Cloud Storage
Object Storage
eu object storage
EU Object Storage: A 2025 Guide to Sovereignty, Security, and Predictable Costs
For EU businesses, data sovereignty is now a strategic requirement, not just a compliance checkbox. Yet many feel trapped by complex pricing and non-EU legal exposure from hyperscale providers. This article outlines a practical path to secure, compliant, and cost-predictable EU object storage.
Key Takeaways
True digital sovereignty is achieved by using EU-owned and operated infrastructure, which guarantees data is governed exclusively by EU law and avoids CLOUD Act exposure.
A predictable pricing model with zero egress fees, no API call costs, and no minimum storage duration eliminates budget uncertainty and empowers partners to build profitable services.
Enterprise-grade EU object storage combines an 'Always-Hot' architecture for instant data access with full S3 compatibility and immutable backups to defend against ransomware.
In 2025, the demand for digital sovereignty is reshaping Europe's cloud strategy. A strong majority of EU decision-makers now prioritize European solutions to avoid foreign legal exposure and ensure GDPR compliance. However, concerns about performance parity and migration complexity have slowed adoption. This guide details how modern EU object storage addresses these challenges, offering a sovereign, enterprise-ready alternative with full S3 compatibility and a transparent economic model. It provides a blueprint for IT leaders to enhance ransomware protection, simplify compliance, and eliminate unpredictable cloud costs.
Achieve Digital Sovereignty with Geofenced EU Storage
True data sovereignty means your data is subject only to the laws of the country where it is stored. For the 87% of providers who see security and compliance as top priorities, storing data in EU-only data centers is a critical first step. Our EU object storage is operated exclusively in certified European data centers, offering country-level geofencing to meet stringent data residency rules.
This architecture provides a direct solution to CLOUD Act exposure, a risk present even when non-EU providers use European data centers. By design, this ensures 100% of your data remains under EU jurisdiction. This approach transforms a complex compliance burden into a straightforward operational reality.
This foundation of sovereignty is the starting point for building a resilient and compliant data strategy.
Eliminate Cost Uncertainty with a Predictable Pricing Model
Cloud cost complexity is a major pain point for a majority of companies already reliant on cloud services. A significant share of these organizations now prefer a German or EU provider to regain control. Our model directly addresses this with a transparent structure: zero egress fees, zero API call costs, and no minimum storage duration fees.
This predictability empowers Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to build services with defensible margins, a task complicated by the variable fees of hyperscalers. For enterprises, this means the cost of storing 1 PB of data is the same as retrieving it 100 times. You can find more details on our S3-compatible object storage.
With financial guesswork removed, you can focus on architectural and security excellence.
Leverage an Enterprise-Ready, Always-Hot Architecture
Many storage architectures rely on complex tiering, which can cause restore delays of several hours and API timeouts. Our EU object storage employs an “Always-Hot” model, ensuring all data is immediately accessible with predictable latencies. This design eliminates the operational risks and hidden costs associated with data lifecycle policies.
Full S3-API compatibility ensures your existing tools and scripts continue to work without code rewrites, protecting investments that amount to thousands of development hours. We support advanced S3 capabilities right out of the box:
Object versioning and lifecycle management
Multi-AZ replication for high availability
Event notifications for automated workflows
Granular Identity and Access Management (IAM) with MFA/RBAC
Support for external IdPs via SAML/OIDC
This consistent, high-performance access is critical for mixed workloads, from millions of small files to large-scale analytics. Our approach to compliance is built into this architecture.
This robust foundation is essential for deploying effective, modern data protection strategies.
Strengthen Ransomware Defense and NIS-2 Alignment
The NIS-2 Directive, effective since October 2024, mandates comprehensive cybersecurity measures for critical sectors across the EU. This includes robust incident handling, supply chain security, and strong access control like multi-factor authentication. Our platform provides the tools to meet these requirements directly.
Immutable Storage with S3 Object Lock is a core feature, making backups invulnerable to ransomware encryption for a defined period. This capability is a cornerstone of a modern 3-2-1 or 4-2-2 backup strategy. This feature alone can reduce recovery time from an attack from weeks to just a few hours.
We provide multiple layers of security to help you build a resilient posture. You can learn more about our approach to secure object storage.
Multi-layer encryption for data in transit and at rest.
Identity-based IAM with granular, role-driven policies.
Continuous vulnerability management and patching.
Detailed logging for audit-ready retention and incident reporting.
These security measures prepare your organization for new regulatory demands, such as the EU Data Act.
Future-Proof Your Strategy for the EU Data Act
The EU Data Act, applicable from September 12, 2025, is designed to prevent vendor lock-in and ensure data portability. It requires cloud providers to facilitate seamless switching, making all data and metadata transferable within 30 days. Our architecture is built on open standards to ensure you always control your exit strategy.
This regulation makes data portability a legal obligation, not just a feature. We provide full S3 API compatibility and proven tools for bulk data movement, ensuring you can migrate data without technical or contractual barriers. This aligns perfectly with our philosophy of reducing lock-in risk, a key criterion for enterprises choosing an EU-based object storage provider.
This commitment to open standards and portability directly benefits our channel partners.
Empower MSPs and Channel Partners with a Predictable Model
For MSPs, resellers, and system integrators, predictable margins are essential for building profitable Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and archiving solutions. Our partner-centric model is designed for the channel. The complete absence of egress and API fees provides the financial stability partners need.
Our partner console is built for efficiency and scale, featuring:
Multi-tenant management with robust RBAC and MFA.
Full automation capabilities via API and CLI.
Integrated reporting for clear client billing.
Fast onboarding to accelerate time-to-revenue by over 50%.
Recent distribution agreements with api in Germany and Northamber plc in the UK expand local access for hundreds of resellers. This growing ecosystem makes it easier than ever for partners to offer GDPR-compliant storage solutions.
Getting started is a straightforward process.
Implement Your Sovereign Storage Strategy in 3 Steps
More Links
EUR-Lex provides the official text of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a key piece of legislation regarding data protection and privacy in the European Union.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) offers a document related to an EU Cloud Code of Conduct, aiming to standardize data protection in cloud services.
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) publishes an analysis of the cloud cybersecurity market, covering trends, challenges, and potential solutions.
Eurostat provides statistics on the use of cloud computing by enterprises in the European Union, offering data and insights into adoption rates and trends.
PwC discusses cloud cost optimization and FinOps (cloud financial management), focusing on strategies and practices for managing and reducing cloud spending.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) details a coordinated enforcement action regarding the use of cloud-based services by public sector bodies, focusing on data protection compliance.
FAQ
Is your EU object storage GDPR compliant?
Yes. Our service is sovereign by design, operating exclusively in certified European data centers and governed by EU law. This architecture provides the foundation for our customers to build GDPR-compliant applications and data workflows.
Can I use my existing backup software with your storage?
Absolutely. Thanks to full S3 API compatibility, our EU object storage integrates out-of-the-box with leading backup vendors, including an established collaboration with Nova Backup. Your existing tools can be configured to use our service endpoint with no code changes.
How does your 'Always-Hot' model differ from tiered storage?
Our 'Always-Hot' model ensures all your data is immediately accessible at high performance, with no delays or retrieval fees. Tiered storage models often move infrequently accessed data to slower, cheaper tiers, which can cause restore delays of hours or days and incur unexpected costs when that data is needed urgently.
What is S3 Object Lock and how does it protect against ransomware?
S3 Object Lock is a feature that makes data immutable, meaning it cannot be altered or deleted for a specified period. When you enable it on your backups, you create a tamper-proof copy of your data that ransomware cannot encrypt, ensuring you have a clean version available for recovery after an attack.
Do you offer multi-tenant capabilities for MSPs?
Yes, our platform is partner-ready. We provide a multi-tenant partner console with role-based access control (RBAC), MFA, and integrated reporting. MSPs can easily manage multiple clients, automate tasks via API/CLI, and maintain predictable margins thanks to our pricing model.
How do you ensure data sovereignty and avoid CLOUD Act exposure?
We are a European company operating exclusively in European data centers. This means all data is stored and governed under EU law, outside the legal jurisdiction of non-EU authorities. This sovereign-by-design approach provides legal certainty and protection from foreign data access requests.
