Techzine Talks on Tour

VMware bets big on sovereign clouds built on VCF

Coen or Sander Season 1 Episode 23

Sovereign clouds have been all the rage over the past years, especially in Europe. Public cloud providers and vendors focusing on private clouds alike talk about it a lot. One of the major players when it comes to private clouds, VMware also chimes in. During VMware Explore Europe we sat down with Rajeev Bhardwaj, who heads VMware's CSP business, to hear more about it. What makes it different and interesting for companies to go for this VCF-based sovereign cloud option? 
 
When it comes to sovereign clouds, it can get quite confusing very quickly. If all kinds of players on the market claim to have the perfect solution, this raises several questions. One fundamental question is what a sovereign cloud actually is. There are no real standards for it, but there are some general tenets. Think of things like local data residency, jurisdictional control, and local ownership. These form the backbone of sovereign clouds. We dive into the complexities of jurisdictional nuances. We also discuss whether we need standardized guidelines from entities like the European Commission.

From a VMware perspective, VMware Cloud Foundation plays an important role in the sovereign cloud discussion. The idea behind this cloud stack is that everything that has to do with sovereign clouds can be integrated into it from the ground up. Rajeev and with him VMware see the company playing a pivotal role in the sovereign cloud discussion. 

Whether VMware will be and remain a major driver of the sovereign cloud remains to be seen of course. That depends on many factors. However, the concept of sovereign cloud does match Broadcom CEO Hock Tan's often-quoted statement that the future of cloud is private very well. Sovereign clouds and private clouds will share many characteristics. Especially when you add Private AI into the mix (another key target for VMware), it could very well be a big part of VMware's future.  


Speaker 1:

Welcome to this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour. I'm at VMware Explore Europe and I'm here with Rajiv Bhardwaj. You're the head of CSP business for VMware, that's correct. Welcome to the show, thank you, and we're going to talk about sovereign clouds. That's a big topic this week at VMware Explore, but it's a big topic, especially in Europe, obviously has been for a couple of years. So let's start a couple of a couple of years. So let's start with sort of a generic question. So what exactly is a sovereign cloud? Because we hear a lot of stuff coming out also from hyperscalers and you know everybody has a story on sovereign cloud. So what's your, what's your truth when it comes?

Speaker 2:

to sovereign cloud. Yeah, it's. It's a really good question and one that you know there's a lot of questions coming to us. Unfortunately, there is no standard or a definition of a sovereign cloud. However, there are a few guiding principles of what a sovereign cloud is. First and foremost, sovereign cloud is, first and foremost. It's all about local residency, the data residency, the data being locally resident. Both data and the metadata are resident in the sovereign nation, in the sovereign soil. Second thing is about jurisdiction control. No foreign entity should have jurisdictional access on the data residing in a third party sovereign environment. That's the second criteria. Third, one is about ownership. The sovereign cloud should be locally owned by a local entity, so that an external entity that has a majority interest in a sovereign cloud should not be able to influence the operation of a of a sovereign cloud.

Speaker 1:

Are those agreed upon criteria or are those the criteria that VMware uses for sovereign cloud? Because when you say this, that immediately disqualifies a lot of sovereign cloud. Because when you say this, that immediately disqualifies a lot of sovereign cloud initiatives from the hyperscalers of this world. Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, look, there is no. Like I said, there is no standard for sovereign cloud. It comes down to data, the classification of data, what data is truly sovereign, what? And again, you know, even in a sovereign right there should be.

Speaker 2:

Some data is mission critical, some data is, you know, super secure right and some data, even though it's a public sector entity maybe it's a little less secure, maybe it's, you know, it doesn't have to have meet the same sovereign requirements. So the way we look at sovereign clouds, for a cloud to be sovereign, it must meet these requirements. You're right. Some of the hyperscalers, many of the hyperscalers, are looking to address the needs of public sector entities, government entities, and they are coming up with their own solutions, own definitions of sovereign. But it really comes down to what data is being managed and if I'm a government entity, I don't want any jurisdiction control, external jurisdiction control by definition it doesn't qualify.

Speaker 1:

Is there some sort of thing going on where all clouds are sovereign, that they call themselves sovereign clouds, but some are more? It doesn't qualify. Is there some sort of thing going on where all clouds are sovereign, that call themselves sovereign clouds, but some are more sovereign than others? So maybe there's. So the sovereign clouds of others, for example the hyperscalers, are suitable for a certain subsection of the markets, whereas your sovereign cloud is maybe suitable for other sections of the market, or how does that work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you know our approach is look, we can't. You know, the approach we've taken is for a cloud to be sovereign. Those are the principles we talked about. Right, it's about residency, it's about jurisdiction control, it's about, you know, local entities owning it. It's about local operations. It's about local entities owning it. It's about local operations. It's about local support. So I think our view is that data which is sovereign should follow those principles.

Speaker 2:

Now, a lot of other cloud providers, because they're trying to play in this market, rightfully so, they're coming up with their own definition. For example, they'll say, hey, data residency, I'll keep the data local, but they are subject to foreign jurisdiction control. So external government agencies because these cloud providers are in a different country, the jurisdiction control from those countries can give them access. So our view is a for for data to be sovereign, a clock to be sovereign. There should be no external jurisdiction controls, right? So so we are taking a very, you know, strict approach. Guiding principles are hello, it is foreign data. Data, by definition. When it's sovereign, it's owned by a public sector entity, its own. The data is owned by a government agency.

Speaker 1:

That's why it's sovereign data, but those are the target audiences of your sovereign cloud, I would imagine. Right. So public sector governments, public sector public sector governments Regulated industries Regulated entities.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it could be a state-owned bank. It could be a utility, it could be a power company. These are all mission-critical infrastructure that supports a nation and if the data is not accessible right or gets compromised, then it impacts the sovereign operation, so that really sets you apart from the others, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because that was one of my questions as well. How do you differ? But I think you've more or less answered that question, because I think, especially for listeners, it's very important to understand, right? Because on the one hand, all the others build the market as well, so they develop the market as well, but it can cause some confusion, I would imagine, for customers. Do you encounter that, emma?

Speaker 2:

Most definitely right. You know, look, everybody calls their offering sovereign because there's no definition. So we need to work with our end customers, we work with our service providers to highlight if the data is sovereign, then it must follow those principles.

Speaker 1:

Do you think we need some standards? I mean, I know that the European Commission has had some sort of guiding principles I think about I'm not sure what they're called in official EU language, but about what constitutes a sovereign plan, but do you think we need some standards in this respect?

Speaker 2:

It certainly will help right, it certainly will help guide right, because it will avoid. You use the word guiding principle. I think that's the most important one. I think guiding principles coming from some entity would certainly help, because then a lot of customers, a lot of service providers, they'll know hey, look to be sovereign this is what it is and it removes all the confusion in the market.

Speaker 1:

And let's take a step back and look at how this started at VMware, because basically, the software-defined kind of approach that VMware has had ever since it was founded over 20 years ago has always been sort of you could always use that to build a software and cloud, right, yeah, but it's not been. From what I can recall, in all my years covering VMware, it's not necessarily always been a focus of VMware. So could you just talk me through, talk us through, how this started? So I would imagine GDPR is probably a big driver.

Speaker 2:

So I think you're right. You know a lot of government agencies, public sector entities, regulated customers operating in regulated environments but deploying private clouds on-prem yeah, in their data centers and with all the securities and controls already in place no issues of jurisdiction control, no issue of data residency right, locally. They were supporting it, they were managing it, so it kind of fit a sovereign environment, right. But then what we started seeing is a lot of customers because with the coming of cloud, a lot of customers wanted the flexibility of the cloud, they wanted to leverage the scale, they wanted to leverage the innovation of clouds.

Speaker 2:

So customers were happy with what they had on-prem but said, hey, look, I want to get private cloud as a service. That took them on to a public cloud, vmware, power Cloud or Hyperscaler Cloud. And that's when it started becoming an issue. Hey, it was working great on-prem, now I want to go to a cloud. And many of the customers assumed when I say when I move to a cloud, if, and somebody a public cloud provider saying it's data isn't it's sovereign, they assumed that my data is going to stay locally resident. But little did they know a lot of metadata and data was going outside the sovereign nation.

Speaker 1:

And even VMware's VMware on AWS, azure, google those approaches. They didn't suffice for that purpose, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So our approach was always these are the CS cloud service providers, who are, like we discussed, are local entities. They own the sovereign cloud, they manage it, they support it locally and none of the data leaves the sovereign nation and there's no external jurisdiction control. So the approach we took was the on-prem customers are really happy with the on-prem private clouds with all the sovereign controls that they get, by definition. We took the same approach and said hey, how about we make sure our cloud service providers in Europe and in Asia can deliver on the same principles? Ie, they own the infrastructure, the data resides within their cloud, there is no external jurisdiction control and it's supported by the local residents. So that's how we took. Pretty much it's a lift and shift. We take a working private cloud with all the benefits now delivered as a service through our sovereign cloud providers.

Speaker 1:

And just out of curiosity, it's been about so ever since the acquisition it's been about VCF, right, that's sort of the north star of VMware nowadays. How does that story around VCF and the developments over the past couple of years, how does that play into this kind of story?

Speaker 2:

I think VCF is the platform of building private clouds. So it has compute networking, storage, automation. It has all the innovation with Kubernetes runtime Kubernetes. You can add private AI capabilities on top. You can add security capabilities on top. So that's really what we call is the core, the kernel of how you build private clouds. So our on-prem customers are building their clouds on-prem using VCF and our CSPs sovereign CSPs CSPs are offering sovereign cloud, are standardizing and offering private clouds based on VCF with sovereign controls built in.

Speaker 1:

So that's basically because I wanted to talk about the components of the sovereign cloud. But that's basically the only component you need, I would imagine, or not?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think VCF is the building block, that's the foundation for building a sovereign cloud. But in addition to that there's a set of what we call as sovereign criteria. You know, anybody can take VCF, but if that data is subject to external jurisdiction control or data is not low you know data and metadata leaves the sovereign nation then it's not sovereign. So what you've done is you've said, hey, CSPs would deploy VCF, and you know, and then they self attest these checkpoints. We have a 10 checkpoint list and checkpoints are you need to make sure data residency requirements are met. Jurisdiction control requirements are met. Local entity owned by a local entity is met. Jurisdiction control requirements are met. Local entity owned by a local entity is met, supported by a local entity. Making sure customers have the ability to bring their own keys so that they have control on the data. Making sure there is DR sites available.

Speaker 2:

So those are like 10 criteria we've listed to enable our CSPs to set up sovereign clouds. And then, if I'm a customer, then I have the confidence that, hey, it is powered by VCF and it meets these 10 criteria.

Speaker 1:

Are those criteria or are those requirements? For example, looking at keys, right, I mean, that's something that if you want to be able to say, I have a proper sovereign, I have sovereignty over my data and over my, then it should be a requirement that you, you own your own keys. It shouldn't, should never be with somebody else.

Speaker 2:

It's a criteria requirement, you can call it whatever. It is a requirement for you to be, a test for you to be classified as a sovereign cloud provider. You have to meet these 10 requirements.

Speaker 1:

so, basically, you're setting the standards Because we talked about standards, earlier Guidelines, I would say guidelines.

Speaker 2:

So now, if I'm a customer, I can now go and say, okay, this is a sovereign cloud provider running on VMware VCF stack meeting these following requirements. So now I have trust and confidence that when my workload moves there, it meets these guidelines.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so what are the questions that companies need to ask? I would imagine they're part of this sort of 10 guidelines as well, right, but they probably don't know that beforehand, those 10 guidelines. So I think, especially for our listeners who are thinking about this but and they meet a service provider who says, oh, I can, I can do this for you, but what are the questions they should ask from from from from their service providers?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think you know the first. The first question right is really hey look, if I'm a public sector entity, I need to, and let's say I'm operating somewhere in Europe. Let's say, pick your country. Who is the who? I go to a Broadcom site. Who is the sovereign cloud provider serving my on my sovereign soil? So you get a list of cloud providers who are certified or who are offering you certify.

Speaker 2:

There's a self-attested, we give guidelines. Okay, yeah, and the self-attest. So now the CSPs are listed. So I'm a public sector entity, I contact the CSP and then, at least when I start having the conversation, I know that, look, there is a set of guidelines already met by the service provider. But that may not be enough. So that tells me, okay, the basic things are met. Now I'll have a conversation with the service provider. Okay, you have a full stack VCF. I'm coming to you. I need to run both modern workloads and traditional workloads. So do you have? Is your service supporting Kubernetes? As an example, I want you know AI ML. Kind of support Do you have? You know AI ML? So at that point of time it becomes the next level of capabilities on top, but the core. Before I start having a discussion, I know I have the trust and the confidence. Look, there's a baseline of sovereign capabilities offered by the service provider.

Speaker 1:

Just to be clear when you go for one of those service providers, you are going for VCF, right? So you cannot say I only want naked fees for you and I want something else. That's not happening, right.

Speaker 2:

In CSPs, the way we have structured our sovereign cloud provider program. Now we have structured our sovereign cloud provider program. Now all cloud, all CSPs, the cloud service providers, are building their offerings on VCF. Vcf is the foundation for building.

Speaker 1:

I just wanted to make that clear because maybe, especially when companies are maybe thinking about moving towards one of those sovereign clouds and they're not necessarily into VCF yet they may want to know about what actually happens when they do it.

Speaker 2:

And there are two models right. One you know you like, some of the customers may not have experience on-prem on VCF when they move into a sovereign cloud. It could be because this is a cloud service providers fully managed by the cloud service provider. It's a managed service.

Speaker 1:

So I, as a customer, really don't, you don't know you're actually what I'm doing Using VMware or VCF at all.

Speaker 2:

You get the same experience of VCF, but I'm not managing the infrastructure, I'm not exposed to the underlying components, it's abstracted from me, it's delivered as a service to me. So that's one model. Other model is hey, I'm a government agency, I'll manage it myself, but I don't want to build data centers anymore, I don't want to buy hardware anymore. So you, mr Sovereign Provider, give me bare metal service. I will bring my VCF, I'll run it myself.

Speaker 1:

Right, so that's the but. Then is the first one kind of sort of white label.

Speaker 2:

No, the first one is the managed service Fully managed. It's provider managed.

Speaker 1:

Because there's also probably a lot of white label stuff going on from service providers in sovereign cloud or not.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so.

Speaker 2:

I think, a white label is basically a little bit different. A white label is basically giving our smaller service providers the flexibility to procure software licenses from our CSPs right, so they can run their own. Okay, so they level down, yeah. So basically we are focused on. Prior to the acquisition, we had 4,000 cloud providers. Post the acquisition, after the merger, we have simplified dramatically our business model and how we serve our customers right, more focus, more simplification. So we have close to 400 or so service providers and the rest have the flexibility to join as a white label provider.

Speaker 1:

Okay so the rest of those 4,000 can still do this, but then as a white label provider. Okay, well, that's good to know. And then there are many other things happening in the market, right, I think? Just coming back to my earlier question of how did this start I mean, we didn't really talk about this right yet, but I would imagine 2018, 2019 around the sort of GDPR kind of thing. Privacy probably is a big driver. And then I would also like to talk about some other trends at the moment that really help with the sovereign cloud approach.

Speaker 2:

I think the you're right, I think GDPR and Europe has been at the forefront of, you know, privacy, right in terms of so I think a lot of that came from Europe and also we're seeing in Asia now. 2017-2018 timeline is where we started seeing this and you know there were some around that time. There were some high-profile cases where public sector entities, to their surprise, they found out, hey, look, my data, you know, even though I'm in a sovereign environment, but my data metadata was going out right, you know outside right. So I think there's some high-profile cases like that. That happened, that that was a catalyst.

Speaker 2:

And then what accelerated this was during the COVID era, where lot of customers because you know there was a lot of constraints on supply chain and customers, really, you know want. You know there's a lot of constraints on supply chain and customers really, you know want. You know there's a lot of remote workforce. They all went, you know, to public clouds girl of any government agencies went, and then you know to, and again they were. You know there's a lot of high-profile cases where they said, oh, and especially you know, in Europe, I don't want my data outside my sovereign nation. And then the US Cloud Act, which gives the US government jurisdiction control on the data you know, regardless of where the data, where the cloud provider is.

Speaker 1:

That was the other you know. And just to be perfectly clear, because obviously Broadcom and VMware are both American companies as well, but that's not the same. It doesn't necessarily apply to what you're doing, right.

Speaker 2:

That is a very, very good point, because we are not operating right. Our business model at VMware by Broadcom is we give our software, our VCF software, to our cloud providers. Cloud providers are independent owned, they're independently operated. They own, they operate, they have. You know. They are local entities. They own their own cloud. They're not subject to jurisdiction control. They ensure all the data is local. We are not right. We are just in this of our arrangement and our relationship with them is to give them the software, not run and operate it.

Speaker 1:

So the American government, to make it concrete, cannot ask VMware look, we want access to the data that your CSPs host in the Netherlands or in Belgium or in Germany, whatever, because we don't own that data. Well, I think that's good to sort of clarify, because I mean, at the end of the day, you're still an American company. So I think that could be something that plays in the minds of some of the listeners. And then what about? I mean, we cannot have a discussion in 2024 without talking about AI, right, and I know VMware also has a very strong kind of message and strong push towards private AI. There are many sessions this week on it as well. Does it help the sovereign cloud approach?

Speaker 2:

Very much so See, look many customers. The reason they're going to a cloud is because they want to be Clearly, they want to move to an OpEx model, they want somebody else to manage the cloud for them, but they're also looking for innovation. They're looking for agility. So what we don't want to do is build sovereign clouds yeah, it meets all the sovereign requirements, but you don't get any innovation right. So for us, it's extremely important to make sure, when customers come to our sovereign cloud providers, not only they get the benefits of being a sovereign, but they also have access to innovation. The approach we've taken is private. Ai is one of the solutions on top. We also have our Tanzu portfolio for helping our customers to develop modern applications. We also have security and other set of services. These are add-on services on top of sovereign clouds to drive innovation does it also work the other way around?

Speaker 1:

so they look, if you want private AI, then sovereign cloud is actually a very, very good idea to start thinking about because so you know a lot of.

Speaker 2:

You know when you do, when you do AI. It's all about you know building models based on your data. A lot of this data, by definition, is very proprietary, right it's? It's a data owned by a sovereign government. It could be a data owned by a sovereign entity. They don't want this data to go on a public cloud. So you're right, you know it's a match made in heaven if I would say match made in heaven because you know you want to preserve your data. Sovereign clouds ensure that the data doesn't go out. So I think in that case, it kind of makes sense. Other thing I want to highlight a lot of our sovereign cloud providers have taken an open ecosystem approach. So you talked about private AI et cetera, but a lot of CSPs they bring best-of-breed ecosystem services.

Speaker 1:

That was actually a point I wanted to make as well, because this might sound like sort of a lock-in, kind of play right, but you're saying that you have an open ecosystem approach, so that's not necessarily the case.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So you have many of our CSPs bringing the best-of-breed services for security, for management, for backup, disaster recovery. They bring the best of breed services, ecosystem services they're building on top of this platform.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think that's also good to know, because even though it is nice to have everything in one platform, there is always sort of the not putting all my eggs in one basket kind of thing going on in many companies. But I just wanted just to quickly ask does this story actually work well outside of the EU and I think probably EMEA, because I think in the Middle East, sovereignty is also a very big, big issue. But how does this work in in the US, because we also have listeners from the US? Is there, is there any traction there? Because they obviously all the hypercredits are us. Basically, yeah, right.

Speaker 2:

So I think it's a really good question. So clearly us, so clearly, europe, middle East and also Asia. We are seeing, you know, a lot of focus on building sovereign clouds, because all the government agencies, regulatory entities I mean it's a top of mind for them, right? So clearly. We see that Now, if you look at the US, you know the jurisdiction control issue is, you know, from the US, it's still there, right, but the way we are looking at sovereign clouds, it's just a better way of building, you know, more secure, more private clouds in the US, because we take our VCF stack, you know there's a lot of controls, security controls, privacy controls that are inbuilt.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of controls, security controls, privacy controls that are inbuilt. So if I'm a regulated entity in the US, if I'm a public sector entity in the US, you can benefit from this. Now, jurisdiction control and entity and all those are not relevant, but the foundational capabilities of our sovereign cloud in the VCF stack, they can benefit from it. Example bring your own keys as an example. It's one of the guidelines that's equally applicable in the United States for customers.

Speaker 1:

Well, just out of curiosity, do you think we will ever get to a point where, basically, when you say I have a cloud with a CSP, it will be by default a sovereign cloud. Or is that a desired end state at all? I don't know, I'm just curious. Or is that a desired?

Speaker 2:

end state at all. I don't know, I'm just curious. You know, look, because CSPs serve multiple customers, right, they serve commercial customers, they serve public sector customers, they serve large enterprise customers. So you know, when it comes to cloud, there is no one-size-fits-all. So I think, you know, think there will definitely be sovereign clouds. That would be separate, but I do see a lot of principles that we have in sovereign clouds equally applicable for commercial clouds.

Speaker 1:

I think that's the point. I think that should be sort of a default that you keep people aware of how sovereign everything is right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so a lot of good. The best practices on sovereign will be available on commercial clouds and, for example, right, if I have a sovereign cloud, my support has to be local, local citizens. Now, if I'm a commercial cloud, maybe not right, maybe it can be supported.

Speaker 1:

Well, you do see a lot of sort of movement in that space as well, from the hyperscalers especially. They are moving towards sort of if it's possible. When they offer sovereign clouds in a certain nation, they do sort of guarantee that the people managing it are local people and all that stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my question, my answer more was will there be only thing called sovereign? And my point was, yeah, the best practices of sovereign would be available in commercial clouds, but some cases you will have to kind of hey, for a commercial cloud, do I need local citizens, Right, I may not, right, I may have a separate tiered offering, especially when you're offering SaaS kind of stuff, why would you I mean, why would you have the local people managing that?

Speaker 1:

that? That would be a bit yeah. So. And so my last question, I think, because we're already 28 minutes in 29 minutes. It's going quite quickly. So what's next? When it comes to sovereign cloud, so can we expect any sort of high impact kind of developments in the near future?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you know it's always about innovation in the cloud. So the innovation that we talked about, the latest innovation that we're bringing, is around. You know private AI that we announced on top of VCF. What we see is, as we go forward, more and more focus on bringing modern application services. How do we enable developers to develop their applications faster? Be more agile, so you'll see a lot more focus in that area.

Speaker 1:

So that's a Tanzu kind of part.

Speaker 2:

It'll be Tanzu and then ecosystem around that. Right, you don't need data services. As an example, right, yeah, you have Tanzu, but that's an application development platform. I need third-party database services. Right, I need MongoDB, I need Kafka. All those are examples of additional services for the developers we'll bring. And there's always security. Threats are always evolving. How do we make sure we are on top with our security and security portfolio? We have advanced threat protection. As an example. How do we make sure ATP is available for our service providers? So this is like ongoing developers For developers. We'll have a set of capabilities For the underlying infrastructure. How do we make sure we have ongoing security, the threat protection and then of course, private data.

Speaker 1:

So there's basically no necessary end state of sovereign cloud.

Speaker 2:

It is continuously evolving.

Speaker 1:

It's like a cloud continuous evolution, so but that also means I think that's a very good point to end on that you keep as a customer of one of these. You also need to be able to keep track of it, right? So you need to keep up to date and you need to stay informed about whatever is happening, because when something like, for example, developer-oriented improvements happen, you need to be able to ask your CSP look, that sounds interesting, what can you do for me in this space? Right? So it is something that I think customers need to know about that this is continuously evolving and that new things are being added all the time. That's right. Cloud is not static no, I mean, it hasn't been. I mean it hasn't been since the get-go. But Sovereign Cloud does feel like more or less sort of a regulatory thing. So once you satisfy those regulations or you comply with those regulations, you're done. But that's not the case, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a very good point Because, you know, as we're bringing these new services, we talk about private air, we talk about, you know, kanzu services, right application development services. How do we make sure that you know local residency requirements are met? How do we make sure services we introduce are not SaaS-based? If it gets SaaS-based and the control planes are residing outside the nation, then it won't work. So I think it's like it's ongoing, making sure there's evolution. So, as we bring new services to sovereign environment, you have to put that lens in. Does this service which our customers are asking for, does it fit the sovereign guidelines?

Speaker 1:

That really puts an interesting sort of spin on what VMware did in the past, because that was actually what VMware was working on in sort of a SaaS-based kind of control plane for all clouds. Right, so that's not applicable to sovereign clouds. You don't want to do that, because then you are an American company and then basically you could be asked by the governments of the US. That's right? Yeah, all right, I think. Well, I asked all the governments of US. That's right? Alright, I think. Well, I have. I asked all the questions I wanted to ask. I'm not sure if you have anything left to add.

Speaker 2:

I really appreciate you taking the time on this because you know sovereign clouds is top of mind for a lot of our end customers, especially in the public sector, regulated environments, and also for our service providers. You taking the time to clarify what is a sovereign cloud, what isn't. I think it's going to go a long way in terms of, you know, educating our customer base and our service providers.

Speaker 1:

Let's hope a lot of people listen to it as well. That's always the hope, right, if you publish an episode. Yeah, so thank you for joining. I thought it was a very interesting conversation. I think a lot of people can learn quite a bit from it. So I'm kind of hoping a lot of people will and well, looking forward to the next chat. Thank you very much for taking the time.