digitale soevereiniteit MSP
What does digital sovereignty really cost an MSP?
Digital sovereignty costs an MSP margin, complexity and retraining of staff, while clients only call when email is down. Research by Proximus Next has 68% of organisations still seeing sovereignty as a non-subject, which means the bill sits with the MSP for now.
MSP Late Night · 6 August 2026
Why does the average MSP stay with hyperscalers?
The average Dutch MSP of 25 to 45 people is largely a reseller of Microsoft, AWS or Google. Switching touches more than technology: it touches people, processes and licence models, with technology making up only around a quarter of the transition cost. As long as tenders keep being written towards hyperscalers and clients will not pay a premium for fewer features, the business case for a switch is thin.
Who is up: the board or IT?
Digital sovereignty is a business question, not an IT job. The board has to set the risk profile, because directors are personally liable as soon as data leaks or becomes inaccessible.
When are you really sovereign?
The hard test is one question: can an outside party reach the data or not. As long as the American Cloud Act and FISA 702 apply to hyperscalers, full sovereignty on the public cloud is by definition ruled out.
Which route fits an MSP of 25 to 45 people?
Becoming a reseller of an emerging European player such as StackIT, OVHcloud or a disconnected cloud is more realistic than building your own. That way you build a sovereign offer step by step alongside your existing Microsoft stack, instead of a big-bang migration that wrecks the margin.
Can somebody reach the data or not? If the answer is yes, you are never sovereign.
Frequently asked questions
Why does a hyperscaler such as Azure or AWS not fall under European sovereignty?
American cloud providers fall under the Cloud Act and FISA 702. Those laws give the American government the right to demand access to data, regardless of whether that data physically sits in Europe. A sovereign cloud variant from Microsoft also remains legally under American jurisdiction. Data location in the EU is therefore not the same as sovereignty.
What is the difference between a sovereign and a disconnected cloud?
A sovereign cloud runs under European law with limited external access. A disconnected cloud goes further: the infrastructure has no active connection to the original supplier and can keep functioning without that connectivity. Examples are setups where Google Cloud Platform software runs in a Tier 4 data centre in Luxembourg, cut off from the public internet.
Does digital sovereignty only matter for government clients?
No, but the pressure is strongest there. Governments, banks and healthcare institutions get explicit guidance, among other things through national baseline classifications and statements from the central bank about less dependency on big tech within five years. At commercial mid-sized organisations the subject is usually not yet on the agenda, unless there is sensitive IP or international tendering.
Is open source automatically sovereign?
Open source lowers vendor lock-in and increases portability, but is not the same as sovereignty. Where the code runs, who manages the infrastructure and which jurisdiction applies decide whether data really stays out of reach of third parties. Open source is a building block, not a destination.
What can an MSP do concretely this year without replacing the whole stack?
Start with an architecture that secures portability and map risk profiles per client. Alongside the existing Microsoft offer, put down a sovereign alternative for AI and sensitive workloads, for example through Mistral or a European disconnected cloud. That way the client does not have to move their email, while new innovation does land sovereign.