Europe builds 'kill‑switch' cloud stack
A coalition of European firms unveiled a so‑called 'kill‑switch proof' cloud recovery stack aimed at keeping critical workloads resilient to foreign‑provider disruption. The stack — announced by Cubbit, SUSE, Elemento Cloud and StorPool — is being pitched as a sovereignty and continuity solution for workloads that need guaranteed local recovery. The initiative is being framed as part of Europe’s broader move to pair regulation with infrastructure options. (tech.eu)
A group of European cloud companies said on April 15 it has built a recovery system meant to keep critical workloads running if a foreign provider cuts access. (blog.cubbit.io) The stack was unveiled in Berlin at the European Data Summit by Cubbit, SUSE, Elemento Cloud, and StorPool Storage, which describe it as Europe’s first fully sovereign disaster recovery pack. (blog.cubbit.io) In plain terms, disaster recovery is the spare engine for a company’s information technology systems: if the main cloud fails, a second setup restores data and applications from another environment. The four companies said their package combines storage, compute, orchestration, networking, identity, observability, and management into one deployable stack. (digitalsme.eu) Cubbit provides S3-compatible object storage, Elemento Cloud supplies a control layer for moving and managing workloads across clouds, SUSE brings open-source infrastructure software, and StorPool adds software-defined storage and disaster recovery tooling. (elemento.cloud; storpool.com; suse.com) The immediate problem it is built for is not an ordinary outage but a geopolitical one: the companies repeatedly cited a possible foreign-vendor “kill switch,” meaning a service cutoff outside the customer’s control. Heise reported the project as a European answer to worries about a shutdown of United States cloud services in Europe. (blog.cubbit.io; heise.de) The pitch lands as Europe’s cloud-sovereignty debate has moved from policy papers to procurement rules and compliance checklists. On January 29, 2026, SUSE launched a self-assessment tool tied to the 2025 European Union Cloud Sovereignty Framework, which it said scores organizations against eight sovereignty objectives. (suse.com; commission.europa.eu) Cubbit said Gartner expects sovereign cloud infrastructure-as-a-service spending in Europe to rise from $6.9 billion in 2025 to $23.1 billion in 2027. That forecast is part of the sales argument for packaging separate European products into a single recovery offer. (blog.cubbit.io) The coalition also ties itself to the wider EuroStack push, which argues Europe should build more of its own digital infrastructure instead of importing key layers from abroad. The European Digital Small and Medium Enterprises Alliance used the launch to press for public-procurement rules that favor European technology. (blog.cubbit.io; eurostack.eu; digitalsme.eu) There is already at least one live deployment. The European Digital Small and Medium Enterprises Alliance said the pack is in use at an Italian information technology service provider and is expected to spread to additional partners. (digitalsme.eu) The larger claim is narrower than “replace the hyperscalers.” The companies are starting with the emergency copy of the cloud, betting that the backup system is the first place European customers will pay to keep local control. (heise.de; blog.cubbit.io)
