Rethinking Cloud Strategy: Taking the First Steps Toward a European Cloud

IntroductionIntroduction

In recent weeks, conversations around data privacy, digital sovereignty, and dependency on US hyperscalers have gained serious traction. What once felt like a long-term consideration is quickly becoming a strategic priority for many organizations.

We’ve seen a clear shift: more and more companies are reaching out, not just to discuss—but to act.

To help make sense of what this transition actually involves, we sat down with Pieter Dubelaar, our Solution Architects Lead. He breaks down what it takes to start moving toward a European cloud infrastructure—practically, thoughtfully, and without disruption.

Whether you're motivated by compliance, control, or future-proofing your stack, this post outlines the key considerations for making your move.

Q: How is the political landscape evolving around digital sovereignty?

There’s clear momentum in Parliament — parties are surprisingly aligned when it comes to digital issues. The challenge now is execution: turning motions into real-world action. That’s where collaboration with external experts becomes essential.

Q: What role can Hypersolid play in that transition?

We’ve been invited to contribute to upcoming roundtables and policy discussions, especially on cyber resilience. There’s also interest in our perspective on independent media and national security. What we're keeping an eye out for now is areas — like cases where EU-based IT thinking isn't considered - where we can help drive policy and awareness.

Q: If I’m a company reconsidering my current infrastructure—mostly or entirely built on a US hyperscaler—what would be your first step in guiding me through a possible transition?

The first step is understanding why you want to make the shift. There’s usually a driving factor—compliance, sovereignty, resilience—and it’s important to unpack that early. But from a technical and operational perspective, our first step is to assess the criticality of your business processes.

I like to think of this as plotting on a two-dimensional map. On one axis, you rank processes from most to least critical. For example, for a media company, the ability to broadcast live content is highly critical, while something like ad delivery might be important, but not business-critical in the short term.

The second axis assesses infrastructure dependency—what systems or services each process relies on, and how tightly coupled they are to specific cloud vendors.

This framework helps organizations separate what’s essential from what’s incidental. For example, you might discover that your video-on-demand system can go offline without major disruption, but your CDN and transcoding pipelines absolutely cannot fail. That insight helps you focus your migration efforts where they matter most—on the processes that define your business.

From there, you can start identifying European vendors, consider in-house solutions, or explore cloud-agnostic architectures. The goal is to move from a massive, daunting task to a focused strategy based on business priorities.

Q: Many companies can identify their critical business processes but might struggle to map infrastructure dependencies. Is that where a tech partner like Hypersolid comes in?

Exactly. That’s where we add the most value. We bring a high-level understanding of both your infrastructure and how it supports your operations. With that, we help map out system dependencies, evaluate what’s truly critical, and highlight opportunities for decoupling.

Sometimes systems seem critical simply because they’re part of an existing workflow—but in practice, they may not need to be online 24/7. We can also help design fallback scenarios, like a backup DRM system that kicks in if a hyperscaler decides to shut down services, ensuring continuity even at the cost of some commercial friction.

Ultimately, it’s about adopting a resilience mindset. We’ve moved past the idea of always-on infrastructure. Whether it’s an outage, a policy change, or a geopolitical issue, systems go down. Architecting for resilience is key—not just for uptime, but for long-term control.

Q: Hypersolid advocates for cloud-agnostic architecture. For someone less familiar with infrastructure, how would you define that?

There are essentially two schools of thought: cloud-agnostic and vendor-specific.

Cloud-agnostic architecture is about designing systems to run on any infrastructure—public cloud, private cloud, or even on-prem—without being locked into a specific provider. It’s closely tied to open-source tooling and lightweight packaging, like containers, which enable that portability.

The upside is flexibility. You can move between environments more easily and avoid vendor lock-in. The downside? You often work with the lowest common denominator. If your app needs advanced logging or authentication features, those might not be available—or consistent—across platforms.

Vendor-specific environments, like Microsoft's Azure for .NET or Google Cloud for Node.js, are highly optimized but come with trade-offs. They offer powerful integrations and performance benefits, but you’re tied into their ecosystem.

So, cloud-agnostic means giving up some convenience to gain control and flexibility. It’s a trade many organizations are increasingly willing to make.

Q: Why does Hypersolid advocate so strongly for a cloud-agnostic approach?

Because it aligns with our best-of-breed philosophy. We believe in choosing the best tools and solutions for each problem, rather than being locked into an all-in-one suite. The same thinking applies to infrastructure.

Cloud-agnostic architecture allows us to stay flexible and adapt quickly as better options become available. That said, cloud-agnostic doesn’t mean using multiple vendors by default—it means building in the option to pivot.

If a single provider makes the most sense, we’ll say so. But we still design a layer of abstraction to ensure that if your needs or priorities change, you can adapt without overhauling everything.

Q: One of your other key recommendations is adopting European cloud services. What should companies consider when taking that step?

There are three main strategies for moving toward European cloud:

1. Fully Cloud-Native with a European Provider:
Platforms like STACKIT have matured significantly and now offer 60–70% of the core services you’d expect from a US hyperscaler—VMs, Kubernetes, storage, databases. If your tech stack relies primarily on those services, going fully European is a realistic option. An added bonus is that the European alternatives are often more cost-effective.

2. On-Premise Hosting:
For companies with strict compliance or sovereignty needs, hosting infrastructure in a local datacenter offers maximum control. This is especially valuable in regulated industries or when handling sensitive data.

3. Hybrid Infrastructure:
This is often the most practical path for larger companies. You move critical services to a European or on-prem environment while keeping other components with your existing hyperscaler. It’s a balanced approach, though it does increase complexity and potential attack surface.

The key is understanding your priorities. Even non-sensitive business-critical data deserves protection. Storing it in sovereign environments gives you more control and future-proofs your operations.

Q: There’s a lot to consider here. What does Hypersolid offer to help companies take the first step?

The first step is understanding your environment—not just technically, but in terms of business criticality and control. It's not about moving for the sake of it; it's about making informed decisions based on your specific context.

At Hypersolid, we’re happy to start with a conversation. Grab a coffee, walk through your setup, and talk openly about what's running, what's critical, and where you need more flexibility. No pressure, no pitch—just clarity.

These conversations matter even if you’re not planning a move immediately. The earlier you start thinking about sovereignty and resilience, the more strategic options you have. If moving part of your infrastructure to a European provider reduces your dependency and strengthens your business—that’s a win for you and a win for Europe’s tech independence.