7 ms·

Can anyone recommend a European alternative for Amazon AWS?

by sghiassy 10y ago

lwhalen 10y ago
Profitbricks. cloudscale.ch. If you want to go self-hosted, talk to fuzzy-logic.org.
- tex0 10y ago
  Indeed, these providers offer "virtual servers" as well, but if look beyond that they play an entirely different game than AWS. The only relevant competitors to AWS are Google and maybe MS Azure. Both also US companies. No one else is anywhere near the level of scale and expertise AWS has.
  - lwhalen 10y ago
    One could always get a bit closer API-wise and go with a self-hosted Openstack cloud. It's a bit more involved than many folks care for, but if 'API-CRUDable VMs, networks, object storage, images' and similar are the goal, the market's pretty thin.
  - wattt 10y ago
    I would add Digital Ocean as a lower tier, they seem to have provisioning plugins for everything I use (mostly Vagrant) but I roll my own DNS and load balancing. Still US-based unfortunately.
thallian 10y ago
I have a good experience with cloudsigma.ch (but that only replaces the EC2 part, so it depends on what you need).
tex0 10y ago
Depends on your requirements, but I dare to say there is none.
beejiu 10y ago
Aren't the data centers technically owned by Amazon Ireland for compliance (cough tax) reasons? Amazon clearly state that data never moves out of the region.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  As long as Amazon has a US presence, it, and the data is hosts, is within legal reach of US judges and government.
  - Veratyr 10y ago
    This isn't yet decided. Microsoft and the DoJ are still arguing about this in the court system, which so far has ruled that the US government cannot compel Microsoft to release data it holds in Ireland. It's currently waiting for the DoJ to decide whether to take it to the Supreme Court: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/microsoft-data-broad-appeals-court-234098 http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/micros...
    - beejiu 10y ago
      Even if the DoJ did make it law, it would surely conflict with law that the Irish domiciled entity is subject to.
      - ci5er 10y ago
        Penalties for the US-based domestic entity to compel compliance of the off-shore entity would fall onto the domestic entity. The off-shore entity ALSO has to comply with whatever local regulatory regime they fall under. Unlinking the two companies completely might satisfy what you appear to be angling for, but it would be, in essence, a potential competitor to Amazon at that point.
  - beejiu 10y ago
    That sounds very dangerous. What would happen if Amazon simply had a 99% share, but 1% was held by another purely Irish company. Amazon might elect the board and the subsidiary might 'lease' intellectual property and capital from the parent company, but I don't see how you could argue it is subject to US law in any way.
xaldir 10y ago
ovh.com
Veratyr 10y ago
If you want a straight AWS "cloud" replacement, there aren't many options. OVH and LeaseWeb are the most likely candidates but don't come close to the breadth of offerings. There's a very large and competitive market for dedicated servers and colocation though and depending on your load, it might be worth a look at switching to dedicated or leased infrastructure. Owning the hardware is the only way to truly control your destiny as far as I'm concerned.
_joel 10y ago
Depends on what your requirements are but there are a number of Openstack Public Clouds - try http://www.datacentred.co.uk/ http://www.datacentred.co.uk/
href 10y ago
If all you need is Compute, DNS and/or S3 then exoscale.ch is worth a look. I dare say they are the best cloud service Switzerland currently has to offer. cloudscale.ch is a competitor but they are a very young company.
patrickk 10y ago
I've heard good things about Hetzner: https://www.hetzner.de/us/hosting/ https://www.hetzner.de/us/hosting/ You get the benefits of strong German privacy laws, on top of the EU's data protection directive[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive
- floatboth 10y ago
  heh, Hetzner literally asked for a scan of my passport when I wanted to get a VPS.
  - Anthony-G 10y ago
    They require some form of government-issued ID so I provided them with a driving licence. I figured it wasn't a bad trade-off for a decent service. Germany seems to value data privacy much more than my own (Irish) government).
    - tripzilch 10y ago
      In the Netherlands, when businesses ask for such a thing, you are allowed to black out many non-required parts of the scan (this includes the photo), as well as paste a large watermark over the image. The watermark would contain the date and state the purpose of the scanned ID, to prevent re-use for anything else, if it were to be misplaced somehow. I'm not sure how that works in Germany but I would sooner send a too-much-redacted scan and have them refuse and ask to see more of it, than send an actual complete scan of my ID to anyone but the government that issued it. Not that governments are so good at not accidentally misplacing data. But it reduces the surface, at least.

Can anyone recommend a European alternative for Amazon AWS?

lwhalen 10y ago

Profitbricks. cloudscale.ch. If you want to go self-hosted, talk to fuzzy-logic.org.

tex0 10y ago
Indeed, these providers offer "virtual servers" as well, but if look beyond that they play an entirely different game than AWS. The only relevant competitors to AWS are Google and maybe MS Azure. Both also US companies. No one else is anywhere near the level of scale and expertise AWS has.
- lwhalen 10y ago
  One could always get a bit closer API-wise and go with a self-hosted Openstack cloud. It's a bit more involved than many folks care for, but if 'API-CRUDable VMs, networks, object storage, images' and similar are the goal, the market's pretty thin.
- wattt 10y ago
  I would add Digital Ocean as a lower tier, they seem to have provisioning plugins for everything I use (mostly Vagrant) but I roll my own DNS and load balancing. Still US-based unfortunately.

thallian 10y ago

I have a good experience with cloudsigma.ch (but that only replaces the EC2 part, so it depends on what you need).

tex0 10y ago

Depends on your requirements, but I dare to say there is none.

beejiu 10y ago

Aren't the data centers technically owned by Amazon Ireland for compliance (cough tax) reasons? Amazon clearly state that data never moves out of the region.

Freak_NL 10y ago
As long as Amazon has a US presence, it, and the data is hosts, is within legal reach of US judges and government.
- Veratyr 10y ago
  This isn't yet decided. Microsoft and the DoJ are still arguing about this in the court system, which so far has ruled that the US government cannot compel Microsoft to release data it holds in Ireland. It's currently waiting for the DoJ to decide whether to take it to the Supreme Court: http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/microsoft-data-broad-appeals-court-234098 http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/micros...
  - beejiu 10y ago
    Even if the DoJ did make it law, it would surely conflict with law that the Irish domiciled entity is subject to.
    - ci5er 10y ago
      Penalties for the US-based domestic entity to compel compliance of the off-shore entity would fall onto the domestic entity. The off-shore entity ALSO has to comply with whatever local regulatory regime they fall under. Unlinking the two companies completely might satisfy what you appear to be angling for, but it would be, in essence, a potential competitor to Amazon at that point.
- beejiu 10y ago
  That sounds very dangerous. What would happen if Amazon simply had a 99% share, but 1% was held by another purely Irish company. Amazon might elect the board and the subsidiary might 'lease' intellectual property and capital from the parent company, but I don't see how you could argue it is subject to US law in any way.

xaldir 10y ago

ovh.com

Veratyr 10y ago

If you want a straight AWS "cloud" replacement, there aren't many options. OVH and LeaseWeb are the most likely candidates but don't come close to the breadth of offerings. There's a very large and competitive market for dedicated servers and colocation though and depending on your load, it might be worth a look at switching to dedicated or leased infrastructure. Owning the hardware is the only way to truly control your destiny as far as I'm concerned.

_joel 10y ago

Depends on what your requirements are but there are a number of Openstack Public Clouds - try http://www.datacentred.co.uk/ http://www.datacentred.co.uk/

href 10y ago

If all you need is Compute, DNS and/or S3 then exoscale.ch is worth a look. I dare say they are the best cloud service Switzerland currently has to offer. cloudscale.ch is a competitor but they are a very young company.

patrickk 10y ago

I've heard good things about Hetzner: https://www.hetzner.de/us/hosting/ https://www.hetzner.de/us/hosting/ You get the benefits of strong German privacy laws, on top of the EU's data protection directive[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive

floatboth 10y ago
heh, Hetzner literally asked for a scan of my passport when I wanted to get a VPS.
- Anthony-G 10y ago
  They require some form of government-issued ID so I provided them with a driving licence. I figured it wasn't a bad trade-off for a decent service. Germany seems to value data privacy much more than my own (Irish) government).
  - tripzilch 10y ago
    In the Netherlands, when businesses ask for such a thing, you are allowed to black out many non-required parts of the scan (this includes the photo), as well as paste a large watermark over the image. The watermark would contain the date and state the purpose of the scanned ID, to prevent re-use for anything else, if it were to be misplaced somehow. I'm not sure how that works in Germany but I would sooner send a too-much-redacted scan and have them refuse and ask to see more of it, than send an actual complete scan of my ID to anyone but the government that issued it. Not that governments are so good at not accidentally misplacing data. But it reduces the surface, at least.