Efforts to build something like European cloud, which will be able to compete with the big US trio of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, will likely lead to Europe accepting the role of the outsider and committing to the so-called superlative. players. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, which also owns Czech company T-Mobile, has agreed with Google on cloud cooperation and indicated where Europe’s efforts will go.
An organization was formed in the European Union in 2020, led by France and Germany Gaia-XWhich began to announce that the old continent is under the control of American clouds, and that the data of the largest European financial institutions “sit” in it, for example.
That’s still the case as the Big Three continues to gain strength. AWS, Azure and Google Cloud control 70 percent of the European market, according to Synergy research. The rest are smaller local players. The largest European cloud provider, Deutsche Telekom, stands at 2 percent.
European way
The Gaia-X project was supposed to start solving the situation in the traditional European way – that is, coming late and trying to change the problem through regulation, data protection and other issues. The creation of a European direct cloud was discussed, indicating the merger of Deutsche Telekom with OVH and OVH with Atos. Ultimately, Gaia-X is primarily about creating rules for cloud interoperability or data security.
The efforts around Gaia-X also caused a lot of criticism, which was also heard from the Czech Republic. The Federation of Industry and Transport of the Czech Republic, which also represents Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Google, for example, has indicated that Gaia-X is essentially a protectionist effort by France to push its companies such as OVH and Atos. Gaia-X also proved to be a very inflexible body with many interests among its members. Even Chinese companies such as Alibaba have tried to gain influence.
“Gaia-X has been a wake-up call for us as Europe is lagging behind in the cloud,” said senior Deutsche Telekom Luba executives. “We are afraid that it is no longer possible to build a super-scale operator like AWS in Europe. These giant American companies have economies of scale, many data centers and huge investments,” the directors added at the meeting in Cologne.
Deutsche Telekom further states that European companies and institutions need high-level players. They can offer functionality that cloud on-premises cannot provide, too slowly or with limited functionality.
We have to live with the consequences
“Hyperscale players invest more than 1 billion euros a month. We cannot compete with them on infrastructure, you cannot win this game,” Deutsche Telekom’s Chief Security Officer (CSO) told Lupa thomas chercic. In his opinion, the problem is, among other things, that while the United States has one large market and, say, three major operators, Europe is fragmented and there are only hundreds of operators. It is claimed that this does not create opportunities for building super-fast companies.
“Gaia-X must be built to maintain at least some control,” Tschersich continued. In any case, we will depend on another country’s infrastructure, so “we have to live with the consequences.”
So Gaia-X grafted itself on the statement that without Amazon et al. It will not work, and data security was added at the same time. For example, in not leaving European data centers.
Cooperation with Google
So Deutsche Telekom launched a service called T-Systems Sovereign Cloud powered by Google Cloud. In this case, the German operator offers its customers Google Cloud and the advantages of the massive operator, while also wrapping itself around its own services.
In this case, customer data and apps run in two German data centers affiliated with Google. Deutsche Telekom provides security, monitoring functionality, control mechanisms, identity management or shared physical and virtual access to data centers as part of upgrades and maintenance. Control mainly consists of processing data in a European manner.
Deutsche Telekom has just launched this offer in Germany. Company representatives told Lupa that in the future they would like to travel with her to other countries in Central Europe. At the moment, the company does not have similar projects with Amazon and Microsoft.
For Google Cloud, cooperation with Deutsche Telekom could mean a way to gain market share in Europe. It still lost out to the dominant pair of AWS and Azure. For example, Google has already built a Google Cloud team in the Czech Republic. This includes the Department of State Administration, where a long-time director of HP and DXC Technology works Bedrich Luft. The data center was also launched in Warsaw.
Google Cloud also wants to participate in the state cloud startup, and an offer has already been made. Rohlík.cz has been added to the big local clients.
The launch of local infrastructure outside of a CDN and the like is also in the works. “In terms of infrastructure, we definitely want to have a cloud area in the Czech Republic. It will help us a lot. I am very optimistic, in our plans for cloud infrastructure, the Czech Republic is next. In the two to four year time horizon, we are likely to expect that , ” Google Cloud Vice President said Daniel Halls.
