An open-source foundation for secure, compliant and vendor-independent cloud infrastructure!
Building a sovereign cloud involves more than choosing where your data is stored. Organisations must also consider jurisdiction, operational control, regulatory requirements, technology dependencies and vendor lock-in across every layer of their infrastructure.
This guide explains how Apache CloudStack provides the foundation for building secure, compliant and vendor-independent sovereign clouds, with a unified platform for cloud infrastructure and virtualisation management. It also compares technology choices for Europe and the United States and explores the operating systems, databases, hypervisors, storage and support options that can help you keep your entire cloud environment under control.
Bonus resource: Cloud Sovereignty Readiness Checklist
Building a sovereign cloud involves more than choosing where your data is stored. Organisations must also consider jurisdiction, operational control, regulatory requirements, technology dependencies and vendor lock-in across every layer of their infrastructure.
This guide explains how Apache CloudStack provides the foundation for building secure, compliant and vendor-independent sovereign clouds, with a unified platform for cloud infrastructure and virtualisation management. It also compares technology choices for Europe and the United States and explores the operating systems, databases, hypervisors, storage and support options that can help you keep your entire cloud environment under control.
Bonus resource: Cloud Sovereignty Readiness Checklist
Discover what true cloud sovereignty means and why keeping data within a particular country is only one part of it. This section explains how sovereignty depends on control across your data, operations and technology.
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Learn how to assess sovereignty across every layer of your cloud environment. The guide explains why the cloud platform, management-server operating system, database, support provider and operational model must all meet your jurisdictional requirements.
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Explore how the priorities behind sovereign cloud projects differ between Europe and the United States. This section compares the regulations, technology choices, support requirements and jurisdictional considerations in each market.
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Learn why Apache CloudStack provides a strong open-source foundation for sovereign cloud and virtualisation management. Its self-hosted control plane and flexible infrastructure ecosystem help organisations retain control over how their cloud is built, operated and supported.
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Follow a practical path from assessing your current environment to designing, migrating and operating a sovereign cloud. A real public-sector example and readiness checklist help you identify gaps and prepare the right questions before committing.
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Marco Sinhoreli works as a Technical Marketing Manager at ShapeBlue. Marco has a depth of experience in helping big organisations implement CloudStack. He has been consulting major companies in Brazil for their CloudStack environments. In addition, he has a strong understanding of the struggle that cloud builders and IaaS providers can experience and how open-source technologies and ACS can help them. Away from work, Marco is a lover of music (playing a mean guitar) and politics.
Apache CloudStack is a mature open-source cloud orchestration platform that enables service providers and enterprises to build feature-rich Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds. CloudStack provides a robust and scalable way to manage compute, storage, and networking resources through a unified control plane. You should consider it if you want full control over your cloud infrastructure, avoid vendor lock-in, reduce licensing costs, and deliver advanced cloud services to your users.
CloudStack stands out for its simplicity, operational maturity, and built-in capabilities. Unlike some other platforms, CloudStack includes:
These features make it ideal for organisations seeking a production-ready IaaS platform without requiring extensive third-party add-ons.
CloudStack’s core functionality includes:
These features provide both operational control and flexibility for cloud administrators and consumers.
A sovereign cloud is cloud infrastructure whose data, operations and software remain under the control of an organisation and subject to the laws of its chosen jurisdiction. It gives the organisation control over where data is stored, who can access it, who operates the platform and how it can move away from its technology suppliers.
True cloud sovereignty includes data sovereignty, operational sovereignty and technical sovereignty. Data sovereignty concerns where data is stored and which laws apply to it. Operational sovereignty means the cloud can be managed without mandatory dependence on a foreign provider. Technical sovereignty requires open, auditable and portable technology that does not lock the organisation into a single vendor.
No. Data residency only defines where data is stored or processed. A cloud hosted in-country may still be subject to foreign laws if its provider is headquartered elsewhere. True sovereignty also requires control over operations, software, infrastructure components, support relationships and access to the management plane.
Apache CloudStack provides an open-source foundation for building and managing sovereign public and private IaaS clouds. Organisations can run its complete management plane on infrastructure they control, choose their preferred hypervisor, storage, operating system and database, and work with support partners that meet their jurisdictional requirements.
Open-source software can be inspected, audited and adapted without depending on a single vendor’s licensing, pricing or product roadmap. Apache CloudStack is governed by the vendor-neutral Apache Software Foundation, giving organisations greater technical independence and a credible path away from individual technology suppliers.
European organisations often focus on protecting data from foreign legal reach and meeting frameworks such as GDPR, NIS2, DORA and the EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework. In the United States, sovereign cloud projects are more commonly shaped by federal requirements such as FISMA, FedRAMP and NIST standards. Apache CloudStack can support both approaches because it is open, self-hosted, auditable and adaptable to different technology and support choices.
Apache CloudStack integrates with a broad infrastructure ecosystem. Depending on jurisdictional and operational requirements, organisations can select technologies such as KVM, Proxmox VE or XCP-ng for virtualisation; Ceph, StorPool or LINBIT/DRBD for storage; and locally supported operating systems and databases. Every component and its support model should be assessed against the required sovereign boundary.
