Host local: the benefits of selecting a European cloud provider

The UK cloud mar­ket is high­ly con­cen­trat­ed around three US com­pa­nies: AWS, Microsoft and Google. Togeth­er, these hyper­scalers are so big and pow­er­ful that no sin­gle com­pa­ny (or coun­try for that mat­ter) can chal­lenge their mar­ket monop­oly. But that doesn’t mean select­ing a default cloud provider is the best option for UK busi­ness­es.

If you’re com­plete­ly reliant on a big three US cloud provider, it’s often dif­fi­cult to extract your appli­ca­tions and work­loads. “There’s a risk to busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity,” says Mark Neu­furth, tech­ni­cal mar­ket­ing expert for IONOS Cloud, “so once you’ve gone down this road it’s tricky to back out of it. You’re basi­cal­ly locked in. It could take you half a year or more to extract your­self from a con­tract, or the provider might say ‘We’ll let you leave, but it will cost you.’” 

Busi­ness­es often have to fork out for sup­port ser­vices to ensure their work­loads are com­pat­i­ble with the envi­ron­ment to which they’re mov­ing. But IONOS Cloud pri­ori­tis­es inter­op­er­abil­i­ty so that data can be eas­i­ly extract­ed if need be. That means if you do decide to leave, you won’t be penalised.

Cus­tomers with a mul­ti­cloud solu­tion that spans US hyper­scalers and a Euro­pean provider like IONOS Cloud can also split their com­plex and every­day require­ments between the two. (In fact, the head­line-grab­bing inno­va­tions pushed by the big three cloud providers often add lit­tle val­ue to busi­ness­es that sim­ply want a solu­tion for their dai­ly needs.)

Using a Euro­pean provider for IaaS, back­ups, mir­ror­ing and Dis­as­ter Recov­ery essen­tial­ly de-risks your IT envi­ron­ment by reduc­ing your reliance on one US mega-provider. “In an oper­a­tional sense, it’s good to have an alter­na­tive,” says Neu­furth, “and due to our com­pet­i­tive tech­nol­o­gy, we believe that IONOS Cloud is that Euro­pean alter­na­tive.”

Also, the US CLOUD Act means US IT ser­vice providers must share data with the US author­i­ties upon request, even when that data is stored or processed in oth­er coun­tries. This could poten­tial­ly com­pro­mise UK firms’ intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty or sen­si­tive cus­tomer infor­ma­tion and embroil them in legal issues across the pond. “It’s always a risk to go to court in the Unit­ed States,” says Neu­furth. “There’s so much leg­isla­tive vari­a­tion across the state, dis­trict and fed­er­al courts.” 

With a Euro­pean cloud provider like IONOS Cloud, you’ll nev­er have that prob­lem. The fact that IONOS Cloud focus­es sole­ly on pro­vid­ing the best pos­si­ble cloud solu­tions also dif­fer­en­ti­ates it from US hyper­scalers, which offer a huge num­ber of prod­ucts and ser­vices.

“That means they have a broad­er range of busi­ness inter­ests,” says Neu­furth. “If they see a suc­cess­ful idea they’ll often try to copy or improve upon it.” As such, there’s always a risk your cloud provider may end up as your com­peti­tor — a super com­peti­tor, in fact, with more mon­ey and devel­op­ment resources.

A Euro­pean provider like IONOS Cloud is also agile enough to tai­lor its prod­uct roadmap toward cus­tomer needs. It uses a sim­ple, trans­par­ent pric­ing struc­ture too, so you’ll nev­er be caught out by hid­den costs. And its small­er size also goes hand in hand with a more per­son­al lev­el of ser­vice.

That’s espe­cial­ly impor­tant when it comes to solv­ing prob­lems, says Neu­furth. “If Ama­zon has an out­age for three hours, the first, and often only, thing you can do is open a sup­port tick­et,” he explains, “but our goal is to speak with you direct­ly to help solve the issue as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.” 

US dom­i­nance of the cloud indus­try could also have a neg­a­tive, long-term impact on UK and Euro­pean tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion. Part­ner­ing with a Euro­pean cloud provider helps to coun­ter­act this imbal­ance. It sup­ports edu­ca­tion­al and career oppor­tu­ni­ties in the UK and Europe, there­by stop­ping the “brain drain” of tal­ent to US com­pa­nies and ensur­ing a brighter eco­nom­ic future for Europe’s tech indus­try.

The size and mar­ket share of the US cloud providers means they will no doubt con­tin­ue to play a role in many com­pa­nies’ cloud strate­gies. But with a Euro­pean provider like IONOS Cloud in the mix as well, firms can ensure they’re not at the mer­cy of a hyperscaler’s whims, improve their resilience, and help to retain more cloud tal­ent on home turf. In oth­er words, it pays to host local.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it ionos.co.uk/hostlocal

Pro­mot­ed by

IONOS