Germany to get 'sovereign' cloud

[FRANKFURT] German software firm SAP announced on Thursday it would roll out a sovereign internet cloud platform where all data processing and services will be handled domestically.

With US firms providing much of the infrastructure behind the global internet and Washington's ability to compel them to hand over information located on servers abroad, other countries have been working to build their own "sovereign" clouds.

While using the Azure technology of US tech giant Microsoft, the secure cloud service will have the "technical, operational and legal sovereignty" requited by the German government for use by the public sector, SAP said in a statement.

"The infrastructure will be strictly separated from Microsoft's global data center infrastructure," it added, and will be operated by a German firm and be governed by German law.

German public institutions currently don't have an option for secure cloud services that meet the government's data protection rules that want information kept under domestic authority.

Microsoft is working on a similar project in France, which also lacks a sovereign cloud for the moment. AFP