From zero trust architectures to post-quantum cryptography planning, organizations today are under growing pressure to modernize security while staying ahead of tightening compliance requirements.
At the same time, the need to establish digital trust – across users, devices, and systems – has never been more critical.
“For years, enterprises with strict regulatory mandates, including those tied to French cloud sovereignty and broader EU frameworks, were told that moving to the cloud meant losing control over cryptographic operations, keys, and data residency,” says Tomas Gustavsson, Chief PKI Officer at Keyfactor.
But that assumption no longer holds, he notes.
“EJBCA Enterprise is the modern PKI you can trust. It’s an automation-ready solution that’s trusted by thousands of enterprises to address rising compliance pressure and growing demands for digital sovereignty.”
With flexible, automation-ready solutions like EJBCA Enterprise, organizations can modernize PKI to support emerging security requirements, without sacrificing sovereignty.
The New Reality: Sovereignty Is Not Optional
Regulators around the world are tightening requirements for data privacy, cryptographic control, and operational transparency, explains Gustavsson.
“In the EU especially, we’ve seen growing pressure to ensure that data, and the cryptographic assets that protect it, remain within national or regional borders,” he says. “Security practices must meet zero trust principles and be audit-ready by design.”
Gustavsson adds that the push for sovereign cloud infrastructure is accelerating, especially in the EU, where the European Commission recently launched a strategic initiative to expand data center capacity and boost technological resilience. At the heart of this effort is a call for greater control over data, infrastructure, and cryptographic operations.
Major cloud providers are responding with localized services, sovereign cloud regions, and strict access controls.
But for enterprises operating in or serving these environments, infrastructure alone isn’t enough – they also need solutions for digital trust, key management, and certificate authority operations.
That’s where EJBCA Enterprise plays a critical role. It offers the flexibility to run sovereign PKI on-premises, in private or public cloud, or in fully isolated environments (like OVHcloud, which we cover in more detail below).
Why Traditional PKI Falls Short
Legacy PKI deployments were often built for static, on-prem environments – not hybrid or cloud-native architectures. They typically lack:
- Centralized visibility across business units and geographies
- Integration with DevOps and cloud-native workflows
- Automation for certificate issuance, renewal, and revocation
- Deployment models that support sovereign operations
As a result, organizations struggle with certificate sprawl, failed audits, and brittle infrastructure that can’t scale with their business.
Navigating Legal Complexities: CLOUD Act vs. GDPR
A critical challenge for many organizations is navigating the legal conflict between the U.S. CLOUD Act and Europe’s GDPR. While GDPR restricts transferring data outside the EU without a clear legal basis, the CLOUD Act allows U.S. authorities to access data held by U.S. service providers without requiring EU judicial approval.
This creates a dilemma: Comply with U.S. data requests and risk violating GDPR, or refuse and face penalties under U.S. law.
Keyfactor’s platform empowers organizations to keep cryptographic keys, certificates, and PKI infrastructure within trusted regional boundaries, helping mitigate this risk by maintaining sovereignty over critical security assets.
Enter EJBCA Enterprise: Modern PKI, Sovereignty-Ready
EJBCA Enterprise is purpose-built to help organizations modernize their PKI while staying in control of their infrastructure, keys, and compliance posture.
✔ Flexible Deployment Options
Run EJBCA on-prem, in containers, in private cloud, or in a dedicated sovereign cloud environment – like OVHcloud, a leading European cloud provider.
✔ Complete Cryptographic Control
Keep your keys, CA hierarchies, and policies under your management – no black-box cloud services, no shared tenancy.
✔ Built for Automation
API-first architecture enables full certificate lifecycle automation to support DevOps, short certificate lifespans, and agile workflows.
✔ Post-Quantum and Zero Trust Ready
EJBCA supports quantum-safe cryptographic strategies and integrates with zero trust architectures across identities, devices, and services.
Real-World Example: OVHcloud’s Sovereign PKI Strategy
One of Europe’s largest cloud providers, OVHcloud, needed a PKI platform that aligned with its open-source values and sovereignty principles, all while operating at the scale of 30+ global data centers.
In a recent Keyfactor customer case study, OVHcloud shared how EJBCA Enterprise offered their team a centralized, fully automated, and in-house PKI that:
- Runs securely within its private cloud
- Supports automation and DevOps integration
- Enables compliance with SecNumCloud and PCI DSS
- Gives internal teams full ownership of certificate issuance and key lifecycle management
“EJBCA gave us the services we were looking for, plus the support and features we needed from an enterprise provider.” – Aymen Ben-Assila, Network Manager, OVHcloud
Their journey highlights what’s now possible: a modern PKI that meets strict sovereignty and compliance requirements, without compromising speed or scale.
Don’t Let Sovereignty Hold Back PKI Modernization
If your organization faces strict sovereignty requirements, EJBCA Enterprise gives you the control and flexibility you need to build trusted systems in the cloud and beyond. PKI modernization is essential to building digital trust in a zero-trust world.
Try EJBCA Enterprise to simplify and scale your PKI:
- Quantum-ready and compliance-friendly
- Supports cloud, SaaS, containers, and on-prem deployment
- Backed by enterprise-grade support and automation tools
Ready to secure your digital sovereignty? Contact Keyfactor to request a demo and transform your PKI strategy.
