Dutch Sovereign Cloud Platform Reaches 99.999% Uptime

World‑class cloud reliability

Varity and whitesky.cloud jointly demonstrate that American hyperscalers are not required for world‑class cloud reliability.

The Dutch sovereign cloud platform launched by Varity in 2024 has become one of the first European platforms to achieve more than 99.999% uptime — a technical and strategic milestone proving that modern cloud infrastructure can be fully European.

The platform is built on European cloud technology from whitesky.cloud and operated entirely by Varity in the Netherlands. After nearly two years of consistent growth, with the cloud location now half filled and delivering uptime levels even hyperscalers do not always meet, this project stands as compelling evidence that sovereign cloud platforms are no longer aspirational — they are operational reality.

At Cloud Expo Houten, Geert Audenaert, Founder & CTO of whitesky.cloud, presents Varity with a Certificate of Uptime Excellence to acknowledge this outstanding achievement.

Sovereignty and Market Trends

Across Europe, the need for digital sovereignty is accelerating. Governments, educational institutions, and public-service organizations increasingly require cloud solutions that are legally, geographically, and operationally independent from American legislation such as the CLOUD Act. A broader shift is underway: European institutions are exploring locally controlled cloud infrastructure, national cloud programs are emerging, and regional MSPs are building their own sovereign cloud locations.

Varity’s achievement fits perfectly within this trend — a locally governed, fully European, independent cloud platform delivering world‑class performance. It aligns with the momentum whitesky.cloud sees through programmes such as OCRE in the Netherlands, with Belgium and other EU countries expected to follow with similar results.

Together, Varity and whitesky.cloud demonstrate that Europe can build its own cloud: reliable, high‑performance, and fully under European control.

How the whitesky Platform Helps Achieve Five-Nines Uptime

Varity achieves exceptional reliability through the whitesky.cloud platform, which combines smart hardware design, autonomous cloud locations, and centralized maintenance coordination.

Each whitesky-based cloud location is built around three to six nodes per subcluster, always with one reserve node. This architecture allows compute and storage workloads to be fully and automatically evacuated from any server, enabling maintenance or hardware replacement without customer impact.

The local control plane of each cloud location executes fully automated update procedures: workloads are live-migrated, the node is drained, updated, validated, and returned to service — all with zero downtime.

The central whitesky management platform operates at a higher level: it prepares cloud locations for maintenance windows, schedules updates, and manages all user notifications. This ensures transparency and operational predictability while preserving full autonomy for each cloud site.

Combined with 24/7 monitoring and immediate incident response, this model delivers a level of continuity that even hyperscalers often struggle to guarantee: a tightly controlled environment where hardware failures, updates, and interventions are handled seamlessly and without interruption.

This screenshot was taken in the uptimerobot.com portal, which monitors the uptime of the whitesky deployment at Varity.