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Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

theregister.com

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Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#21

Post by Findecanor »

jgbuddy wrote: post #4

Thus is probably more about the EU having access to eu data than not having the US have access to EU data. Also it’s not like it’s impossible to encrypt things when you store them? This article is more political than logical or technical, it’s unfortunate that government control / intervention in the free market to this degree can be spun into something positive.

It is also about not having the US government cutting people off from their data on a whim, such as happened to the International Criminal Court.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#22

Post by blackbear_ »

andersa wrote: post #7

This will happen automatically once an EU native cloud exists with comparable pricing. Get on it. No one will pay 10x to store data in Europe.

Luckily our friends overseas have shown us the way of dealing with uncompetitive local industries: tariffs.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#23

Post by abc123abc123 »

This already happened. Hetzner, OVH, and countless other local cloud companies exist. It is only the path of least resistancd and market inertia, that stops companies from switching.

I run on Hetzner and am saving big bucks compared to the ridiculously high priced AWS.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#24

Post by throwaway09809 »

simianparrot wrote: post #10
andersa wrote: post #7

This will happen automatically once an EU native cloud exists with comparable pricing. Get on it. No one will pay 10x to store data in Europe.

[flagged]

Your HN handle is a good fit for your comment

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#25

Post by adrianN »

nubinetwork wrote: post #19
adrianN wrote: post #2

I kind of share the opinion of the FSF Europe that it is less important where software comes from compared to whether it’s libre, but for cloud hardware I really hope that we manage to create competitive European offerings. Maybe we’re lucky and this European initiative will produce more than five Fraunhofer institutes and a gift to SAP.

I thought I heard that hetzner was pretty cheap, haven't looked myself though...

Price is probably not the only factor in competitiveness.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#26

Post by abc123abc123 »

bell-cot wrote: post #3

Yes, nice, true. But sadly, it feels like pigs will be singing Handel's Messiah before Europe's leaders get off their fat asses and actually do anything about their problems.

Why should they do something about it? They are not IT people. If you want to switch, do it today. Plenty of options exist.

If you designed yourself into a corner by utilizing function as a service to program agains ta proprietary API, then you can just as well start from scratch or quit and join a company that knows how to avoid lock-in.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#27

Post by jeppester »

jgbuddy wrote: post #4

Thus is probably more about the EU having access to eu data than not having the US have access to EU data. Also it’s not like it’s impossible to encrypt things when you store them? This article is more political than logical or technical, it’s unfortunate that government control / intervention in the free market to this degree can be spun into something positive.

> Thus is probably more about the EU having access to eu data than not having the US have access to EU data.

The EU governments do not have free access to data in a non-transparent way. That's the main difference between EU and American laws.

> Also it’s not like it’s impossible to encrypt things when you store them?

The GDPR lets you store any data in a third country, so long as it's impossible for that country to decrypt the data. E.g. it has to be encrypted before it's transferred.

It just severely limits what you can build, to a degree where it's probably easier to just use a cloud that can be trusted to follow the GDPR.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#28

Post by tirant »

adrianN wrote: post #2

I kind of share the opinion of the FSF Europe that it is less important where software comes from compared to whether it’s libre, but for cloud hardware I really hope that we manage to create competitive European offerings. Maybe we’re lucky and this European initiative will produce more than five Fraunhofer institutes and a gift to SAP.

I would say there’s even less chance nowadays to generate a fully private set of European alternatives to American cloud offerings.

Europes bureaucratization and the growth of the size of states has increased the last 10 years. I have less and less hope that we’re able to set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen.

That doesn’t mean that won’t be alternatives to American offerings, but most probably will come from somewhere else (Singapore, China, Taiwan…)

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#29

Post by Epa095 »

andersa wrote: post #7

This will happen automatically once an EU native cloud exists with comparable pricing. Get on it. No one will pay 10x to store data in Europe.

'Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM (now Microsoft)' has been an important factor around my neck of the woods. A cheaper European alternative would never even make it to the comparison. That is changing now though.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#30

Post by embedding-shape »

tirant wrote: post #28
adrianN wrote: post #2

I kind of share the opinion of the FSF Europe that it is less important where software comes from compared to whether it’s libre, but for cloud hardware I really hope that we manage to create competitive European offerings. Maybe we’re lucky and this European initiative will produce more than five Fraunhofer institutes and a gift to SAP.

I would say there’s even less chance nowadays to generate a fully private set of European alternatives to American cloud offerings. Europes bureaucratization and the growth of the size of states has increased the last 10 years. I have less and less hope that we’re able to set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen. That doesn’t mean that won’t be alternatives to American offerings, but most p…

> set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen

Just as a curiosity, what exactly are those "right free market conditions" and where have those been successfully implemented before? Because I think most of us (Europeans) are desperately trying to avoid replicating the American experiment, so if that's the "right free market conditions" I think we're trying to avoid those on purpose.

But maybe you're thinking of some other place, then I'm eager ears to hear what worked elsewhere :)

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