5 ms·

risk of war going hot aside, the long term effect of this is fantastic for the rest of the world's industries AWS, GCP and Azure looked unbeatable a month ago

risk of war going hot aside, the long term effect of this is fantastic for the rest of the world's industries AWS, GCP and Azure looked unbeatable a month ago but today, if you're a government official in the UK, Poland or Germany, would you be recommending AWS as your cloud provider? absolutely not they now have massive geopolitical risks associated with them due to being under the control of the increasingly unstable and authoritarian US regime that will sacrifice 80 years of foreign policy and soft power for a soundbite on fox news

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dh2022 2y ago
AWS and Azure have regional data centers in each one of the countries. Data in EU stays in EU. The CAPEX risk is entirely borne by US companies while being operated by locals following local laws. These states can easily nationalize these data centers if, say, US does something really bad to them. So the geopolitical risk for using AWS or Azure seems low to me.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  The risk isn't geopolitical but economic decoupling. American tech valuations will take a bath.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    Who cares about tech stocks? Have a look at what happens when the dollar loses it's status as reserve currency.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      Almost all of the S&P gains have been tech stocks.
      - forgetfreeman 2y ago
        Like I said, go have a look at what happens when we lose reserve status and get back to me about how what you just said is in any way relevant. Parenthetically bullshit like this is why I invest in real estate.
        throwaway48476 2y ago
        See what happens to real estate when the boomers start dying. The reserve status is overblown. The question is if not the USD what asset would reserves go into. Certainly not the yuan with china's currency controls.
        forgetfreeman 2y ago
        Lol you want to know what happens to real estate when the boomers start keeling over en masse? Blackrock et al increase their rental portfolio, rent and land prices continue to rise. What, you think the largest hedge funds on the planet made a mistake when they started investing in residential real estate? Check your assumptions.
- j0057 2y ago
  'Data stays in EU' is not true: the US CLOUD act means that American law enforcement and intelligence agencies can and do access data stored in data centers operated by American companies, whether or not they are on American soil.
  - gatienboquet 2y ago
    If you have local warrants.
    - worik 2y ago
      > If you have local warrants To obey local laws The USA is going "unlawful", so the risks are technical and real. Local laws do not apply
    - ahakki 2y ago
      IIRC the US-UK CLOUD Act Agreement extended the jurisdiction of each parties warrants onto the other parties territory. I have not looked at the US-EU agreement.
      - pyrale 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_Stat... You don't need an agreement. Tthe EU commission has tried to create schemes bypassing the issue, and twice they were dismantled by the EU supreme court.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- poisonborz 2y ago
  What does the hardware give you? These datacenters are dependent on US teams, US processes using US maintained software. It's just a bunch of fast deprecating assets, which would need a full reinstall by a team of an AWS-like entity built from ground up.
- gpm 2y ago
  The idea that we (Canada, any EU country, etc) can "easily nationalize" data centers running on bespoke hardware that we do not have a supply chain for, bespoke software which we do not control or have the source to, running workloads for customers as dictated by business relationships with a (now hostile) foreign company, with the descriptions of those workloads almost certainly stored in said hostile foreign companies local (i.e. foreign to us) servers... is absurd. It's even more absurd to suggest that this can be done in response to the US becoming more hostile than they are today. By the time they are more hostile, we're talking about open hostilities. It's only safe to assume that they will have exfiltrated all the data they are interested in, and then sabotaged or destroy as much of the hardware as possible (as can be done remotely), making the data center next to worthless. And prior to nationalization it was "their data-center", they were entirely within their "rights" to sabotage and destroy it. The time to migrate away from data-centers to minimize geo political risk is now, not when the current data centers operators are actively trying to deal damage.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Nationalization of foreign assets occurs at an extreme level of hostility that stable European governments would have no chance of doing, unless it had been done first by the other side. It is the kind of thing that happened in Venezuela.
  - worik 2y ago
    > Nationalization of foreign assets is an extreme level of hostility that stable European governments would have no chance of doing I see the point. But I would not underestimate the grit of Europeans when backed into a corner, like this The USA a Europe had very friendly relations for decades, that has changed overnight. All bets are off
    - whatshisface 2y ago
      As a reference point, the US has not nationalized Russian or Chinese national's assets. Nationalization is much worse than poor diplomatic relations, on a scale of retaliation it is close to war.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - pyrale 2y ago
    You may have missed the point where Trump is threatening to annex land ruled by Denmark.
- blibble 2y ago
  this is the same tired argument as to why conventional forces are redundant if you have nuclear weapons, due to MAD the enemy will never put you into a position where the rational thing to do is to launch your nukes (nationalise their data centres) but they will push and push up against that line the way to deal with this is gradual decoupling, ideally backed up by legislation and government subsidy
- rschoultz 2y ago
  Similar to that jets effectively would be grounded the second that the US decides they would not be exportable to a former ally, my guess is that not many would, in this scenario, believe a former US owned AWS region in Europe to operate completely autonomously to the degree that it can be “easily” nationalized. But long before that, I believe there will be other noticeable effects. As someone working in a medium sized European company, with substantial investments across private infrastructures, AWS, GCP and some Azure, I can testify to that since last couple of weeks the Public Cloud Exit strategies around having services being prepared is a very hot topic. This concerns both existing services preparations as well as enforcing standards and configurations for new services.
ramoz 2y ago
> if you're a government official in the UK, Poland or Germany, would you be recommending AWS as your cloud provider? They don't. Sovereign cloud in EU has been progressing for a few years now. Such that some of your mentioned "unbeatable" hyperscalers have already been positioning (e.g. ceasable infrastructure), and some interesting new players on the block. As well as old benefiting from the related market positions: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/eu-sovereign-cloud/ https://www.oracle.com/cloud/eu-sovereign-cloud/
- blibble 2y ago
  the "sovereign" label from Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle was always a lie, for auditors check boxes they are not sovereign because they're running software developed by a company liable to coercion by the regime
  - Sammi 2y ago
    US companies are required by US law to disclose data to US authorities when requested - no matter where in the world they operate. Doesn't matter if it is a EU subsidiary. The US parent company must abide by US law and give US authorities the data. EU citizens cannot trust their data in the hands of US companies. No matter if it is on servers in Europe hosted by European subsidiaries.
    - mattlondon 2y ago
      The way they are doing it is entirely air gapped systems, run by totally independent companies (not subsidiaries, totally separate legal entities owned and run by other people) that are effectively licensing the software. So the US legal system can say "give us this data" but they don't have access as they are on another company's servers in another company's data center operated by another company's staff.
      - pyrale 2y ago
        > So the US legal system can say "give us this data" but they don't have access as they are on another company's servers in another company's data center operated by another company's staff. US institutions don't hesitate to demand their companies to implement secret backdoors in their hardware or software, as evidenced by Snowden's leaks (for Cisco routers) and the Lavabit shutdown (mail company ordered to implement a tap on their clients' data). Sure, you can have all you described, but how are updates vetted?
sidibe 2y ago
This has been slowly coming so now they are offering the entire data center stack to be operated by European companies in European owned datacenters
marcuschong 2y ago
Even I, the founder of a small startup outside the US, caught myself considering things I never would have before. Just last month, I had to change my dedicated server provider and was genuinely concerned about hosting my websites on US-based entities. Would Trump impose a tariff to antagonize my country and president? I don't have the resources to keep changing providers and migrating my services. I ended up hosting locally.
whatshisface 2y ago
It isn't fantastic on net, although it could be a net benefit for those industries that compete directly with (former?) American strengths. The other industries will no longer benefit from the highly competitive offerings of US cloud providers, which are for now, better and cheaper than the alternatives.
hnaccount_rng 2y ago
One would guess. But at least German's cyber security agency.. Well, if you read German: https://www.heise.de/news/Google-und-BSI-arbeiten-an-sicheren-Cloud-Loesungen-fuer-die-oeffentliche-Hand-10309149.html https://www.heise.de/news/Google-und-BSI-arbeiten-an-sichere...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dh2022 2y ago

AWS and Azure have regional data centers in each one of the countries. Data in EU stays in EU. The CAPEX risk is entirely borne by US companies while being operated by locals following local laws. These states can easily nationalize these data centers if, say, US does something really bad to them. So the geopolitical risk for using AWS or Azure seems low to me.

throwaway48476 2y ago
The risk isn't geopolitical but economic decoupling. American tech valuations will take a bath.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  Who cares about tech stocks? Have a look at what happens when the dollar loses it's status as reserve currency.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Almost all of the S&P gains have been tech stocks.
    - forgetfreeman 2y ago
      Like I said, go have a look at what happens when we lose reserve status and get back to me about how what you just said is in any way relevant. Parenthetically bullshit like this is why I invest in real estate.
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        See what happens to real estate when the boomers start dying. The reserve status is overblown. The question is if not the USD what asset would reserves go into. Certainly not the yuan with china's currency controls.
        forgetfreeman 2y ago
        Lol you want to know what happens to real estate when the boomers start keeling over en masse? Blackrock et al increase their rental portfolio, rent and land prices continue to rise. What, you think the largest hedge funds on the planet made a mistake when they started investing in residential real estate? Check your assumptions.
j0057 2y ago
'Data stays in EU' is not true: the US CLOUD act means that American law enforcement and intelligence agencies can and do access data stored in data centers operated by American companies, whether or not they are on American soil.
- gatienboquet 2y ago
  If you have local warrants.
  - worik 2y ago
    > If you have local warrants To obey local laws The USA is going "unlawful", so the risks are technical and real. Local laws do not apply
  - ahakki 2y ago
    IIRC the US-UK CLOUD Act Agreement extended the jurisdiction of each parties warrants onto the other parties territory. I have not looked at the US-EU agreement.
    - pyrale 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._United_Stat... You don't need an agreement. Tthe EU commission has tried to create schemes bypassing the issue, and twice they were dismantled by the EU supreme court.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
poisonborz 2y ago
What does the hardware give you? These datacenters are dependent on US teams, US processes using US maintained software. It's just a bunch of fast deprecating assets, which would need a full reinstall by a team of an AWS-like entity built from ground up.
gpm 2y ago
The idea that we (Canada, any EU country, etc) can "easily nationalize" data centers running on bespoke hardware that we do not have a supply chain for, bespoke software which we do not control or have the source to, running workloads for customers as dictated by business relationships with a (now hostile) foreign company, with the descriptions of those workloads almost certainly stored in said hostile foreign companies local (i.e. foreign to us) servers... is absurd. It's even more absurd to suggest that this can be done in response to the US becoming more hostile than they are today. By the time they are more hostile, we're talking about open hostilities. It's only safe to assume that they will have exfiltrated all the data they are interested in, and then sabotaged or destroy as much of the hardware as possible (as can be done remotely), making the data center next to worthless. And prior to nationalization it was "their data-center", they were entirely within their "rights" to sabotage and destroy it. The time to migrate away from data-centers to minimize geo political risk is now, not when the current data centers operators are actively trying to deal damage.
whatshisface 2y ago
Nationalization of foreign assets occurs at an extreme level of hostility that stable European governments would have no chance of doing, unless it had been done first by the other side. It is the kind of thing that happened in Venezuela.
- worik 2y ago
  > Nationalization of foreign assets is an extreme level of hostility that stable European governments would have no chance of doing I see the point. But I would not underestimate the grit of Europeans when backed into a corner, like this The USA a Europe had very friendly relations for decades, that has changed overnight. All bets are off
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    As a reference point, the US has not nationalized Russian or Chinese national's assets. Nationalization is much worse than poor diplomatic relations, on a scale of retaliation it is close to war.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pyrale 2y ago
  You may have missed the point where Trump is threatening to annex land ruled by Denmark.
blibble 2y ago
this is the same tired argument as to why conventional forces are redundant if you have nuclear weapons, due to MAD the enemy will never put you into a position where the rational thing to do is to launch your nukes (nationalise their data centres) but they will push and push up against that line the way to deal with this is gradual decoupling, ideally backed up by legislation and government subsidy
rschoultz 2y ago
Similar to that jets effectively would be grounded the second that the US decides they would not be exportable to a former ally, my guess is that not many would, in this scenario, believe a former US owned AWS region in Europe to operate completely autonomously to the degree that it can be “easily” nationalized. But long before that, I believe there will be other noticeable effects. As someone working in a medium sized European company, with substantial investments across private infrastructures, AWS, GCP and some Azure, I can testify to that since last couple of weeks the Public Cloud Exit strategies around having services being prepared is a very hot topic. This concerns both existing services preparations as well as enforcing standards and configurations for new services.

ramoz 2y ago

> if you're a government official in the UK, Poland or Germany, would you be recommending AWS as your cloud provider? They don't. Sovereign cloud in EU has been progressing for a few years now. Such that some of your mentioned "unbeatable" hyperscalers have already been positioning (e.g. ceasable infrastructure), and some interesting new players on the block. As well as old benefiting from the related market positions: https://www.oracle.com/cloud/eu-sovereign-cloud/ https://www.oracle.com/cloud/eu-sovereign-cloud/

blibble 2y ago
the "sovereign" label from Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle was always a lie, for auditors check boxes they are not sovereign because they're running software developed by a company liable to coercion by the regime
- Sammi 2y ago
  US companies are required by US law to disclose data to US authorities when requested - no matter where in the world they operate. Doesn't matter if it is a EU subsidiary. The US parent company must abide by US law and give US authorities the data. EU citizens cannot trust their data in the hands of US companies. No matter if it is on servers in Europe hosted by European subsidiaries.
  - mattlondon 2y ago
    The way they are doing it is entirely air gapped systems, run by totally independent companies (not subsidiaries, totally separate legal entities owned and run by other people) that are effectively licensing the software. So the US legal system can say "give us this data" but they don't have access as they are on another company's servers in another company's data center operated by another company's staff.
    - pyrale 2y ago
      > So the US legal system can say "give us this data" but they don't have access as they are on another company's servers in another company's data center operated by another company's staff. US institutions don't hesitate to demand their companies to implement secret backdoors in their hardware or software, as evidenced by Snowden's leaks (for Cisco routers) and the Lavabit shutdown (mail company ordered to implement a tap on their clients' data). Sure, you can have all you described, but how are updates vetted?

sidibe 2y ago

This has been slowly coming so now they are offering the entire data center stack to be operated by European companies in European owned datacenters

marcuschong 2y ago

Even I, the founder of a small startup outside the US, caught myself considering things I never would have before. Just last month, I had to change my dedicated server provider and was genuinely concerned about hosting my websites on US-based entities. Would Trump impose a tariff to antagonize my country and president? I don't have the resources to keep changing providers and migrating my services. I ended up hosting locally.

whatshisface 2y ago

It isn't fantastic on net, although it could be a net benefit for those industries that compete directly with (former?) American strengths. The other industries will no longer benefit from the highly competitive offerings of US cloud providers, which are for now, better and cheaper than the alternatives.

hnaccount_rng 2y ago

One would guess. But at least German's cyber security agency.. Well, if you read German: https://www.heise.de/news/Google-und-BSI-arbeiten-an-sicheren-Cloud-Loesungen-fuer-die-oeffentliche-Hand-10309149.html https://www.heise.de/news/Google-und-BSI-arbeiten-an-sichere...