European Cloud
Data Sovereignty
R2 data sovereignty UK
Achieve True R2 Data Sovereignty in the UK with Sovereign, S3-Compatible Storage
For UK businesses, data sovereignty is a critical issue, yet many S3-compatible storage options create unacceptable legal and financial risks. Storing data with non-EU providers can expose you to foreign laws and unpredictable costs, undermining your compliance efforts. A truly sovereign, European-based alternative offers a clear path to control.
Key Takeaways
True UK data sovereignty requires a cloud provider that is legally domiciled in the EU to eliminate risks from foreign laws like the US CLOUD Act.
A predictable cost model with zero egress fees and zero API call costs can reduce cloud storage TCO by up to 80% while simplifying budgeting.
Full S3-API compatibility combined with an 'Always-Hot' storage model ensures seamless migration and immediate data access without performance trade-offs.
A strong majority of UK and EU IT leaders now demand European solutions for their critical data, driven by regulations like UK GDPR and concerns over the US CLOUD Act. The challenge is finding a solution that delivers genuine R2 data sovereignty in the UK without sacrificing S3-API compatibility or introducing crippling egress fees. True sovereignty isn't just about data residency in a UK data centre; it's about the legal jurisdiction of the provider. With the EU Data Act taking full effect from September 2025, proving data portability and avoiding vendor lock-in are now board-level concerns for over 70% of enterprises.
Close the Sovereignty Gap Exposed by Non-EU Providers
For UK businesses, achieving data sovereignty is more than a checkbox; it is a strategic priority for over 80% of firms in 2025. Storing data in a UK-based facility owned by a non-EU company creates a critical legal vulnerability. Foreign laws, like the US CLOUD Act, can compel providers to surrender UK data, directly conflicting with UK GDPR principles.
This legal grey area puts UK companies in a difficult position, risking fines of up to 4% of global turnover for non-compliance. True UK data sovereignty requires that the provider's legal domicile is within the EU, ensuring your data is governed exclusively by European rules. This distinction is the only way to guarantee immunity from extraterritorial data access requests.
Provider origin is now a top 3 selection criterion for enterprise cloud storage. A European-owned and operated cloud eliminates this conflict, offering the legal certainty UK businesses need to operate confidently. This approach prepares your organisation for the evolving regulatory landscape.
Implement a Sovereign-by-Design Architecture
A sovereign-by-design strategy is built on an architecture that guarantees data remains under EU jurisdiction from day one. Our platform operates exclusively in certified European data centres, providing country-level geofencing to meet stringent regulatory demands. This ensures 100% of your data stays within predefined regions under EU law.
This architecture provides the foundation for true GDPR data residency and control. It is engineered for resilience, with multi-layer encryption and an infrastructure that has zero single points of failure. For UK financial services and healthcare, this delivers the verifiable compliance needed for sensitive workloads.
Key features of a sovereign architecture include:
Operation in multiple certified, EU-based data centres for high availability.
Country-level geofencing to enforce strict data residency rules.
A legal framework under EU governance, preventing CLOUD Act exposure.
Full S3-API compatibility to protect your existing technology investments of thousands of pounds.
Immutable Storage with Object Lock provides a non-negotiable defence against ransomware, a threat that grew by over 90% last year. This technical safeguard ensures your backup and archive data cannot be altered or deleted, securing your last line of defence. Moving to this model simplifies compliance and hardens your security posture.
Achieve Predictable Cloud Economics by Eliminating Egress Fees
Cloud cost predictability is a major challenge, with over 60% of companies citing complex pricing as a primary pain point. We address this directly with a transparent economic model that contains 0 egress fees, 0 API call costs, and 0 minimum storage durations. This approach provides complete cost certainty for your backup, disaster recovery, and archiving use cases.
This predictability transforms how you budget for cloud storage, removing the risk of surprise bills that can inflate costs by 30% or more. For MSPs and resellers, this model allows for stable, defensible margins on Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) offerings. You can build services for your UK clients without worrying about variable provider fees eating into your profits.
Switching to a zero-egress-fee model can reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 80% compared to traditional hyperscale providers. This allows you to reallocate budget to other strategic IT initiatives. A clear exit path, supported by open standards and full data portability, ensures you avoid the vendor lock-in that traps 9 out of 10 enterprises. This aligns perfectly with the goals of the EU's Data Act.
Leverage Enterprise-Grade S3 Compatibility and Performance
True S3 compatibility is essential for a seamless transition to a sovereign cloud, protecting investments that can exceed £100,000 in development. Our platform offers full S3-API compatibility, ensuring your existing applications, scripts, and backup tools work without any code rewrites. This includes out-of-the-box integrations with leading backup vendors like NovaBackup.
Our architecture is built for consistency and scale, delivering strong read/write performance for workloads involving millions of small files or large archives. We operate an "Always-Hot" object storage model, meaning all your data is immediately accessible with no restore delays or retrieval fees. This eliminates the operational complexity and hidden costs of tiered storage, which can delay critical restores by up to 12 hours.
An enterprise-ready platform must deliver on these promises:
Advanced S3 Features: Support for versioning, lifecycle management, and event notifications.
Consistent Performance: Predictable latencies and multi-AZ replication for data integrity.
Simplified Operations: An "Always-Hot" model avoids API timeouts and restore failures common with tiered systems.
Robust Governance: Identity-based IAM with granular, role-driven policies and support for SAML/OIDC.
This approach reduces operational overhead by an average of 25% by removing the need to manage complex lifecycle policies. It ensures your third-party tools remain stable and your recovery time objectives (RTOs) are always met. This reliability is crucial for maintaining UK GDPR compliance during a disaster recovery event.
Prepare for 2025 UK and EU Compliance Mandates
The regulatory landscape is tightening, and by September 2025, two key regulations will impact UK businesses directly. The EU Data Act mandates data portability and interoperability by design, requiring cloud providers to offer a real exit path. Our commitment to open standards and exportable formats ensures you can move your data, including all metadata and versions, without lock-in.
Simultaneously, the NIS-2 Directive requires enhanced supply-chain security and continuous process documentation for critical sectors. Our platform's security measures, including patch management and vulnerability reporting, are baked into our operations, not added as an afterthought. This helps you demonstrate ICO compliance and meet your supply-chain assurance duties.
Operating exclusively in certified EU data centres provides a direct answer to both Data Act and NIS-2 requirements. This focus on regulatory readiness gives your business a competitive advantage. You can assure your customers and regulators that your data governance meets the highest standards, today and tomorrow.
Activate the UK Channel for Sovereign Cloud Solutions
For UK MSPs, resellers, and system integrators, partnering with a sovereign cloud provider creates significant value. The predictable pricing model, with zero egress or API fees, ensures you can build profitable services with stable margins. This is a clear advantage over the variable cost structures of other S3-compatible offerings, where margins can fluctuate by 15-20% month-to-month.
Our partner-ready platform includes a multi-tenant console with robust role-based access control (RBAC) and MFA for security. Automation via API/CLI and detailed reporting simplify management and speed up onboarding for your clients. With our new UK distribution partner, Northamber plc, local access and support for UK resellers have never been stronger.
This channel-first approach has led to a 40% year-over-year growth in our partner network. By working with a provider that understands the channel, UK MSPs can confidently deliver sovereign storage solutions that meet the strict compliance needs of their clients. Talk to an expert today to learn how our partner program can help you grow your business.
More Links
Wikipedia offers a comprehensive overview of Data Sovereignty.
The German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) provides statistical data on the use of cloud computing by companies.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action announces the adoption of the National Data Strategy.
Bitkom provides charts and data from their Cloud Report 2024 on cloud usage.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) outlines privacy recommendations for the use of cloud services in the public sector.
The German Data Protection Conference (Datenschutzkonferenz) offers a PDF document discussing cloud computing.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (Fraunhofer SIT) presents research on the sovereignty of data.
FAQ
Why are there no egress fees or API call costs?
We believe in transparent and predictable pricing. Egress fees and API call charges are common tactics used by hyperscale cloud providers to create vendor lock-in and make it expensive for customers to retrieve their data or run their applications. By eliminating these fees entirely, we provide a fair, simple, and economically superior model that allows you to use your data freely without financial penalties.
How does your solution protect against ransomware?
Our platform includes Immutable Storage with S3 Object Lock. This feature allows you to make your data unchangeable and undeletable for a specified period. If you are hit by a ransomware attack, your immutable backups remain secure and untouched, allowing you to restore your systems with confidence. This is a critical defence for any modern disaster recovery strategy.
Is it difficult to migrate from another S3-compatible provider?
No, migration is straightforward. Because we offer full S3-API compatibility, your existing tools, scripts, and applications that use the S3 protocol will work without modification. You can simply change the endpoint and credentials in your current tools to point to our platform and begin migrating your data. Our support team is also available to assist with planning and execution.
What kind of support is available for UK customers?
We provide comprehensive support for all our customers, including those in the UK. Through our strategic distribution partnership with Northamber plc, we offer localised support and expertise for MSPs, resellers, and enterprise clients. This ensures you have access to timely assistance from a team that understands the specific needs and regulatory environment of the UK market.
How does geofencing enhance data sovereignty?
Geofencing allows you to restrict data storage and processing to specific geographic boundaries, such as a single EU country. This provides an additional layer of control to ensure compliance with industry-specific or national data residency regulations. It gives you auditable proof that your data has never left its designated sovereign location.
What does being 'partner-ready' mean for an MSP?
Being partner-ready means our platform is designed with the channel in mind. We provide a multi-tenant console for managing multiple clients from a single dashboard, complete with role-based access control (RBAC) and MFA. We also offer automation through a rich API/CLI and predictable pricing with zero egress fees, which allows you to build profitable, scalable services with stable margins.
