Cloud Storage
Scalable Storage
IONOS cloud scalability
Rethink IONOS Cloud Scalability: Achieve Resilience Beyond Infrastructure
Your cloud usage is growing, but are your costs and compliance risks scaling uncontrollably with it? The traditional view of scalability is costing European businesses more than just money. It's time for a model that scales your resilience, not your risk.
Key Takeawys
True IONOS cloud scalability in 2025 must encompass predictable costs, architectural resilience, and data sovereignty, not just infrastructure.
Eliminating egress fees and API call charges is critical for achieving predictable economic scaling and avoiding vendor lock-in.
A sovereign-by-design approach, using EU-only data centers, is essential for GDPR compliance and mitigating risks from non-EU laws like the CLOUD Act.
For years, cloud scalability meant one thing: adding more virtual machines or storage. But as the European cloud market is projected to grow at a 17.1% CAGR from 2025, this definition is proving dangerously incomplete. Enterprises now face a paradox where scaling operations leads to unpredictable bills and complex compliance challenges. True scalability for 2025 integrates three critical dimensions: predictable economics, architectural resilience, and sovereign control. This approach ensures that as your data grows, your performance, budget, and regulatory posture remain stable and secure, turning growth into a predictable advantage instead of an operational liability.
Expand Your Definition of Cloud Scalability
In 2025, limiting the discussion of cloud scalability to infrastructure is a critical error. While 95% of European companies report capturing value from the cloud, much of it remains sub-scale due to unforeseen costs and complexities. True scalability is a three-part strategy: it must deliver computational power, predictable financial outcomes, and unwavering compliance. As over 41% of EU organizations integrate AI, the demand for robust infrastructure is clear, but without economic and sovereign guardrails, growth creates significant business risk. This requires a shift in mindset from simply acquiring resources to building a resilient, cost-controlled, and compliant digital foundation. A holistic view of cloud performance and scalability is the only sustainable path forward.
This strategic shift addresses the core challenges that hinder long-term growth and innovation.
Achieve Economic Predictability by Eliminating Hidden Fees
A major barrier to effective scaling is unpredictable cost models, particularly data egress fees. As many as 34% of enterprises state that egress costs have negatively impacted their use of cloud storage, forcing them to limit data movement. These charges, often called a 'Hotel California effect,' penalize businesses for accessing their own data, creating vendor lock-in and making multi-cloud strategies prohibitively expensive. Predictable by design, a cloud model with zero egress or API call fees provides the financial stability needed for confident scaling. This transparency allows for 100% predictable margins for MSPs and enterprise IT departments alike.
Understanding these hidden charges is the first step to controlling your cloud budget:
Data Transfer Fees: Costs incurred moving data out of the cloud to another provider or on-premises systems, often priced per gigabyte.
Cross-Region/AZ Fees: Charges for moving data even within the same provider's network, which can cost €0.010 per GB or more.
API Call Charges: Fees for programmatic requests made by backup, storage, and management tools, which can accumulate to thousands of transactions per day.
Minimum Storage Durations: Policies that charge for a minimum period (e.g., 90 days) even if data is deleted sooner, penalizing dynamic workloads.
By choosing a platform built on a transparent economic model, you can scale your operations without scaling your financial uncertainty, a key topic in our cloud pricing guide.
Build on an Architecture Designed for Consistent Access
Architectural choices directly impact performance and operational scalability. Many cloud storage models rely on complex tiering, moving data between 'hot' and 'cold' layers to manage costs. This approach is fragile, as urgent data restores from cold tiers can lead to delays of several hours, API timeouts, and unexpected retrieval fees. An “Always-Hot” object storage model eliminates this complexity entirely. All data remains immediately accessible, ensuring consistent read/write performance for any workload, from backup recovery to analytics.
This model is built for modern enterprise needs. With full S3-API compatibility, existing tools and applications integrate without any code rewrites, protecting your technology investments. For businesses managing millions of files, this architecture provides predictable latencies and multi-AZ replication, ensuring data integrity and availability. This simplifies your cloud storage strategy and removes hidden operational risks associated with tiered systems.
Scale Securely Within a Sovereign European Framework
For European businesses, scalability is inseparable from data sovereignty. Regulations like GDPR impose strict rules on personal data, with non-compliance fines reaching up to 4% of global annual turnover. Using cloud providers subject to non-EU laws like the U.S. CLOUD Act creates a direct legal conflict, as it can compel providers to disclose EU data to foreign authorities. This makes provider origin a top selection criterion for a majority of EU decision-makers. True sovereignty is not a marketing claim; it is a legal reality achieved by using EU-owned and operated infrastructure.
A sovereign-by-design approach offers a clear advantage for protecting enterprise data. Key features to demand include:
Exclusive EU Data Centers: Ensures data is stored and processed only within EU legal jurisdiction.
Country-Level Geofencing: Provides the ability to restrict data to specific EU member states to meet national data residency requirements.
EU-Controlled Encryption Keys: Guarantees that access and revocation procedures are governed solely by EU law.
Immutable Storage (Object Lock): Delivers ransomware protection and audit-ready data retention, a critical defense layer for any scalable system.
This foundation ensures that as your data footprint grows, your compliance and legal posture remains secure.
Future-Proof Your Strategy for Emerging EU Regulations
The European regulatory landscape continues to evolve, and your cloud strategy must scale with it. Two key regulations, the EU Data Act and the NIS-2 Directive, will reshape cloud governance starting in 2025. The EU Data Act, effective from September 2025, is designed to prevent vendor lock-in by making it easier for customers to switch providers and will progressively phase out switching charges. This empowers businesses to choose better cloud alternatives without financial penalty.
Simultaneously, the NIS-2 Directive mandates stricter cybersecurity risk management for critical sectors, including supply chain security for data processing services. It requires organizations to implement robust measures like multi-layer encryption and vulnerability management. Choosing a cloud provider already aligned with these principles is no longer optional—it's a core component of responsible scaling. A proactive stance on these regulations ensures your infrastructure remains compliant and competitive as enforcement begins.
Empower Partners with a Scalable and Predictable Business Model
For Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and resellers, the ability to scale services for clients depends directly on the predictability of their cloud partner. A model with zero egress or API fees is predictable by design, allowing MSPs to offer backup-as-a-service (BaaS) and archiving solutions with stable, defensible margins. This financial clarity is essential for long-term growth and client trust. The right platform should be partner-ready from day one, offering tools that simplify operations at scale.
Essential features for partners include a multi-tenant console with robust role-based access control (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication (MFA). Full automation via API and CLI, alongside clear reporting, allows partners to manage hundreds of clients efficiently. With growing local access through distributors like api in Germany and Northamber plc in the UK, MSPs have a clear path to scaling their business. This ecosystem makes a cloud migration a strategic business decision, not just a technical one.
More Links
The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) provides tables and data on the use of cloud computing in enterprises in Germany, though the page is in German.
Bitkom offers their Cloud Report 2024 (PDF), which includes charts and analysis on cloud adoption and trends, likely in German.
acatech presents a publication on digital sovereignty, covering its current status and areas for action, available as an English PDF download.
Fraunhofer showcases its research and development activities in cloud technologies on its Cloud Computing website.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action provides a dossier on digitalization, with the content in German.
The Federal Network Agency offers key figures and information on digitalization for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the page in German.
FAQ
What is a better measure of cloud scalability than just resources?
A better measure of cloud scalability is holistic resilience, which includes three pillars: 1) Architectural scalability for consistent performance, 2) Economic scalability with predictable costs and no hidden fees, and 3) Compliance scalability that ensures data sovereignty and alignment with EU regulations like GDPR and the NIS-2 Directive.
How do egress fees limit scalability?
Egress fees are charges for moving data out of a cloud provider's network. They limit scalability by creating unpredictable costs that grow with data usage, penalizing data-intensive applications, disaster recovery tests, and multi-cloud strategies. This leads to vendor lock-in and discourages innovation.
Why is an 'Always-Hot' storage model better for scaling?
An 'Always-Hot' storage model is superior for scaling because it eliminates the complexity and delays of tiered storage. All data is instantly accessible, ensuring predictable performance for backups, restores, and analytics without the risk of slow retrieval times or unexpected fees from 'cold' tiers.
How does the EU Data Act affect my choice of a scalable cloud provider?
Effective September 2025, the EU Data Act will make it easier to switch cloud providers and will phase out switching charges. Choosing a provider with open standards, full S3 compatibility, and no egress fees aligns with the spirit of the Act, ensuring you maintain control and avoid lock-in.
What should MSPs look for in a scalable cloud partner?
MSPs need a partner that offers a predictable financial model with no egress or API fees to ensure stable margins. Key features should also include a multi-tenant management console, automation via API/CLI, and a commitment to data sovereignty to help clients meet their compliance needs.
