Data classification dictates choice of public or sovereign cloud

Globally, the public cloud is still predominantly the domain of a handful of popular US hyperscalers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. That economic reality does not need to be an insurmountable problem in itself, except when the American government demands that these American cloud players give it access to the data they manage. But the real problem is that it can also demand access to the sensitive data of European customers.

Meanwhile, European legislators require companies, organizations, and public authorities to store all sensitive, critical, and confidential data solely in-house.

“European public agencies, as well as banks, hospitals, and other businesses that handle sensitive data—about themselves, but also about their customers, the public, patients, employees, and suppliers—therefore risk not being able to fully benefit from the advantages of the public cloud,” says Gwénaëlle Hervé, Public & Sovereign Cloud Lead at Proximus NXT.

“And there are quite a few of these, from greater versatility to a greater capacity for innovation and also, ironically, more security. A cloud provider like Microsoft, for example, spends billions of dollars annually solely on cloud security. Few other companies can make a security investment of that magnitude.”

The sovereign cloud combines the advantages of the public cloud with data security guarantees.

Gwénaëlle Hervé, Public & Sovereign Cloud Lead at Proximus NXT

The sovereign cloud saves the day

Maybe you are also limiting your cloud initiatives to the private cloud for data privacy and compliance reasons? In that case you, too, are missing the advantages of the public cloud. With the sovereign cloud that dilemma is ended.

“The sovereign cloud combines the advantages of the public cloud with data security guarantees,” Gwénaëlle explains. “The cloud sovereignty solutions that we have developed together with several of the most important cloud and security providers offer you, for example, the guarantee that third parties, including American technology providers, get no access to your data in the public cloud. So, those data remain secure and you meet the European guidelines trouble-free.”

Two sovereign alternatives

In short, the sovereign cloud is perfect for organizations that want to benefit from the advantages of the public cloud but cannot make use of that cloud model at present. Proximus NXT offers two solutions for the sovereign cloud. The first, developed in close collaboration with Microsoft, is based on strong encryption of the data themselves.

That ensures that your data remain encrypted at all times, not only during storage at Microsoft (at-rest data), but also when they travel over the network (in-transit data), and even when they are being used (in-use data). As an extra security measure, the key to encrypt and then decrypt the data is located not in the Microsoft public cloud, but at Proximus NXT.

“In addition, we have developed the Google Disconnected Cloud Hosted (GDCH) platform in partnership with Google,” Gwénaëlle continues. “Here, although your data are on the Google infrastructure, it is hosted in a Proximus NXT data center in Luxembourg, where we ourselves are also responsible for the management.”

In the GDCH, in other words, the environment looks exactly the same as in a regular public cloud, except that the cloud provider, in this case Google, has no access to the cloud platform with your data in it. Physically those data are also located within the European Union. This way public authorities and regulated enterprises, among others, are relieved of the previous compliance concerns about data security and privacy.

Gwénaëlle Hervé, Public & Sovereign Cloud Lead at Proximus NXT

Key role for data classification

Of course, all the other types of cloud also continue to exist in addition to these new sovereign cloud solutions. After all, not all data need the strict security that the sovereign cloud offers. However, this involves a challenge: identifying as accurately as possible which data are considered sensitive for which workloads and which data are not sensitive. You can still leave data in that latter category in a regular public cloud or a private cloud.

“Thanks to that crucial process of data classification, you can now compose the best cloud environment from various options, depending on the level of security and privacy you need for your own specific data,” Gwénaëlle concludes. “Such a hybrid cloud architecture gives you more flexibility and options, while at the same time you have the assurance that your data, on the basis of their classification, are always safe and satisfy all the regulations