Working without US cloud: how far can you get today?

You are sitting at the table with your accountant and he asks where your customer data is actually stored. You start counting. Email at Microsoft, files in OneDrive, the planning in an American app, the newsletter at yet another service. All handy, and almost all American.

Can you get away from that today? For a large part, yes. In this piece we go through, per component, how far you get without US cloud, and which questions you ask your supplier.

Why does it matter where your cloud comes from?

It is less about the location of the server than about the law that applies to it. An American company remains subject to US law, even with a data centre in Europe. The best-known example is the CLOUD Act from 2018 (Public Law 115-141, division V): under it, a valid US order also applies to data outside the United States.

If you want to be less dependent, look at the parent company and not only at the server location. What a sovereign cloud does and does not cover, you can read in our explanation.

There is also a down-to-earth reason. Prices and terms of large platforms change without you having any say in it. The more you lean on one supplier, the more expensive leaving becomes.

What already works today without a US service?

For ordinary office work, you get a long way. Go through your own list like this:

• Mail, calendar and contacts. This is the easiest part. A European provider with IMAP and SMTP works in the apps you already have.
• Files. European storage with sharing and folders is easy to find. Pay attention to synchronisation with your file explorer, because not every service has it.
• Writing documents. That works fine in the browser. Working together in a document at the same time is often less advanced at European services than at Microsoft or Google.
• Chat for the team. There are European alternatives, but your team does have to learn a new app.

Where does it still pinch?

A few things remain difficult:

• Video calling with customers who are on Teams themselves. A European service works, but your customer then opens a link instead of their familiar app.
• Integrations. Your CRM, your accounting or your planning may only talk to Microsoft or Google.
• The layer below your supplier. A European service also often uses American components for its website, its DNS or protection against attacks.

Cloudflare Inc., an American company, handles the CDN, the DNS and the TLS termination of web traffic at Noveu. Our mail server is at Hetzner. For payments we engage Stripe Payments Europe. The current overview is on our list of sub-processors.

Working entirely without a US link is difficult today. Bringing your data itself, your email and your documents under European law is possible.

What you can do tomorrow

1. Make a list of every cloud service you use, including the small ones. Look at your credit card statement; they are all on it.
2. For each service, add the country of the parent company and which data is in it.
3. Choose the component with the most sensitive data and the least hassle. For most businesses, that is email.
4. Ask every new supplier for the list of sub-processors before you sign.

Not sure how to assess a European workplace? Our guide to choosing a sovereign workplace sets out the questions.

Where Noveu fits

Noveu Werkplek stores your data and backups in a Hetzner data centre in Falkenstein, Germany. Cloudflare (US) sits at the edge of the network. You use:

• Mail, calendar and contacts. You invite colleagues and external addresses to an appointment.
• Notes, files and documents.
• Messages (beta).
• Noveu Meet via a link (beta).

What each subscription costs per month is on the pricing page.