The “Kill Switch” in the Cloud: Why According to heise Nearly Half of Companies Need a Plan B — and How True Sovereignty Can Succeed

A recent article on heise online hits a sensitive topic that we at UPONU hear again and again in customer conversations: the growing and often dangerous dependency on major American cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft.

Heise cites a highly topical study by Lünendonk & Hossenfelder that delivers alarming figures: 83 percent of surveyed companies in the DACH region consider a so-called “kill switch scenario” — the sudden restriction or shutdown of critical IT services by the provider — to be realistic. At the same time, almost half have no plan B for an emergency, and only 57 percent have an exit strategy. In an era where business processes are heavily digitalized, this technological dependency becomes a massive strategic risk. It also should not be ignored that international solutions are often operated under different legal frameworks and understandings.

Digital sovereignty cannot wait

The heise report makes it clear that a rethink is necessary: for 36 percent of companies, digital sovereignty already has very high priority today — and 96 percent expect the topic to become even more important in the next three years. The study authors advise companies to actively reduce dependencies and complement classic hyperscaler offerings from large US technology providers with sovereign alternatives.

What is particularly interesting: while many companies still see room for improvement for platform and AI services in Europe, a full 93 percent attest to the absolute competitiveness of European providers on the pure infrastructure level.

Lack of maneuvering space becomes a brake

We at UPONU GmbH share the insights summarized by heise. From our day-to-day project work, we know that when architecture, implementation and operations are not conceived as a sovereign whole from the beginning, the room for maneuver is missing at the decisive moment. A missing plan B often means a creeping vendor lock-in in practice — a major operational risk caused by massive dependency on individual suppliers.

Open interfaces instead of vendor lock-in: our path with OpenStack

As the Lünendonk study shows, 55 percent of respondents regard sovereign cloud offerings from local EU operators in combination with German IT service providers as very relevant. This is exactly where we come in: we develop and operate our modular cloud and infrastructure services from our own highly available data centers in Germany according to the highest security standards (ISO 27001, DIN EN 50600).

To technically prevent the vendor lock-in that heise discusses from the ground up, we have deliberately chosen OpenStack at the core of our infrastructure. Through this proven open source virtualization solution and its open interfaces (APIs), we guarantee maximum flexibility. The technical solution used by UPONU is also part of the newly published “Deutschland Stack”. Instead of locking yourself into the dependence on proprietary systems from global providers, you retain full control over your data and workloads. Our infrastructure services (IaaS and SaaS) can be seamlessly integrated into your existing structures.

The future is hybrid: multi-cloud as the safer standard

The heise article rightly emphasizes that the future of IT is hybrid and differentiated. Multi-cloud architectures are becoming the standard — 42 percent of companies already use them. As part of such a multi-cloud architecture, UPONU offers sovereign solutions to secure and operate your company’s core values in German data centers. With clearly defined SLAs, a transparent cost structure and our self-service portal, we give you the sovereignty over your IT resources back.

Time to take the wheel again

Don’t let it come down to the kill switch scenario described. It is time to manage critical dependencies consciously and build secure, open alternatives.

Ready for your plan B? Find out in a non-binding consultation how our OpenStack-based cloud solutions “Made in Germany” can make your IT infrastructure future-proof and independent: www.uponu.com