Oracle to build sovereign cloud regions in the EU for 2023

Oracle is set to launch new sovereign cloud regions in the European Union (EU) in 2023, aiming to help customers meet data requirements policies.

The first two sovereign cloud regions for the EU will be located in Germany and Spain, with operations and support restricted to EU residents and specific EU legal entities. The new regions will also be logically and physically separate from the existing public Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) regions in the EU. Currently, OCI operates six of these regions in the EU: Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Marseille, Milan, and Stockholm.

Oracle plans to offer all of its OCI services through the regions as well as the European Union Restricted Access (EURA) application services. Pricing for OCI services will be the same in existing OCI regions, and EURA pricing will remain unchanged, with the same levels of support and financially backed SLAs. Customers will be able to use Oracle Universal Credits to purchase services and participate in OCI programmes too.

The company said that both private companies and public sector organisations across the EU will be able to use the new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) sovereign cloud regions to host data and applications that are sensitive, regulated, or of strategic regional importance.

“Having cloud services with data centres that are located in the EU, and operated, updated and supported by EU residents, while maintaining isolation from non-EU cloud regions is an important part of our cloud adoption,” said Jarkko Levasma, government CIO, director of the General Ministry of Finance of Finland. “This will open up possibilities to adopt Infrastructure, platform and software as a service in Finland for the government.”

OCI’s sovereign cloud will restrict operations and customer support responsibilities to EU residents, building on its already general policy of not moving customer content from regions customers select for workloads. The sovereign clouds have been designed to help customers align with relevant EU regulations and guidance, said the cloud giant.

Oracle plans to migrate customers using Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications within the existing EU Restricted Access cloud service to the new OCI sovereign cloud regions.

The cloud giant said it is aiming to introduce the new regions as countries are placing more requirements on data within their borders, with organisations asking their global cloud providers for more transparency and control over how and where their data is stored, handled, and secured.

“Our customers tell us they want the benefits of cloud but have requirements for where data is located, the regulations they must meet, and the personnel operating the underlying infrastructure,” said Scott Twaddle, vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Product and Industries.

Twaddle added that the company already operates government regions in the UK and North America and has deployed its first OCI Dedicated Region, serving highly-regulated companies and governments around the globe.

Oracle isn’t the only company with plans to launch a sovereign cloud, as Microsoft won a contract to develop one for Singapore in February earlier this year. Singapore’s Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) chose the tech giant for the job, saying the sovereign cloud would help play a key role in helping domestic services to deliver improved safety and security to all citizens.