eco Survey on Cloud Expo Europe: Secure, Encrypted and Certified Cloud Offerings Most in Demand

eco Survey: Criteria of trust are what are most important to IT experts when selecting cloud providers
Top 3 criteria are encryption offers (42.6 per cent), quality and security certificates (38.5 per cent) and GDPR compliance (37 per cent)
Trusted IT infrastructures based on Gaia-X Federation Services will be presented by eco at Cloud Expo Europe on 10-11 May – Gaia-X Arena, Stand H040

When selecting cloud services for corporate IT, experts are particularly concerned about the trusted handling of data. This is shown by a Civey survey of 250 IT experts commissioned by eco – Association of the Internet Industry. According to the survey, the most important criterion when selecting cloud services in corporate IT is an encryption offer from the cloud provider (41.5 per cent). What are also seen to be very important are quality and security certificates (36.6 per cent) and the compatibility of the service with the GDPR.

“Anyone looking for a cloud provider is asking for services and resources that are significantly secure, certified and therefore trusted,” states Andreas Weiss, Managing Director at eco Association. “The eco Association is currently launching central software modules as open source software via the Gaia-X Federation Services project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). This allows transparent, sovereign and digital data ecosystems based on European values and standards to become more and more self-evident.” eco will demonstrate this for all to see at Cloud Expo Europe at Stand H040 in the form of a reference implementation of identity management based on self-sovereign identities (SSI) with the Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS). In order to create these and other opportunities for trusted collaboration in data ecosystems, the GXFS provides a toolkit for building Gaia-X federations.

Gaia-X Arena at Stand H040 and eco Community Stand at G040

At Cloud Expo Europe from 10-11 May in Frankfurt, eco will be present together with strong partners: Gaia-X Federation Services (GXFS-DE), coordinated by eco, will be present in the Gaia-X Arena – Stand H040 – as well as Gaia-X AISBL, Gaia-X Hub Germany, the Gaia-X4FutureMobility project group, the German-Austrian project EuProGiant and DeltaDAO. Close to the Gaia-X Stage powered by eco and the Gaia-X exhibitor area, visitors will find the eco joint stand G040 with other exciting companies.

The numerous experts on site will also share their know-how, for example on 11 May in the panel discussion “Framework conditions for the digital ecosystems of tomorrow” in the GreenTech & Energy Efficiency Theatre. What conditions do we need in Germany and Europe for technological innovations such as AI-based chatbots, 5G networking and hybrid working environments? What role do open source and data sovereignty, waste heat recovery, and sustainability goals play here? Roland Broch (eco Association) will discuss this with Dr. Béla Waldhauser from Telehouse Germany, Christian Schmitz, Plusserver GmbH, Jens-Peter Feidner from Equinix Germany, Dr. Eva-Maria Ritter, NetCologne and Thomas Nießen from the Trusted Cloud Competence Network.

The role of Gaia-X in digitalisation

Will the major Internet metropolises of today continue to gain gravit, or will we see an increased shift to the regions in the future? On 10 May, Gerd Simon, Independent Managing Consultant will discuss this with guests in the panel discussion “Where are the Digital Markets of the Future Emerging?”. Frank Zachmann from NorthC Data Center, Andreas Herden from Green Mountain, Christian Zipp from nLighten and Christine Neubauer from Service-Meister will also be on the panel. The Service-Meister project will also host its own panel discussion on “AI-as-a-Service or as a Plug & Play Application – Science Fiction or Reality?”.

A further panel discussion in the Multi-Cloud Strategies & Managed Services Theatre will be headed by the EuroCloud Native (ECN) initiative on Wednesday, 10 May. Starting at 15:50, Falk Borgmann from Deepshore and Dr. Oleg Arenz (IAS TU Darmstadt) will be in discussion with other panelists, moderated by Dr. Nils Kaufmann, under the title “Beyond ChatGPT – With Cloud Technology and AI into the Future”.