Almost half surveyed say they are using hybrid cloud or local cloud service providers as an alternative to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to meet sovereignty requirements

 

SAN FRANCISCO – Sept. 13, 2022 – Scality today announced the results of an independent survey of IT decision makers across France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. about their data sovereignty strategies. 98% of organizations already have policies in place or have plans to implement them. To achieve data sovereignty, 49% of IT decision makers are using hybrid cloud or regional cloud service providers as an alternative to the public cloud.

137 out of 194 countries in the world have data protection and privacy legislation in place.1 As a result, organizations must adhere to the data residency guidance and local regulations required for data collection and processing.

According to the survey — conducted by global technology market research firm Vanson Bourne — the vast majority of organizations across all four countries either have sovereignty regulations or policies in place to keep their data in specific locations (80%) or have plans to do so (18%). The report reveals minimal differences between France (where 81% of respondents have policies in place), Germany (79%), U.K. (82%), and U.S. (78%). Just 2% of respondents worldwide said they do not have sovereignty policies in place, nor do they plan to implement them.

Cloud technologies will benefit from this trend, with IT teams employing a number of data storage strategies to achieve sovereignty. Across the four geographies, of the organizations that have sovereignty policies or plans:

  1. 40% primarily (will) store their data on a large public cloud, such as regional offerings by AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
  2. 36% of respondents (will) deploy a combined on-premises/public cloud solution, i.e. hybrid cloud
  3. 13% (will) store their data with a regional cloud service provider
  4. 11% (will) use an on-premises data center.

While some large public cloud providers offer options to store data in specific regions, this isn’t suitable for many organizations that own highly sensitive data, or who wish to avoid vendor lock in and high data access or egress fees.

Hybrid cloud sovereignty emerges as viable strategy to meet regulations

36% of respondents opted for a solution that combines on-premises or private cloud/s with public cloud/s. This hybrid cloud approach provides the flexibility and control to store data locally for data residency and sovereignty while providing the freedom to easily migrate data to a different platform at any time.

Key findings in France include:

  1. 81% of French respondents have already adopted data sovereignty policies, while 18% plan to do so
  2. In France, organizations in the business and professional services sector, and in the retail, distribution, and transport sector, are most likely to already have data sovereignty regulations in place, at 89%. Respondents in the IT, technology, and telecoms sector are least likely to have implemented such plans, at 67%
  3. To implement data sovereignty policies, 52% of French respondents (will) leverage a public cloud service, 33% a hybrid cloud, 8% a regional service provider, and 7% an on-premises data center
  4. Interestingly, compared to the other regions in this survey, France is most likely to opt for the public cloud (at 52% against a worldwide average of 40%). This is likely due to a number of respondents answering public cloud while thinking of large telcos, such as Orange, that are extremely prominent in the country.

Key findings in Germany include: 

  1. 79% of German respondents have already implemented sovereignty policies, while 19% intend to do so. Just 2% do not have any sovereignty plans at all
  2. German manufacturing organizations are significantly behind the 79% average, with 69% having policies in place; however the remaining 31% plan to implement them. Small-medium businesses (1,000-2,999 employees) are better prepared than larger ones (3,000+ employees), with 85% having already implemented sovereignty policies compared to 73%
  3. To implement sovereignty policies, Germany has the lowest rate of public cloud data storage use (32% against a global average of 40%), the second highest rate of hybrid cloud (38% vs. a 36% average worldwide), and by far the highest usage of a regional cloud provider (21% compared the global average of 13%). Germany and France are least likely to select on-premises storage (9% and 7% against the global average of 11%)
  4. German respondents from smaller companies (1,000-2,999 employees) are slightly more likely to select a public cloud compared to a hybrid cloud (32% vs. 28%), while large businesses (3,000+ employees) are far more likely to opt for hybrid (47%) than public cloud (31%) usage.
  5. In Germany, the other commercial sector, and business and professional services sector, stand out for their heavy reliance on hybrid solutions (57% and 67%), although the samples (8 and 10) are very small. Only the other commercial sector in the U.K. (at 67%) matches these figures.

Key findings in the U.K. include: 

  1. 82% of U.K. respondents have already adopted data sovereignty policies, and 13% have plans to do so; 5% do not plan to implement them, and are most likely to come from a smaller sized organization (1,000-2,999 employees)
  2. In the U.K., organizations from the IT, technology, and telecoms sector (92%), the business and professional services sector (90%), and the financial services sector (88%) are most likely to already have policies in place
  3. Manufacturing organizations are significantly behind the U.K. average of 82%, with 62% having policies in place, while 31% have plans to implement them
  4. To implement data sovereignty policies, 33% of U.K. respondents (will) use a large public cloud service, 42% a hybrid cloud, 14% a regional service provider, and 12% an on-premises data center
  5. U.K. respondents from smaller organizations (1,000-2,999 employees) compared to larger organizations (3,000+ employees) are significantly more likely to select a public cloud service (45% vs 25%), and less likely to select a hybrid cloud (32% vs 49%).

Key findings in the U.S. include: 

  1. 78% of U.S. respondents have already adopted data sovereignty policies, and 21% have plans to do so. Just 1% said they do not plan to implement them
  2. In the U.S., organizations from the business and professional services (90%), and the manufacturing (86%) sectors are most likely to already have policies in place
  3. To implement sovereignty policies, 41% of U.S respondents (will) use a public cloud service, 33% hybrid cloud, 12% a regional service provider, and 14% an on-premises data center. Interestingly, compared to the other regions, the U.S. is most likely to opt for an on-premises data center (at 14% against a worldwide average of 11%)
  4. U.S. respondents from smaller organizations (1,000-2,999 employees) compared to larger organizations (3,000+ employees) are more likely to select a public cloud (43% vs 39%) or regional cloud service provider (14% vs 10%), and less likely to select a hybrid cloud (29% vs 36%) or on-premises data center (13% vs 15%).

 

“It’s extremely encouraging to see that such a high number of organizations in the U.S. as well as Europe are taking data sovereignty seriously and have plans in place, including a significant shift toward hybrid-cloud strategies. This can certainly help organizations prevent cloud lock-in and provide safety in having data stored locally or in multiple locations. The surprisingly high results in the U.S. could be due to growing concerns regarding China’s strength in technology development.”

Paul Speciale

Chief marketing officer, Scality

In the survey, detailed further in this blog,  IT decision makers from several industries including manufacturing, telecom, professional services, financial services, and retail, were asked: “To what extent does your organization have sovereignty regulations or policies in place to keep your data in specific locations (e.g., local, in specific countries or regions)?” Respondents that currently have or are planning sovereignty regulations to keep data in specific locations were asked: “How are you primarily storing or planning to store the data?”

For more information on how organizations are implementing hybrid-cloud solutions, please read this recent announcement.

About Scality

Scality® storage propels companies to unify data management no matter where data lives — from edge to core to cloud. Our market-leading file and object storage software protects data on-premises and in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With  RING and  ARTESCA, Scality’s approach to managing data across the enterprise accelerates business insight for sound decision-making and maximum return on investment. To compete in a data-driven economy, IT leaders and application developers trust Scality to build sustainable, adaptable solutions. Scality is recognized as a leader by Gartner and IDC. Follow us  @scality and  LinkedIn. Visit https://www.scality.com, or subscribe to our company  blog.

https://unctad.org/page/data-protection-and-privacy-legislation-worldwide

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