Oracle Launches EU-Only Sovereign Public Cloud

Oracle will be the first of the major public cloud operators to offer dedicated cloud infrastructure exclusively to businesses located in the European Union. 

While Oracle is not at the level of the big three – Amazon, Microsoft, and Google – it has reported strong growth in the cloud business over the past 12 months, with 59 percent growth year-on-year in the fourth quarter, surpassing the percentage growth of AWS and Azure. 

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Getting the early step on the rest of the public cloud providers could be advantageous for Oracle, as the European Union plans to implement privacy requirements and data protection legislation, which will force public cloud providers to either work with EU-based operators or remove their service from the region. However, it is unclear how much interest there is from a commercial side for this service, and we may see EU businesses only make the shift once it is legally necessary. 

One of the issues for EU businesses moving to this sovereign cloud is that all applications and data will need to be migrated over to the new server, which could be costly if the business is not already using Oracle for public cloud operations. 

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“Customers want the benefits and efficiency of a global cloud platform but are increasingly concerned with control over their data and the ability to meet evolving regulatory requirements in global hyperscale clouds,” said senior vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Scott Twaddle, in a recent blog. “Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud is designed to help meet these requirements for both private companies in regulated industries and public sector organizations that use cloud computing to host their applications and sensitive data in the EU.”

Another reason for launching this service is to avoid the fines being doled out by the EU to non-compliant technology companies. The $1.3 billion Meta Platforms fine was a wake up call of sorts for Oracle, which was issued because Meta transferred EU data out the region. 

Oracle’s EU Sovereign Cloud will be available in July and it plans to have most of its first-party applications and tools available for EU businesses in the coming months.