Delos: "Sovereign" cloud 10 to 20 % more expensive than Microsoft's public cloud

The SAP subsidiary Delos Cloud has specified the costs of its cloud offering for public administration. The Microsoft services offered are expected to cost an average of 15 percent more than in Microsoft's public cloud. Georg Sebald, member of the Delos management board, said this on Thursday at an event organized by Arvato Systems, Delos' partner for the operational management of the planned cloud. "My target would be closer to 10 percent, it shouldn't cost 20 percent more," added the Delos manager. The surcharge compared to Microsoft's standard cloud is due to the additional effort required to meet federal government requirements and the limited customer group.

In the Delos cloud, the German government wants to use cloud services from Microsoft, among others. Delos serves as the German operating company and is intended to protect the data from access by US authorities and enable temporary autonomous operation in an emergency. The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has defined requirements for this. Delos therefore advertises with the slogan "sovereign cloud platform".

Sebald admitted that too little information about the planned offering had been published to date. "I agree, we were not quick enough and not specific enough," he said. The aim is to publish a price list at the beginning of next year. Delos already published lists of the planned features in the Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 areas some time ago. Compared to the public cloud, some features are initially missing, including special AI hardware and Azure Automation, as Arvato Systems writes in an "initial assessment" of the Azure services.

Launch date at the beginning of 2026

State and local authorities are also part of Delos' target group. In the summer, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz personally promoted the Delos cloud to the minister presidents of the federal states, which was sharply criticized by open source representatives, among others. In a survey conducted by c't among the state governments in September, many states emphasized that they could not yet evaluate the Delos offer as the prices and functions were still unclear. At least six federal states are now pursuing the plan to use Microsoft's cheaper public cloud services.

According to Sebald, the Delos cloud should be ready for productive use from the beginning of January 2026. The first "Azure Foundational Services" for evaluations should be available in the first half of 2025, followed by the first "Azure Mainstream Services" and Microsoft 365 in the second half of 2025.

(cwo)