Cloud sovereignty in 2026 is a financial question as much as a compliance one. In this webinar, Fedir Kompaniiets and Roman Burdiuzha of Gart Solutions break down where hyperscaler costs hide, which organisations genuinely need a sovereign cloud, how to calculate the ROI of moving, and a phased plan for doing it safely.
Published: 18 March 2026
Who it is for: CFOs, CTOs, founders and infrastructure leaders weighing whether to stay on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud or move workloads to European providers.
Key takeaways
- GDPR is about how personal data is protected, not where it is stored, so US hyperscalers can be GDPR compliant. Sovereignty requirements come from sector rules such as DORA and NIS2, and from public contracts.
- In the speakers’ experience, around 40% of companies they assess do not need a full sovereignty migration, and spending on one would destroy value.
- The ROI of moving has three parts: direct savings, avoided risks (fines, outages, lock-in) and transition costs, which are the part most often underestimated.
- Egress fees work like an exit tax. In one example shown, Hetzner bare metal came in roughly 60% cheaper than the equivalent AWS setup, with egress almost eliminated.
- Start with your legal team, not your cloud provider: map the regulations that actually apply before you price any migration.
- Move in three phases: low-risk workloads first, then sensitive and mission-critical systems, then replace proprietary services such as DynamoDB or SageMaker with open-source alternatives.
Timestamps
- 0:11 Introduction
- 3:23 What changed for CTOs and CFOs in 2026
- 5:35 Myths: GDPR, location and “we need to migrate urgently”
- 7:41 Regulatory reality: DORA, NIS2 and the CLOUD Act
- 9:50 Data residency vs data sovereignty
- 10:55 The hidden costs of hyperscalers
- 14:07 Cost example: AWS vs Hetzner bare metal
- 15:09 Comfort traps that feel safe but are not
- 17:15 How to calculate the ROI of moving
- 20:32 Who actually needs sovereignty
- 22:44 A four-step decision framework
- 32:18 Choosing a European provider
- 33:24 Triggers that make migration worth it
- 35:35 Case study: an environmental platform scales on Hetzner
- 37:45 The three-phase transition strategy
- 40:55 Decision tree: do you need to move?
- 43:01 Key takeaways
- 46:18 Q&A: failover between providers and regions
Speakers
- Fedir Kompaniiets, CEO and Co-founder, Gart Solutions
- Roman Burdiuzha, CTO and Co-founder, Gart Solutions
- Anastasiia, host, Gart Solutions
Related resources
- Cloud independence: when it makes business sense
- AWS to Hetzner migration guide
- Digital Sovereignty in Europe: Sovereign Cloud Requirements
- Cloud consulting
Want to discuss how this applies to your infrastructure?
Talk to our team, or browse all Gart Solutions webinars.
