SAP has announced that its customers can now attain greater data sovereignty and autonomy by running workloads completely within their own datacenters. The company introduced this capability through its new service, SAP Sovereign Cloud On-Site, which coincides with the global launch of SAP’s Sovereign Cloud platform.

Figure 1. SAP Lets Customers Operate Cloud Workloads Directly in Their Own Data Centers.

In practice, this means that SAP or SAP-certified staff will oversee SAP Sovereign Cloud On-Site workloads within a customer-approved datacenter. The customer will retain control over data handling, logging, and key management, with full auditing authority. Any third-party providers involved must adhere to the same sovereignty standards to eliminate potential backdoors from supply chain risks. Figure 1 shows SAP Lets Customers Operate Cloud Workloads Directly in Their Own Data Centers.

SAP has now made its Sovereign Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform available globally for the first time, with a particular focus on European Union (EU) enterprises that want to run ERP and AI workloads without depending on U.S.-based infrastructure providers. This enables customers to operate SAP entirely within the EU, ensuring compliance with the bloc’s strict data protection regulations.

Additionally, SAP introduced Delos Cloud, a data sovereignty service for the German public sector, operated in partnership with local providers and designed to meet the country’s rigorous information security standards.

Digital Autonomy

Historically, data sovereignty was largely seen as a matter of regulatory compliance. However, geopolitical developments have shifted this perspective: operational, political, and technological independence is increasingly viewed as essential, particularly for EU-based organizations.

SAP has responded to this need. “The digital resilience of Europe depends on sovereignty that is secure, scalable, and future-ready,” said Martin Merz, President of SAP Sovereign Cloud. “SAP’s full-stack sovereign cloud offering delivers exactly that, giving customers the freedom to choose their deployment model while helping ensure compliance up to the highest standards.”

Merz emphasized that this initiative aligns with SAP’s commitment to supporting the EU’s digital autonomy. Digital sovereignty has become a strategic priority for the company, which plans to invest €20 billion ($23.3 billion) in developing new sovereign cloud products for the EU and other regions.

A decade ago, cloud services were largely promoted under the idea of a single, global infrastructure market. Today, however, the trend is shifting toward a balkanization of cloud infrastructure, with distinct geographical domains emerging.

“For decades, enterprises have handed over too much power to their cloud providers – power over infrastructure, power over availability, and most importantly, power over their own data,” said Garima Kapoor, co-founder and co-CEO of U.S. AI object storage company MinIO

She added, “CIOs are realizing that outsourcing control to a public cloud provider is no longer an option. The concept of sovereignty is evolving. It’s no longer just a means of maintaining compliance with data regulations but is now seen as a strategic and architectural imperative for enterprises that want to own their digital destiny.”

Kapoor noted that services like SAP Sovereign Cloud provide enterprises with a path forward. “SAP is giving organizations control over their data destiny,” she said.

Source: Reuters

Cite this article:

Priyadharshini S (2025), SAP Enables Customers to Run Cloud Workloads within their Own Data Centers, AnaTechMaz, pp. 138