One platform — standardized, built and operated by many.
One platform — standardized, built and operated by many.
Sovereign Cloud Stack
Friederike Zelke
Matej Feder
Only Open Source guarantees digital sovereignity by interoperability, transparency and independence from unlawful claims of third parties and thus from any unauthorised interference.
By using the modular SCS Software stack, cloud providers can offer state-of-the-art Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Container-as-a-Service while being fully compliant with European data protection and security standards without depending on other vendors.
SCS is using and standardizing existing and proven Open Source components such as e.g. Kubernetes and does extend them where required. Federated cloud services are enabled this way, and users can leverage distributed cloud services from several SCS operators. European companies thus have options all the way from running it themselves to using one or several service providers and thus have 100% freedom of choice avoiding lock-in effects and dependencies on providers from foreign jurisdictions.
By sharing and documenting best practices for operating such cloud stacks, the difficulty to provide high quality cloud services internally or publicly is vastly reduced.
Our target: Anyone can benefit from the SCS software stack by using it – and by contributing to the open source code, one will increase the value of Gaia-X.
The latest information of our project (announcements, blog, media coverage, conference contributions, ...) can be found on our news page.
Information and documentation on how to use the Sovereign Cloud Stack can be found here.
The Open Source Business Alliance is building up a small team, which centrally leads and coordinates the Sovereign Cloud Stack project.
Important building blocks will be awarded to companies through open tenders, which will be continously published on this page.
On the digital summit 2019 in Dortmund, the GAIA-X project was launched by the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). The goal of Gaia-X is the defintion and the setup of a secure and trustworthy data infrastructure for Europe. One of the defining properties of the targeted solution is the usage of open technologies. In December 2024 SCS has been endorsed as Gaia X Lighthouse Project.
A strong open infrastructure ecosystem is the foundation of digital sovereignty.
Source: „GAIA-X: Technical Architecture (Release – June, 2020)“
Since July 2021, SCS has been granted funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
With the Sovereign Cloud Stack, the GAIA-X project is increasingly being filled with life. As a contribution to European digital sovereignty, the technical foundation, the Cloud Stack, is to be implemented as an open source project in order to enable switching providers in the future. It will make it easier for medium-sized companies, but also for public administrations, to use the advantages of GAIA-X in specific projects. The Sovereign Cloud Stack will be closely linked to the core components of GAIA-X, the so-called Federation Services, the creation of which is also funded by the BMWi and is well advanced. Together with other funding measures such as the GAIA-X funding competition or for future investments in the vehicle industry (KoPa35c), the BMWi is lending considerable momentum to the implementation of GAIA-X.
Thomas Jarzombek (Member of the German Parliament), BMWi representative for the digital economy and start-ups
The complete press release can also be found on our News page. A FAQ (in German) is available at the OSB Alliance. The OSB Alliance is hiring a growing team for the project.
The Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations - SPRIND - based in Leipzig closes a gap in the German innovation landscape: It finds answers to the unsolved technological, ecological and social challenges of our time and at the same time ensures that the added value of the resulting companies and industries remains in Germany and Europe.
The team around director Rafael Laguna de la Vera provides comprehensive support for inventors: SPRIND arranges financing, helps to find a founding team and creates connections to other experts from science and industry. People with groundbreaking ideas, proven expertise and passion are gathered at SPRIND.
One of the first projects supported by SPRIND is the “Sovereign Cloud Stack” project. It had a feasibility study performed in 2020 on the viability and chances of success for Sovereign Cloud Stack. With a successful result!
