Airbus Moving Critical Systems Away From AWS, Google, and Microsoft Citing Data Sovereignty Concerns (theregister.com) 63
Airbus is preparing to tender a major contract to move mission-critical systems like ERP, manufacturing, and aircraft design data onto a digitally sovereign European cloud, citing national security concerns and fears around U.S. extraterritorial laws like the CLOUD Act. "I need a sovereign cloud because part of the information is extremely sensitive from a national and European perspective," Catherine Jestin, Airbus's executive vice president of digital, told The Register. "We want to ensure this information remains under European control." The Register reports: The driver is access to new software. Vendors like SAP are developing innovations exclusively in the cloud, pushing customers toward platforms like S/4HANA. The request for proposals launches in early January, with a decision expected before summer. The contract -- understood to be worth more than 50 million euros -- will be long term (up to ten years), with price predictability over the period. [...] Jestin is waiting for European regulators to clarify whether Airbus would truly be "immune to extraterritorial laws" -- and whether services could be interrupted.
The concern isn't theoretical. Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan reportedly lost access to his Microsoft email after Trump sanctioned him for criticizing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, though Microsoft denies suspending ICC services. Beyond US complications, Jestin questions whether European cloud providers have sufficient scale. "If you asked me today if we'll find a solution, I'd say 80/20."
The concern isn't theoretical. Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan reportedly lost access to his Microsoft email after Trump sanctioned him for criticizing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, though Microsoft denies suspending ICC services. Beyond US complications, Jestin questions whether European cloud providers have sufficient scale. "If you asked me today if we'll find a solution, I'd say 80/20."
AWS (Score:5, Informative)
AWS just launched an European sovereign cloud region in Germany: https://aws.eu/ [aws.eu]
They are moving there.
Re: AWS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: AWS (Score:5, Insightful)
Your data isn't really "safe" with any of the large cloud providers. If "the man" wants your data, they'll get it.
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Yes. But Airbus will be ensuring "the man" is the European one.
Re: AWS (Score:2)
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The solution is decentralization and not letting one group or company have a monopoly.
IOW more countries are going to have to build fabs, first and foremost, because you can't trust anything if you cannot trust the silicon.
It would be great if we got some kind of technology for cheaply making high-end ICs at home like we can with plastic parts now, but it's just not reasonable. At some point you have to trust someone. It's unfortunate, I know.
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We may be slowly going there because chip-making processes seem to slowly reach a point were scaling is over. Not unexpected.
Re: AWS (Score:2)
I don't think there is anything DB2 or oracle can do that postgresql plus maybe some proxy or app setup can't do, with equivalent performance and far lower cost. Can you give examples of why anyone needs the big money databases?
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Active/Active replication, RAC, and other big league stuff. Active/Active replication, while maintaining ACID, across geographic boundaries is as close to black magic as you can get to black magic without reaching for a chicken.
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Probably some in hardware stores at excessive prices. Oh, you mean electronics? No.
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And it is just an encrypted binary blob, what can "the man" do with it.
They'd need to add the "rubber hose attack" in order to get the unencrypted data, and even then the keepers of the data could use "Plausible Deniability" to thwart the "torture warrant"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deniable_encryption
https://www.reuters.com/article/opinion/the-case-for-torture-warrants-idUS16313367/
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Your data isn't really "safe" with any of the large cloud providers. If "the man" wants your data, they'll get it.
This. If you don't control the physical security, you don't have any security... If you don't control the physical or data security from the ground up, anyone can get access and you're depending on the good word of whoever runs it... Because Amazon, Microsoft and Google have been so trustworthy in the past.
Re: AWS (Score:5, Interesting)
Couldn't they run the EU data centers in some independent LLC HQ'ed somewhere in Europe?
You would that they could structure this somehow so it would be independent of the US regulatory framework.
Re: AWS (Score:4, Informative)
That's exactly what they're doing.
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They could use OVH which is from France.
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That is not what matters. What matters is whether there is a system administration possibility from the US. And there will be. Nothing except running this as a genuine European company will do and AWS/Microsoft/Google cannot really do that, since all respective R&D would also need to be European for this to actually work.
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Re: AWS (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously. This is a move away from US companies. Geolocation of clouds does not matter. What laws and coercions the provider is subject to is what matters.
nice, but also stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the playbook again and again and fucking again. Step 1 - the US is a reliable resource that the world depends on. Step 2 - the US government decides that it would rather bend the rules for its benefit. Whether it means stealing money from Venezuela's government and give it to some random guy living in Miami, or whether it means forcing US companies operating cloud facilities overseas to make their subsidiaries comply with US demands to turn over data. Step 3 - the rest of the world decides that this
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Is it asking too fucking much for the US to look into the future 5-10 years and NOT do stupid ass selfish shit that will be ultimately meaningless anyway?
Is it too much to ask of the billionaire class of trumpistan, which runs the country, to look beyond the current deal that's on the table and NOT do stupid ass selfish shit that will be ultimately meaningless anyway?
What do you think?
Re: nice, but also stupid (Score:2)
The EU has more controls on personal data than the US. It's been that way for a very long time. The US has no GDPR.
Re: nice, but also stupid (Score:2)
Re: AWS (Score:3)
The problem is: if war ensues tomorrow (which it likely will), and US and EU end up on not-quite-the-same-side (which the POTUS pretty much made clear could be the case, as the US is not on anybody's side bit its own)... could then the US side take influence on the "Euripean AWS" Airbus cloud hosting?
See? That's why it's not sovereign even if they move AWS to EU.
Boeing peekaboo? (Score:3)
In an effort to improve commercial planes, an U.S. cloud provider could be made to share their "backups" with a certain U.S. plane manufacturer (which has fallen on harder times times lately, regarding production quality and public perception), by the current U.S. administration.
At least, that is what AirBus is probably thinking, giving the tone in the quotes from the summary.
Re:Boeing peekaboo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I don't think Boeing or Airbus seek to copy much of anything from each other (except maybe the neo/MAX engine moves).
Boeing doesn't use Airbus style avionics, and Airbus has nothing like the 787.
Competition at the mid-sized plane level (A320/737) is mostly focusing on obvious things- like larger turbofans, being moved further forward.
The Boeing solution for that is based on entirely different theory than the Airbus solution to it- in the Airbus, you're never really flying the plane directly anyway, so it's a simple avionics software update. For the Boeing, you are in direct control of the craft, so it has to have extra systems that handle the trim for that particular change. Really nothing to copy.
I think the concern is more so Airbus' customers that Airbus retains data over. Those customers would probably prefer that such data be under European data rules.
Re:Boeing peekaboo? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a matter of trust, and the trust relationship between the US and EU, as well as the UK, is breaking fast.
Worse, all of US cloud vendors have shown a lack of safety, outages, missteps, and uptime in 2025. As these entities are largely immune from prosecution in the US, it's better to have someone close at hand, whose neck you can wring with actual authority.
I'm an American, and I don't trust these jokers, either. Big does not make better. The bleeding edge requires bandages, especially with AI infections becoming prominent.
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Are you really an American?
Do you think service providers are prosecuted for downtime?
What a freakishly dystopian outlook.
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Better than the Chinese execution option.
Indeed. But I can't help to think that fuckstains who think like this dipshit dream of that being the end result.
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I love ICE wannabees. Show me your papers, DamnOregonian, or are you really in Myanmar?
Dystopian look? Do you ignore what's around you?
Malpractice is more civil in action, and when you're a soulless corp, is the direct route. When people die as a result of stupidity, that's called manslaughter. Is manslaughter a criminal offense? Yes.
Our dependency on connectivity and working platforms follows the rubric surrounding the laws concerning utilities, but Section 230 provides the line in the sand of responsibili
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Someone points out that you want to prosecute people who provide contracted services, and you say, "But ICE!"
Get the fuck out of here, you little fascist wannabe.
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Instead of just calling dude an ignorant fuckwit, I should have explained how they were an ignorant fuckwit.
You've got CloudCorp. They provide Cloud Services.
You've got EmergencyCorp. They provide Emergency Services.
You've got Joe NeedsHelp. EmergencyCorp has a contract with Joe NeedsHelp's municipality that gives them a legal duty to serve.
In no jurisdiction in the Western World, does that duty transfer to CloudCorp.
Wanting that duty to extend to Clou
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I don't think the concern is the plane manufacturer.
Frankly, I don't think Boeing or Airbus seek to copy much of anything from each other (except maybe the neo/MAX engine moves).
Boeing doesn't use Airbus style avionics, and Airbus has nothing like the 787.
Competition at the mid-sized plane level (A320/737) is mostly focusing on obvious things- like larger turbofans, being moved further forward.
The Boeing solution for that is based on entirely different theory than the Airbus solution to it- in the Airbus, you're never really flying the plane directly anyway, so it's a simple avionics software update. For the Boeing, you are in direct control of the craft, so it has to have extra systems that handle the trim for that particular change. Really nothing to copy.
I think the concern is more so Airbus' customers that Airbus retains data over. Those customers would probably prefer that such data be under European data rules.
What you mean to say is, Airbus doesn't have anything nearly as bad as the 787.
Airbus have the A330 and A350 which competes in the same space as the 787 (which is absolutely abysmal) but are more efficient aircraft. Boeing had to fudge the numbers with the 787 to get the per seat per mile cost down, so it was originally pitched as an 8 abreast economy class but almost every single one is the 9 abreast high density configuration because that's the only way airlines can get close to the promised costs. Mos
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At this point having an economic relationship with the territory of trumpistan is a larger risk than the risk of "suffering high tariffs" from the tariff king. Have you seen the "AI" bubble size? It is the largest and the fastest that we've seen, dwarfing the 2007-08 bubble with even less to show for in terms of returns.
What do you think will happen if your country isn't well-isolated from it when it bursts in a few months?
Re: Prepare to be tariffied! (Score:1)
Better fly Airbus and be tariffed than suffer a crash in a Boeing plane.
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So funny that you had to compare Boeing only in America vs Airbus in the whole world to make your comparison...wonder why...
If we do it the other way.
since 2009 airbus has 2 fatalities in America vs Boeings 3,000+ worldwide in the same timeframe...
Re:Prepare to be tariffied! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you take responsibility for your own data using your own servers you won't end up with your balls in the cloud provider vise.
If you are in Europe and the cloud provider is in the US then the cloud provider is under US law so if the US government decides "no business with Europe" then the US residing cloud provider has no choice but to shut down all servers overnight.
Better late than never (Score:3)
At least one good thing coming out of the Trump presidency: Europe finally waking up in this regard.
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You really think this is a "Oh shit, Trump!" reaction?
These concerns have been swirling about for decades. Why do you think Europe have been implementing so many laws about digital sovereignty and data rights over the past decade or so.
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Re:Better late than never (Score:4)
But it isn't waking up, there are still lingering hopes of "our American friends combing back to their senses" even after the trump party, which is in power over there in Fascington (amazing how appropriate has this ancient Soviet cliche become recently, isn't it?), officially declared the EU an enemy, which must be destroyed.
Moreover, the desire to destroy a united Europe isn't a trumpistan leadership issue, a result of a freak election result or otherwise an accident. It is a massively supported policy. The trump party has about 80 million followers. All polls indicate that virtually all of them agree with this trumpist confrontation with Europe, with the trumpist kowtowing to putinland and with the abject, animal fear of the trumpists of China.
Reading the anti-EU comments in every "EU tries to have US companies follow the law of the land" threads here is also evidence that this is the true "American" stance. The followers of the trump party genuinely hate all people who dislike corruption, ask that laws apply equally to everyone and try to have fairer laws instead of an implementation of the wishes of the oligarchy. Many among them hypocritically justify their hatred and cruelty with religion and tradition, turning both on their head. Since the rest of the "Americans" don't really care, the policy is implemented, which is also evidence that there are no really "American friends" of Europe anymore. But the dream lingers.
So, no, Europe isn't waking up, it still hangs to the illusion that people who work aggressively for its failure are "friends" and "allies". Getting serious about the shenanigans coming from the trumpistan may start happening only after trump takes Greenland.
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I don't think they're wrong about historical and often religious corruption existing, it's only wrong to appeal to it. We should be improving going forwards, not using the past as an excuse.
The world will never trust America as much as it did (whatever amount that was — but notably including allowing military bases practically everywhere) again without America's governmental structure changing significantly.
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The world will never trust America as much as it did (whatever amount that was — but notably including allowing military bases practically everywhere) again without America's governmental structure changing significantly.
Indeed. The "American century" is finally over. Good.
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I hope something even worse doesn't set in. It's not like capitalism and greed don't rule anywhere, only the degree differs. I guess we will find out.
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We will find out.
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It's not that much of a change, though. The USA has only ever paid lip-service to its "allies" and always seen Europe as competitors. It's not a shift from "friend" to "enemy", just from "competitor" to "enemy".
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Nice people can compete with each other and still have a drink together. The trumpistani appear to want to get even, as their chieftain eloquently put it once. An attitude that explains the overnight putinization of the territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I was talking about military cooperation and international politics, the sobering up is quite slow even as the trumpistani ideologists tell us how the EU should be destroyed for the benefit of putin.
How did it come so far (Score:2)
All these companies had their own servers and data solutions in the past, keeping it all protected and to themselves.
But at some point they decided to put everything into the "cloud"
Run your own cloud (Score:2)
Re:Run your own cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
The driving factors for large orgs moving to the cloud are not price nor safety. They are:
Agility: The elasticity to allow very rapid(near instant) infrastructure scaling, up or down.
Finance: They can cook their books by moving capital expenditure to operational expenditure. It doesn't matter that Net expenditure is higher. It only matters what the books look like to investors.
Shifted liability: IT departments, even entire corporations, shift liability for so many problems from themselves to the cloud/SaaS provider.
It's about time companies realize the Cloud issues (Score:2)