Tech, Sovereignty And The Role Of Open Source: Considerations For CIOs

Forbes

5 days ago

Ann Schlemmer, CEO at Percona.
Sovereignty is a complex concept. It influences a country's status within the global political landscape and the actions it can take within national and international law. Nations compete and collaborate to bolster their economies. Each country must determine how open it is to attracting investment and how it intends to support businesses operating within its borders to ensure their success.
Sovereignty also affects technology decisions. In the past, chief information officers (CIOs) had to ensure their organizations followed compliance rules on data privacy, such as where customer data is stored, where it is processed and what happens to it over time. Today, decisions around sovereignty can affect which technology providers companies choose to use. Should they buy software, services or infrastructure from big international firms or from suppliers in their local economy?
IDC estimated that companies will spend $258.5 billion on sovereign cloud solutions by 2027, as organizations want to control where their workloads run and where their data is stored. Governments are investing in this area too. The European Union, for example, created its AI continent action plan to mobilize an estimated 200 billion euros in investment, including AI gigafactories to support startups, industry expansion and research work across the region.
These projects aim to support local economies and defend against volatile market changes. But when it comes to choosing technology tools that meet countries' sovereignty requirements, what factors do CIOs need to concentrate on?
My company provides solutions for open-source databases, and we're finding that in this environment, CIOs want to reduce potential risk to their organizations, but they also don't want to kick off extensive migration projects if they don't have to. For the CIOs we have spoken to, the challenge here is how to find the right balance between understanding the issues and knowing the timescales they may have to work with if a migration is needed. This makes planning ahead essential.
Planning Ahead On Sovereignty
In the past, the moves around sovereignty for technology have been concerned with how to handle data. For example, regulations in a country could require storing citizens' data on systems that are located in that country for data privacy. There are also regional customer data security policies, like the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As long as companies worldwide understand what rules they have to meet, the market provides a range of options to support compliance.
However, as markets fracture due to geopolitical changes, sovereignty around technology overall has become more challenging. Relying on companies that are headquartered in different regions could potentially lead to problems if governments dictate that compute and workloads can only be hosted locally. For instance, technology companies across Europe have advocated for more 'buy European' regulations from the EU, including the creation of a European technology stack.
This focus on the tech stack marks a huge change for CIOs. Should they carry on with the plans and partners they have in place? Or should they start planning for possible migrations?
The Potential Role Of Open Source
To make the best decisions for the future, I encourage technology leaders to look at how to future-proof their approach and avoid lock-in, rather than looking at sovereignty as a zero-sum game.
This is an area where open-source software has a long history. Open-source software makes software available to anyone to use for the purposes they see fit. Users can modify or update that software to better meet their needs, and they can get support or services around that software locally if that is required, rather than being beholden to specific suppliers that are outside the sovereign tech environment.
For CIOs, running open-source software means workloads can be implemented where they need to be without a full-scale re-architecture project. The software can run regardless of who provides the infrastructure or support, and the same database or application can run on a different cloud or data center in a different location if needed. Open source's protection against lock-in may also help guard against some geopolitical shifts that might otherwise force organizations to change their tech stacks.
Key Considerations
However, it's important to note that while open-source software generally does not have restrictions on where it can be used, legal restrictions in your country of origin may still apply. For example, software developers in the U.S. may still be affected by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions.
Additionally, open-source software is only one part of the equation. Beyond the software itself, you will have to consider what hardware the software is hosted on and whether it connects to your company's other applications or services. While the software's components may be available as open-source, they still have to support the right business logic to function. That logic is developed over years and has to be re-created if you want to move from one platform to another.
Moreover, open-source software is, in theory, available for everyone to use, but it may need to be compiled from code. This is time-consuming, which is why companies often prefer to get versions compiled for them or use proprietary software instead. Knowing the level of support you might need to help you build and run these applications is something to keep in mind to determine whether it's the right option for your company.
The world economy continues to change rapidly. As governments respond and policies evolve, these changes filter down to companies that then have to consider changes in their strategies and where they invest their resources. Open-source software can help companies reduce risk around lock-in and sovereign technology changes, though organizations may need to prepare for challenges along the way to maximize the benefits of these tools.
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