There are Star Wars, and there are cloud wars. So, the first episode has started in Ukraine. Have you heard about this? We tell you in detail

Three years have passed, and some companies have already reached the end of their free cloud stay period. But the managers of our IT infrastructure are not going to return to Ukraine. If only the owners of local data centers had not persuaded them.

Ultimately, this led to some dissatisfaction with the situation on the part of Ukrainian cloud players. They realized that the war was still going on for a long time. And even if it ended, not all Ukrainian services would immediately return home.

So the action began.

Local players went on the attack

Ukrainian cloud developers are increasingly beginning to publicly state that global cloud providers — AWS, Azure, Google Cloud — are undermining the principles of national digital sovereignty and, what’s more, are imposing the so-called vendor lock-in. That is, they are locking Ukrainian IT infrastructure into their cloud, making exiting it more expensive and problematic than staying.

«Hyperscalers are already actively operating in Ukraine. These are the world leaders in the cloud market and digital infrastructure: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle. And although their services are used by key EU and US institutions, including the Pentagon and the European Commission, all of these companies are American, that is, their activities are governed by US laws. This effectively violates the principle of „digital sovereignty“…», says Maksym Kurochko, co-founder of one of the largest Ukrainian cloud providers GigaCloud.

According to him, it would be good if hyperscalers created jobs here, but they do not. Instead, Ukrainian databases, including confidential information, will go outside the territory of Ukraine and settle in data centers under the jurisdiction of other states.

CEO and co-founder of the Ukrainian data center «De Novo» Maksym Ageev adds that Ukrainian services are becoming somewhat dependent on international clouds.

«We were just discussing a story with one of the customers, who told unofficially how one of the free backup options in Azure works. Uploading this data outside the cloud can cost him $200,000, and this is far from the most severe addiction option,» emphasizes Ageev. That is, to transfer his data to another cloud, the customer will have to pay a substantial amount.

As the businessman says, cloud providers can charge Ukrainian services a lot of additional bills, which makes their stay in the international cloud not a cheap pleasure at all.

«This is a fee for various operations that are never included in the cost of cloud resources. This is the cost of outgoing traffic, disk writing, and other internal data transactions within the cloud. It is almost impossible to predict such costs. The markup sometimes reaches 50% of the starting price,» Ageev emphasizes.

«A company that agrees to a cheap infrastructure project can easily find itself in a situation called vendor lock-in. In simple words, it is a tie to a supplier, when you cannot switch to an alternative supplier without significant losses. When you get into such vendor lock-in, the service provider can impose additional services or even bills on you, and you will have to pay for them — because the switch will cost more anyway,» adds Maksym Kurochko.

Response from global players

Representatives of international clouds. They see the situation from a completely different angle. First of all, they emphasize that they provided Ukrainian services with huge amounts of assistance during the war — hundreds of millions of dollars.

«During the three years of war, international technology companies provided significant support to Ukraine. For example, under the Microsoft Relief program, Ukrainian organizations received cloud resources worth over $500 million. The total contribution of global providers — Microsoft, Google, AWS — to supporting Ukrainian IT infrastructure probably exceeds $1 billion,» says DevRain CEO, Microsoft Regional Director Oleksandr Krakovetsky.

In his opinion, there is real competition between global and local players.

A separate challenge is the geopolitical situation. Recall that US President Donald Trump has recently been doing everything to strain relations with Ukraine. And the largest cloud players are American companies.

«Potential changes in international politics may affect the level of trust in individual technological solutions. However, abandoning the use of global cloud services is hardly a realistic scenario for Ukraine,» Krakovetsky emphasizes.

On the contrary, as he emphasizes, maintaining access to advanced technologies, including solutions based on artificial intelligence, is an important factor in the competitiveness of Ukrainian companies.

Regarding vendor lock-in, which Ukrainian players mentioned, as Microsoft Regional Director Oleksandr Krakovetsky says, any modern cloud solution involves a certain level of integration with the selected environment. That is, it can be both a global provider and a local cloud.

«The transition between platforms can require time and resources, which should be taken into account when making strategic decisions. For example, if a company builds its infrastructure on Azure, and later needs to switch to another service, the process can be complex and lengthy,» the manager emphasizes.

Krakovetsky also emphasizes that there are no hidden additional fees in Azure tariffs that users may encounter.

«The rates are transparent and available for review on official resources. Payment is made for actual resource usage, and long-term contracts provide flexible terms and possible discounts. This is a standard practice that allows customers to optimize costs according to their business needs,» he says.

NBU’s appearance on the stage

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but while Ukrainian providers were sharpening their teeth on global clouds, the National Bank prepared a draft resolution that may affect the availability of international clouds for Ukrainian banks in the near future (of course, if the resolution is adopted).

As dev.ua was informed by the NBU, the project has already undergone public discussion. It is currently being processed, in particular, taking into account the submitted proposals.

The draft resolution does not prohibit the use of foreign clouds by Ukrainian banks. However, there are some points that may complicate the signing of an agreement between a global player and a Ukrainian customer.

For example, a cloud service agreement should contain some terms and conditions under which the global player is obliged to cooperate with the National Bank to obtain information about the data of the cloud service user by the Ukrainian financial regulator. The hyperscaler will be able to show these terms only to the National Bank.

It is unlikely that Microsoft or AWS will agree to this condition. After all, disclosing customer data for such providers is simply unacceptable. In addition, the resolution forces the global player to somehow interact with the NBU, which is also unlikely to be accepted on the other side.

«The National Bank proposes changes that provide for a clear demarcation of responsibility between customers (banks) and cloud providers according to the shared responsibility model. If previously banks had full control over their own servers and network infrastructure, then after the changes part of this function will pass to cloud service providers,» says Andriy Mykhailenko, Chief Operating Officer of Colobridge GmbH (a Ukrainian-German company specializing in IT infrastructure solutions for business).

According to him, the proposed norms are not new, they rather harmonize Ukrainian regulation with generally accepted global practices.

But there are also nuances that Mr. Mykhailenko emphasizes.

«Certain requirements may be problematic for hyperscalers, such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, whose services are used by part of the Ukrainian financial sector, especially after a full-scale invasion. For example, this concerns direct interaction of providers with the National Bank, provision of information upon request or control of subcontractors. The requirement for individual conditions for a separate regulator may be financially costly and technically difficult to implement,» emphasizes the COO of Colobridge GmbH.

According to him, such regulation should take into account the realities of the work of international companies, the interests of the Ukrainian financial sector, and not be an «accidental» obstacle to the implementation of modern technologies.

We also wanted to know whether the NBU would create an «accidental obstacle» for global players by adopting the resolution in its current form. But the NBU informed us that «as part of working on the document, the National Bank discussed a number of its provisions with leading cloud service providers — AWS, Google.» So, perhaps the final text will change.

We also asked several large banks, such as Privatbank and monobank (using AWS cloud), what they thought about the NBU draft. But the banks either chose to leave the situation without comment for now, or were unfamiliar with it.

«We are monitoring the development of events,» one of the bank representatives told dev.ua anonymously.

«How would you react if AWS suddenly became unusable?» we asked monobank co-founder Oleg Gorohovsky.

«I would be very surprised,» he replied.

So what should the competition be like?

Is there enough competition in the cloud services market in Ukraine for organic development?

«In my opinion, yes, but with nuances,» says Andriy Mykhailenko.

According to him, on the one hand, local providers provide a deep sense of business context, which is especially important in times of turbulence. On the other hand, global players are raising the level of technological sophistication, scalability, and security approaches.

As the manager says, this creates a competitive environment, but at the same time challenges: it is difficult for clients to find a balance between local understanding and global quality.

«So there is competition. But for the industry to not only grow, but also mature, we need more players who do not just compete, but form a culture of service, security and trust. Because the industry gets a real boost when the competition is not only for price or SLA, but for service, innovation and adaptation to real business tasks,» Andriy Mykhaylenko summarizes.