OSBA and member companies establish the SCS Standards Forum
Berlin, 23 October 2024: The Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS) provides all the cloud technology essentials for achieving digital sovereignty and implementing open-source strategies, giving users control over their data. The research project, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) and carried out by the Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA), will end as planned on 31 December 2024. The OSBA and 14 of its member companies have already ensured that the key results will be secured for the long term and that the standards will be further developed.
The Sovereign Cloud Stack will continue to be professionally developed and made available to the cloud market even after the project phase, which was financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection with around €13.2 million. The OSBA and 14 member companies of the association to date will establish the SCS Standards Forum on 1 January 2025. This association within the OSBA will be responsible for standards and certifications as well as their respective further developments in the future. This will ensure that quality assurance is sustainably guaranteed in the future. All users of the Sovereign Cloud Stack, including the entire ecosystem around SCS, can thus be sure that they are using future-proof cloud technology.
„In the IT industry, SCS stands for quality, transparency, interoperability and interchangeability. In order to protect these values, a key core area, namely standardisation and certification, will be continued in the newly founded SCS Standards Forum,“ explains Peter Ganten, Chairman of the OSBA.
14 strong partners are involved
„SCS must continue to be developed even without government subsidies. Because if we succeed in improving market conditions and making the offerings of different cloud service providers interoperable and federable through common standards, then the German and European cloud economy as a whole will benefit and be successful in the long term. That is why our companies are investing their time and money,“ explains one of the forum's two interim spokespersons, Marius Feldmann from Cloud&Heat Technologies.
To date, the 14 companies have collectively committed to an annual budget of €257,000. And that's not all: other companies have already expressed interest in supporting the SCS concept and the common standards. The founding members to date (in alphabetical order) are:
- artcodix Ltd.
- B1-Systems Limited Company
- Cloud&Heat Technologies Ltd.
- Dataport Public Limited Company
- dNation, Ltd.
- OSISM Ltd.
- plusserver Ltd.
- ScaleUp Technologies Limited Partnership
- secunet Security Networks Ltd.
- STACKXPERTS Limited Company
- SysEleven Limited Company
- Syself Ltd.
- Wavecon Limited
- Yorizon Limited
The founding members of the SCS Forum are members of the OSBA association, but other members can also join as designers, consultants or sponsors. Accordingly, different membership fees are paid, which are also graded according to company size.
The founding members are already working closely together, two and a half months before the official launch. The founding members are cloud service providers, data centres, integrators, developers, security and training experts.
„Our goal is to adopt the results of the SCS project on SCS standards on 1 January 2025 and then be fully operational. From 2025 onwards, we want to be able to carry out certifications and award companies that meet the demanding requirements of the SCS standards,“ explains the forum's second interim spokesperson, Ralph Dehner from B1 Systems.
Cooperation on standardisation strengthens the market
„The commitment of the founding members to the SCS Standards Forum within the OSBA firmly anchors the non-profit approach, the openness of the standards and equal access for all market participants. This is a significant contribution to digital sovereignty in Germany and Europe,“ comments Peter Ganten, CEO of the OSBA, thanking the companies involved.
The SCS Standards Forum is open to new members. Interested parties should register at forum-scs-standards@osb-alliance.com.
Further links:
- Sovereign Cloud Stack
- Technical documentation SCS
- SCS Repositories
- SCS's understanding of digital sovereignty
About the Sovereign Cloud Stack project
SCS has been funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) since July 2021 and is based at the Open Source Business Alliance – Federal Association for Digital Sovereignty e.V. A growing international ecosystem of more than 25 companies with over 50 software developers is contributing to the success of the Sovereign Cloud Stack, in collaboration with thousands of developers in the upstream communities at the OpenInfra Foundation, Cloud Native Computing Foundation and others. There is also a partnership with ALASCA e.V.. Together, open standards for a modern, federatable open-source cloud and container platform are defined and implemented in an open development process using proven open-source components. At the same time, operational knowledge and practices are made transparently accessible in order to minimise the difficulties involved in providing high-quality and secure cloud services. Six providers are already using SCS technology productively to operate truly sovereign and GDPR-compliant public cloud offerings. Further SCS-based cloud infrastructures (public and private clouds) are under construction. SCS also contributes to Gaia-X and provides the development platform for the Gaia-X Federation Services / Cross-Federation Service Components (GXFS/XFSC).
About the Open Source Business Alliance – Federal Association for Digital Sovereignty e.V.
The Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA) is the association of the open source industry in Germany. It represents over 200 member companies that generate more than EUR 126 billion annually. Together with scientific institutions and user organisations, it is committed to raising public awareness of the central importance of open source software and open standards for successful digital transformation. It also aims to promote innovation in the field of open source. The goal of the OSB Alliance is to establish open source as the standard in public procurement and in research and economic development. This is because open source and open standards are essential foundations for digital sovereignty, innovation and security in the digital transformation, and thus the answer to one of the greatest challenges of our time.
Contact:
Open Source Business Alliance – Federal Association for Digital Sovereignty e.V. Pariser Platz 6a 10117 Berlin
Lisa Reisch Press Officer OSBA Tel.: +49 (30) 300 149 3377 E-mail internet
