In the first part of our ‘EU Sovereign Cloud’ series, we examined the compliance and governance models of the hyperscalers AWS, Microsoft and Google for Europe and compared them with those of European cloud providers. In this part, we focus on the practical feasibility of replicating common cloud services based on Microsoft Azure within the European sovereign clouds: IONOS Cloud, STACKIT (Schwarz IT), Open Telekom Cloud (OTC) and OVHcloud. The aim is to realistically assess service coverage, critical feature gaps and the complexity of migrating from Azure to these providers.
Contents
- Overview: Azure vs. EU sovereign clouds
- Comparison of service coverage
- Feature gaps and migration complexity
- Conclusion: Who stands to benefit from migration?
- Outlook: Practical implementation in detail
Overview: Azure vs. EU sovereign clouds
With its vast portfolio and GDPR-compliant localisation within the EU,Microsoft Azure remains a benchmark for complex cloud architectures. Nevertheless, despite compliance initiatives, there are still dependencies on US law (the CLOUD Act), which poses a residual risk for highly sensitive data.
As European alternatives,IONOS Cloud, STACKIT, OTC and OVHcloud offer full data residency within the EU, strict data protection standards and a growing range of services. But how closely do they match Azure in practice? And what are the stumbling blocks when it comes to migration?
A comparison of service coverage
The complete feature matrix in Excel format can be downloaded here:
Compute, Storage & Network: The basics are covered
All four EU providers offer the classic Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) building blocks: virtual machines (VMs), block and object storage, load balancers, network segmentation, managed Kubernetes and availability zones are standard.
- IONOS Cloud stands out with its simple pricing structure, strict data retention policies and a solid feature set. The key compute, storage and networking services are all covered.
- STACKIT offers a modern set of core services (Kubernetes, databases, secrets, volumes) and is suitable for typical enterprise workloads.
- Open Telekom Cloud impresses with a very broad stack that covers almost all basic Azure components – from VMs and object storage to more complex network services.
- OVHcloud also offers a comprehensive stack, albeit with fewer features than OTC
- Conclusion: For traditional IT workloads (VMs, databases, containers, storage), migrating from Azure to EU sovereign clouds is technically feasible and involves a manageable amount of customisation.
Platform and specialised services: where the gaps become apparent
Databases & storage
- Relational databases (PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MySQL) are available as managed services from all providers.
- NoSQL: MongoDB is offered as a Database as a Service (DBaaS) by IONOS, STACKIT and OVHcloud. OTC offers a similar solution with GeminiDB.
- Blob/Object Storage: S3-compatible object storage services are available from all providers
- Cold storage/archiving: Only OTC and OVHcloud offer dedicated cold storage and archiving features. STACKIT offers only a REST-based archiving solution.
Containers & Serverless
- Container orchestration: Managed Kubernetes is standard across all providers. STACKIT also offers an isolated solution with Confidential Kubernetes.
- Container Registry: Private container registries are available from all providers.
- Serverless Computing: Only OTC offers a native service with ‘FunctionGraph’. IONOS, STACKIT and OVHcloud do not offer true serverless solutions.
Messaging & Stream Processing
- Messaging: OTC and STACKIT offer RabbitMQ; OTC also offers Kafka. IONOS supports Kafka as an event stream. OVHcloud also offers Kafka. However, none of the providers offer Azure-style services such as Event Hub or Event Grid.
- Stream Processing: OTC offers services comparable to Azure Stream Analytics with its ‘Distributed Message Service’ and ‘Data Lake Insight’, whilst OVHcloud offers similar services via its ‘Data Platform’. IONOS and STACKIT do not have native solutions in this area.
AI/ML and Advanced Analytics
AI/ML: OTC offers a wide range of services with ‘ModelArts’ and ‘AI Foundation Services’, which are comparable to Azure Machine Learning and Cognitive Services. Similar tools are also available from OVHcloud. IONOS and STACKIT offer initial LLM and AI model serving services, but do not provide complete ML ecosystems.
Big Data: OTC has a mature offering with ‘Data Lake Insight (DLI)’ and MapReduce services, whilst OVHcloud offers ‘Data Platform’. IONOS and STACKIT are not yet on a par in this area.
Governance, Security & Observability
- Identity & Access Management (IAM): All providers offer IAM, but not to the same extent as Azure with Entra ID and fine-grained role-based access control (RBAC). IONOS does not have service accounts; technical users must be managed manually.
- Secrets Management: STACKIT and OVHcloud offer dedicated secrets managers. IONOS and OTC do not have native secrets management.
- Monitoring & Logging: Basic monitoring and logging stacks (Prometheus/Grafana, Loki, LogMe, Cloud Eye) are available from all providers.
- Policy Management: Comprehensive governance tools such as Azure Policy or Azure Blueprints are only available to a limited extent, or are completely absent, among the EU providers under consideration.
Feature gaps and migration complexity
Typical gaps
- Serverless/FaaS: Completely absent from IONOS, STACKIT and OVHcloud. Applications based on Azure Functions must be ported to containers or VMs.
- Secret management: No native service available on IONOS or OTC – applications must manage secrets using alternative methods (e.g. via self-hosted OpenBao).
- Stream processing: Real-time data processing (e.g. Azure Stream Analytics) can only be implemented natively with OTC.
- Advanced Governance: Azure-specific features such as policy enforcement, cost management and Security Centre are either missing or available only in a rudimentary form.
Migration scenarios
- Lift & Shift (traditional VMs, databases): Minimal customisation required, as the core services are available everywhere.
- Containerised apps (Kubernetes-centric): Minimal effort required; all EU clouds offer a managed Kubernetes solution
- Cloud-native services (Functions, EventHub, Big Data): Significant customisation effort required, as many Azure services cannot be mapped on a 1:1 basis. Alternatives must be evaluated and, where necessary, applications must be re-engineered.
- Automation/provisioning: All providers offer Terraform providers and APIs, but the depth of features and stability vary.
Potential architectural adjustments
- Serverless to containers: Event-driven workloads must be ported to container- or VM-based solutions.
- Secret management: Without a native secret manager, adjustments are required in the deployment and within the application.
- Monitoring/Alerting: Comprehensive security and compliance monitoring, such as that provided by Azure Sentinel, must be set up independently.
Conclusion: Who stands to benefit from the migration?
IONOS Cloud is suitable for traditional IT requirements where data protection, cost and simplicity are the main priorities. For highly sensitive data and standard workloads, the migration is technically feasible – provided that no specialised Azure services are required.
STACKIT positions itself as a reliable partner for German companies with high data protection requirements. The platform already covers the core areas of modern IT architectures and is systematically expanding its service portfolio. For more complex cloud-native features, STACKIT is working to bridge feature gaps – an approach driven by partnerships and customer feedback.
Open Telekom Cloud is the European provider whose feature set most closely aligns with Azure’s. Even complex use cases (AI/ML, big data, stream processing) can be accommodated, although the pricing model is less transparent.
OVHcloud is one of Europe’s largest cloud providers and offers a very comprehensive service stack, which is comparable to OTC’s offering in many areas. The platform is geared towards transparency and compliance and is particularly suitable for companies with high data protection and regulatory requirements.
Azure therefore remains the benchmark for highly integrated, cloud-native architectures and specialised services – albeit with the familiar trade-off between sovereignty and compliance.
Outlook: Practical implementation in detail
Whilst this overview provides a strategic context, the concluding part of our series gets down to specifics: a real-world migration of an AI application from Azure to an EU cloud demonstrates how the feature gaps, architectural adjustments and migration complexities analysed here play out in a real-world project.
Do you have any questions or need assistance?
Are you trying to define the optimal path for your business and secure your digital sovereignty? As an experienced partner, we can help you navigate this complexity, make the right decisions and successfully implement your bespoke cloud strategy. Contact us or find out more about cloud transformation on our website.
