OpenText today revealed it is working separately with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and S3NS to enable sovereign cloud computing services in Europe.

Under the terms of the alliance with AWS, OpenText will make OpenText Content Management, OpenText Documentum Content Management, OpenText Core Application Security and OpenText Core Service Management on the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.

At the same time, OpenText is making OpenText Content Management and Documentum Content Management on a dedicated private cloud located in France that is provided by S3NS, which makes use of the Google Cloud service and security software from Thales. Additionally, OpenText Core Archive for SAP Solutions will be offered as a multi-tenant service with European data residency.

Shannon Bell, chief digital officer and CIO for OpenText, said both of these initiatives represent additional examples of how the OpenText portfolio can be extended over a hybrid IT environment to enable digital sovereignty.

Of course, the definition of what constitutes digital sovereignty varies. Although the cloud services provided by AWS and Google are from companies that are still subject to the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act, both services can be configured to ensure that data is stored and processed within a specific geography. In fact, given the amount of dependencies that exist between technologies developed in various countries around the world, it’s not likely 100% digital sovereignty is actually achievable, said Bell.

Instead, IT teams will need to navigate data, operating and legal requirements as they navigate various digital sovereignty mandates that are being adopted around the world, she added. For example, in some instances, organizations may only be required to store data within a specific geography after that data has been processed elsewhere, noted Bell.

Of course, there is much greater sensitivity to where data is being processed in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Regardless of legal requirements, more organizations are adopting digital sovereignty platforms as part of a broader effort to ensure their data does not wind up being used to train an AI model that could potentially share that data later with anyone who crafts the right prompt to surface it.

IT teams have also become less inclined to deploy every workload in the cloud by default, noted Bell. Instead, more care is being taken to determine which workloads should run where based not only on legal mandates but also on application performance requirements and security concerns, she added.

While Europe has of late shown the most interest in sovereign cloud computing as global tensions continue to rise, just about every country is evaluating its dependency on IT platforms and services that are provided by IT vendors that are subject to external laws and regulations. As such, the number of organizations that are revisiting their IT strategies has risen sharply in the last year. The challenge is that achieving digital sovereignty comes at a cost that IT teams need to absorb within the context of resources that are typically anything but infinite.