higher than some of the management class, it's often viewed as obscene. Usually as an engineer you achieve certain salary levels only with additional management duties.

Not only that but them being stubborn and with a superiority complex. DACH companies rule EE with their capital and often manage to prototype and execute very much innovative features focused on convenience in the EE region (with local engineers etc). But this will never transform into something bigger because management wont allow non DACH people to assume executive roles + conservative market in their countries.

This is a very accurate, and very depressing, summary of why EU is stuck since the 2000s.

Most EU tech and non-tech companies, with some notable exceptions like Spotify, have this mentality.

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#103

Post by zo1 »

skrebbel wrote: post #8
outside1234 wrote: post #2

This is not about privacy or sovereign clouds because at least AWS and Azure have those already in Europe. It’s about protectionism and tweaking the law to favor local companies.

If AWS gets a letter from an American 3-letter agency to plz turn over this and that data and don't tell anyone, they're going to comply, no matter what kind of paper "privacy shield" agreement the politicians negotiated this time around.

To be a bit facetious/snarky: And we compare this to the EU's version where they're outright open about it and censor-away? "We're not being bad, this is legal censorship!"

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#104

Post by dtquad »

n_ary wrote: post #76
p1esk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, 5 years later and what have they actually accomplished? Look at the milestones section: https://gaia-x.eu/what-is-gaia-x/about-gaia-x/

[flagged]

Countries like the US and China are not afraid to subsidize strategically important industries in regions with proven capabilities.

Meanwhile the EU likes to waste resources on failed hopeless regions. For example the new investments into making EU independent on chip manufacturing is going to the failed hopeless eastern parts of Germany. I know East Germany had the strongest electronics industry in the former Eastern Bloc but nowadays it's a literal failed hopeless zombieland.

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#105

Post by stavros »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #47

I run a European cloud service, 80% of our customers are basically looking for a European alternative to the big clouds. The market is huge and in my opinion underserved. What makes it very exciting is that there not too much innovation required to compete

I use Hetzner cloud not because it's European, but because it's great.

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#106

Post by snowpid »

szszrk wrote: post #67
echelon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is too funny. What's to stop an American cloud hyperscaler from creating a "properly patriated" subsidiary that it simply licenses the tech to? Wouldn't that side step the "sovereign" protectionism? An American company would run circles around this mess.

That's exactly what is going on nowadays, anyway. In Poland we have Chmura Krajowa (national cloud), aimed at public, non profit and finance companies. It's basically more controlled local Azure and GPC region.

In Polish people don't use Cloud but Chmura?

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#107

Post by morsch »

mathverse wrote: post #21

Yea this is so gonna work with them paying 50-60k/pa for engineers. Seriously DACH mentality and influence has been devastating on serious tech development in Europe

> 50-60k/pa for engineers

Is that, like, actual information, or just an educated guess based on some industry average.

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#108

Post by axus »

n_ary wrote: post #87
Rinzler89 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N'uh-uh, we have Spotify, SAP and ASML. In your face US big-tech! /s

Spotify, ASML, Hubspot, Dashlane, Ericsson, Siemens, Airbus etc. I can get behind with pride. But SAP is a plague upon Earth and I often pretend that it is imaginary myth.

We've got Oracle over here. I'm guessing they did provide more value than they consumed in .. the 80s?

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#109

Post by hagbard_c »

And there I was hoping to find that Lidl had seen the light and started to sell some type of home server under one of their many 'brand names' - Medion (not only Lidl but still), Silvercrest, Parkside, etc. A solidly built box of hardware with a reliable power supply, some slots for storage. A pre-installed Linux distribution with Proxmox on top, a container with Nextcloud (all German companies so they´d probably be willing to participate in this project). Some optional extras which make the thing function as wireless AP and router, media player, IoT hub etc. A number of downloadable container images for running your own mail/XMPP/Torrent/Blog/Search/Media/etc. services. A distributed encrypted backup option were you get to use other's storage for your backup purposes just as long as you offer your own storage for that purpose. That would be true 'sovereign computing'.

Hm, maybe I should pitch this to them instead.

Re: Lidl's Cloud Gambit: Europe's Shift to Sovereign Computing

#110

Post by reaperducer »

dtquad wrote: post #104
n_ary wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Countries like the US and China are not afraid to subsidize strategically important industries in regions with proven capabilities. Meanwhile the EU likes to waste resources on failed hopeless regions. For example the new investments into making EU independent on chip manufacturing is going to the failed hopeless eastern parts of Germany. I know East Germany had the strongest electronics industry in the former Easter…

Countries like the US and China are not afraid to subsidize strategically important industries in regions with proven capabilities. Meanwhile the EU likes to waste resources on failed hopeless regions.

The U.S. has a long history of subsidizing industries in so-called "hopeless" regions. For example, putting the FBI fingerprinting office in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

Doing things like that is how you keep "hopeless" regions from becoming even worse, and makes things better for the nation as a whole. You spend some money on jobs and opportunity, or you spend a lot more money on food subsidies and criminal justice.

Are you a European "Union," or not? If you want every region to fight for resources, then you'd might as well go back to feudal times.

Europeans on HN are always saying how it's the "civilized" continent. I don't see that in language like "hopeless zombieland."

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