Scottish data center provider teams up with HPE to unveil National Cloud – a UK sovereign cloud service for large enterprises, tech startups, and public sector organizations

Scottish data center and cloud services provider DataVita is now offering clients data residency within the UK with the launch of National Cloud.

Aiming to position itself as an alternative to the big cloud providers, it’s offering the new platform through a strategic partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

“The National Cloud combines HPE GreenLake cloud’s leading capabilities to manage, observe, automate and secure complex cloud environments, with DataVita’s experience as a leading provider of cloud and connectivity services,” said Xavier Poisson, global vice president for service providers and colocation providers at HPE.

“With this new platform customers across the UK will have access to a trusted infrastructure that allows them to stay in full control of their data and derive value from it.”

DataVita said its service is delivered from some of the most sustainable data centers in the UK, offering the lowest digital emissions of any cloud provider in the country. Its data center design has a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.18, – significantly lower than the global average – and utilizes 100% free air cooling.

National Cloud offers full transparency and predictability over costs, the firm said, with no hidden fees or egress charges. It’s purpose-built to handle complex workloads, supporting the requirements of medium and large enterprises, tech startups, and public sector organizations.

Built on open architecture and interoperable systems, it allows integration and movement between different products, with the aim of reducing vendor lock-in risks and enabling hybrid cloud capabilities.

“National Cloud is our answer to the recurring issues organizations face with public cloud services,” said DataVita managing director Danny Quinn. 

“We’re actively seeking out workloads that public clouds can’t efficiently support, particularly those driven by AI’s growing demands and organizations requiring intricate hybrid cloud architectures.”

Our platform offers the performance, security, and scalability needed for these intensive applications, all while providing cost predictability and sustainability.”

Sovereign cloud services are all the rage

Sovereign cloud services are on the rise thanks largely to legislative moves, particularly in the EU, aimed at keeping data in its region of origin – and in particular out of US hands.

A report from Capgemini in 2022 found that most organizations globally are looking to introduce sovereignty options for customers. In the last couple of years, new offerings have come from the likes of AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Rackspace.

After AWS unveiled its own sovereign cloud service in Europe this year, industry analysts told ITPro that sovereign cloud services are now becoming the “bare minimum” expected from customers across the region.

Other industry big-hitters are focusing heavily on this in a bid to differentiate themselves in an increasingly stifled marketplace.

Governments, too, including Germany, Ireland, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are showing interest in developing sovereign clouds.

Government interest is an area in which Oracle is focusing heavily at present. Oracle CTO and chairman Larry Ellison went as far to claim that national sovereign cloud setups will become commonplace in years to come as governments accelerate efforts to keep data in-country.

Ellison made the prediction during an earnings call in April, noting that the company had witnessed a sharp spike in government interest in sovereign cloud frameworks.

“Pretty much every government is going to want a sovereign cloud and a dedicated region for that government,” Ellison said at the time.