Created concept for sovereign cloud

Antony's role
Innovator, business model creator, product manager, business developer

The Challenge
European data sovereignty is a critical issue when the data processor is a US company, accountable to the US government for lawful interception requests. What would a sustainable sovereign cloud option look like where data is 100% controlled within each sovereign nation?

The solution
Created SODA. The Sovereign Data Alliance concept. SODA was intended as a common cloud infrastructure that could be implemented in parallel by national mobile operators. The key value would lie in the fact that the data processor would always be 100% local, meaning there is no possibility for foreign governments to exercise lawful interception of data. Our team built a complete click-and-install public cloud user interface on top of Openstack and Openshift and presented the concept to the GSMA operator community.

Results
There was a surprising lack of interest from the operator community at the time. Many had recently failed with their own cloud initiatives and the offer from Ericsson failed to make an impact. Antony terminated the concept due to lack of interest from the channels. Eight years later, the EU has a critical need for such an infrastructure and several operators have openly regretted abandoning the cloud too soon.

Lessons learned
Timing is everything. Even the best ideas, if presented or implemented too early, will fail.