I’m currently working on the KCNA Kubernetes Certification. This might come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, given that I’ve – hopefully subtly – eye-rolled when clients say they’re using Kubernetes (aka “k8s”). Most of the time, I really don’t think your company needs Kubernetes.
Yes, Netflix use Kubernetes!
Yes, Uber use Kubernetes!
No, you are almost definitely not Netflix, nor Uber.
(unless you are, in which case – carry on)
I have 26 and a bit years’ professional experience in tech; I was building solutions that were hosted in A SERVER ROOM that I could walk into to check the servers, in the same building as the office, for the first 6 or 7 years of my career. If you wanted more processing, you had to buy a server yourself and plug it in. (this was brilliant fun, by the way.)
Then I worked at companies that outsourced this to a hosting provider like Rackspace; you could still walk into the server room to check the servers, but now there were hundreds of other companies’ systems also on similar servers. If you wanted more processing, you had to raise a purchase order to get a new server added to your rack. (not so much fun)
I’m a proponent of being responsible for the things that differentiate your business, and handing the responsibility of other things to companies who specialise in the rest – the example above being “there’s usually very little benefit in managing the hosting of your own services” (even if it is fun).
After this, companies were moving to the cloud. You could no longer walk into a server room (well, you kinda could, if you got a data centre tour), but getting more processing power was instant. (Still fun, but in a different way.)
If you’re an ecommerce company, unless you’re doing something terribly wrong you really don’t need much processing power for the website. And that website can be hosted anywhere you like, easily deployed, and scaled up, without you really needing to manage anything yourself; the differentiator is your customer’s experience on your flashy website and the underlying hosting is managed for you. Platform as a Service is lovely. Maybe make it serverless, so things can totally scale to nothing and save you money. Very cool stuff.
Kubernetes, on the other hand requires an awful lot of management. It’s still “aaS”, but not really Platform. It’s awesome that you can create “netflix-scale” solutions, but very very very few companies need “netflix-scale”. In fact, most ecommerce companies probably just need “Shopify”, to be honest, and that’s another article for another time.
Cloud providers offer excellent solutions for hosting all manner of services; “Functions as a Service”, “containeris(z)ed” apps, or even “I don’t care what it is under the hood, just take this web application and make it highly available without asking me difficult questions”.
These Cloud providers also support Kubernetes, which is lovely and open sourced, held aloft by the Linux Foundation as part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) since 2016.
Why is this relevant? Why am I studying for the KCNA Kubernetes certification if I think it’s daft that people want to waste their time and effort managing things that we’ve worked so hard to avoid over the past quarter of a century?
GEOPOLITICS, unfortunately.
I hadn’t really appreciated until recently just how much this can affect tech strategies. Thanks to what’s happening in the U.S. these past few months, non-U.S. companies and governments are looking at resilience options that make them less reliant on U.S. tech. For example…
Microsoft admits it ‘cannot guarantee’ data sovereignty
Microsoft says it “cannot guarantee” data sovereignty to customers in France – and by implication the wider European Union – should the Trump administration demand access to customer information held on its servers.
At a French Senate hearing in June, 2025, Microsoft France’s legal director Anton Carniaux was asked directly whether he could guarantee that French citizens’ data would never be transferred to US authorities without explicit authorisation. His answer: “No, I cannot guarantee that.”
Carniaux went further, effectively summarising his own position as: “If we are compelled, we hand over the data.”
France to ditch US Platforms Microsoft Teams, Zoom over security concerns
The move is part of France’s strategy to stop using foreign software vendors, especially those from the United States, and regain control over critical digital infrastructure. It comes at a crucial moment as France, like Europe, reaches a turning point regarding digital sovereignty.
International Criminal Court kicks Microsoft Office to the curb
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is ditching Microsoft Office for a European software alternative amid mounting fears about being reliant on US technology.
The International Criminal Court ditched Microsoft Office entirely – concerns intensified after Microsoft’s admission it cannot guarantee European data sovereignty under the US CLOUD Act, which allows Washington access to data held by American companies regardless of where it’s physically stored.
German state ditches Windows, Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice
Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s most northern state, is starting its switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, and is planning to move from Windows to Linux on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions.
Gartner Survey Reveals Geopolitics Will Drive 61% of CIOs and IT Leaders in Western Europe to Increase Reliance on Local Cloud Providers
Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions, organizations in Western Europe are increasingly worried about their digital sovereignty – having their data, operations, and technology hosted by foreign cloud providers and relying on foreign cloud infrastructure. Gartner predicts that by 2030, more than 75% of all enterprises outside of the U.S. will have a digital sovereignty strategy, supported by a sovereign cloud strategy.
What does this have to do with Kubernetes?
If you, like me, are not in the U.S., and if you, like me, are keen to keep the clients and companies you work for focussing on the thing that differentiates them from competitors and not on writing software unnecessarily, then you – like me – might find “EU alternatives” interesting.
The Upside
You can find alternatives to Azure and AWS and loads of others on the European Alternatives site!
It tells you if the company is based in an EU, EEA, EFTA, or DCFTA member country or in the UK; if the company has a parent or holding company, you can see if this company is also based in an EU, EEA, EFTA, or DCFTA member country or in the UK.
It also – most importantly – says if the core services are hosted on servers in the EU or servers are operated by EU based companies (incl. parent companies), and says if they’re using sustainable energy, which is a nice touch.
The Downside
None match AWS/Azure/GCP on managed services breadth, AI/ML tooling, global reach, or enterprise support maturity. Though one French provider – Scaleway – has Functions as a Service, which is fantastic! (given that lambdas and azure function apps are basically a code repo with a well-defined entry point, then I don’t expect this would be a huge migration effort, other than the triggering of them)
However…
K8s is where the gap closes most – almost all EU alternatives support it, and workloads are genuinely portable if containerised properly. This means that Kubernetes is effectively the lingua franca of the European cloud, which makes it the most pragmatic portability layer available right now.
Here’s what I found when I actually went and looked: the full list of alternatives that have managed kubernetes runs to 14 providers, including CNCF-certified options like 
SysEleven MetaKube.
1. Worth a serious conversation
Those with scale, financial backing, or maturity that makes them credible in an enterprise procurement context:
OVHcloud (largest European provider, battle-tested)- Stackit (Schwarz Group backing – Lidl/Kaufland parent – gives it a stability backstop most others lack)
- Open Telekom Cloud (Deutsche Telekom – another serious corporate parent)
2. Strong on portability, lighter on enterprise features
Solid K8s support, but you’d want to look carefully at support maturity and service breadth:
- Scaleway (notable: has Functions as a Service, which could close the migration gap)
Upcloud
Exoscale (worth noting: Swiss, EFTA not EU – matters depending on your sovereignty requirements)
Elastx
Almost every provider offering a full cloud platform supports managed K8s. Those that don’t list it (Seeweb, Aruba, IONOS) are more basic VPS/IaaS offerings.
EU hosting providers alone are not enough – a cautionary tale…
Dutch cloud firm Solvinity taken over by US IT giant Kyndryl
The sale of Dutch cloud services firm Solvinity to American IT giant Kyndryl has caused alarm within national and local government because it undermines efforts to reduce dependence on US technology companies and safeguard control over sensitive data
So even if you decide to go all-in with an EU cloud host, using their cloud-native capabilities, there’s no guarantee that the cloud provider will stay in the EU; investing in a portable technology is key.
This why I’m going through the KCNA certification now, even though I’ve argued against it for such a long time.
Why Kubernetes makes sense now
Portability only has value if you might actually need to move. For the past decade that was theoretical. It isn’t anymore.
This is now a thing I factor into the conversations I’m having with clients about cloud strategy, which is not something I expected to be saying about Kubernetes a year ago.
Here’s what I’d suggest: if you’re non U.S. based, you’re running on a single U.S. hyperscaler, and you haven’t had a conversation about this yet – that’s the conversation to have. Not “migrate everything to EU cloud”, just “have you assessed your exposure?”
If your cloud provider got a subpoena tomorrow, who in your organisation would know about it, and what would happen next?