)
Federation in Multi-Provider Multi-Cloud/Edge Environments
Enabling unified operations through shared standards, common data models and federated orchestration.
Federation: the link between portability and interoperability
In today’s fast-evolving digital ecosystem, interoperability and portability are cornerstones of any discussion about cloud, edge and distributed architectures. In a fully interconnected world, the ability to deploy applications seamlessly across environments is essential.
These two capabilities, however, are truly effective only when the missing link is introduced: federation. Federation addresses the non-trivial challenge of guaranteeing smooth bilateral and multilateral integration among heterogeneous and proprietary solutions, helping overcome vendor lock-in and enabling structured collaboration across different providers.
The challenge of multi-provider and multi-cloud environments
Multi-provider and multi-cloud environments – relying on multiple cloud vendors and internal solutions – require systems to “talk” to each other reliably. This need often comes with a cost: complexity, fragility, ad-hoc and non-replicable integrations that translate into heavy long-term maintenance, economic impact and technical debt.
Whenever a new service or feature is developed, software and hardware interconnections risk slowing down ideas and deployments, limiting the agility that organisations expect from modern infrastructures.
A federated paradigm
By introducing the concept of federation, the paradigm changes. From the ground up, infrastructures belonging to different providers are designed to coordinate with each other. Portability and interoperability are treated as key foundations in solution design, enabling products and services that can scale as new functionalities and actors join the ecosystem.
The indispensable pillars to achieve this goal are:
standard interfaces
shared and stable data models
Together, they provide a common framework that reduces integration effort and supports controlled, repeatable and scalable collaboration.
Standardisation as an enabler
Within a mature technology framework, standardisation becomes essential to scale benefits and usage. Federation builds on this evolution and leverages existing initiatives, such as:
GSMA Operator Platform
Defines common frameworks that allow mobile operators to federate their infrastructures with existing ecosystems and expose network capabilities through harmonised Open Gateway services.
CAMARA (Linux Foundation project)
Provides standardised, user-friendly APIs to enable seamless access to telco networks, simplifying network complexity and making capabilities accessible also to developers with limited telco expertise.
SECA (Sovereign European Cloud API)
Offers a reference for developing open, documented, OpenAPI-based interfaces for cloud infrastructure management, acting as a safeguard against vendor lock-in while supporting sovereignty and cost-effectiveness.
These examples demonstrate how standard interfaces reduce the need for ad-hoc connectors and create the foundations for interoperable and federated environments.
Shared data models: the foundation of effective federation
Even when standard interfaces are available, without shareable and common data models interoperability, portability and federation remain limited.
Data is at the heart of any modern digital infrastructure: it fuels AI algorithms and represents the information that must be transferred among users, modules and platforms in a fast, reliable, robust and secure way. Following the federation paradigm, data models need to be shared and agreed within the platform to guarantee consistency and trust.
As with GSMA, CAMARA and SECA, well-established data models represent an essential design pattern. Once defined, they provide a solid baseline for smooth and secure data sharing and for fast, low-friction onboarding when new applications are ready to join the ecosystem.
)
Federation within IPCEI-CIS
These advantages pave the way for complex software infrastructures such as IPCEI-CIS (Important Project of Common European Interest on Next Generation Cloud Infrastructure and Services). Through standardised software interfaces and shared data models, the ecosystem can eliminate the need for bespoke connectors and effectively work as one, allowing organisations to plug in their developments and integrate seamlessly into a unified infrastructure.
Adeptic Reply’s contribution
Leveraging these two pillars – standard interfaces and shared data models – the Adeptic Reply platform is designed to allow providers to move and deploy applications freely, without re-inventing the wheel for each integration. Data consistency and integrity are preserved across the ecosystem, independently of the providers involved in data generation and usage.
Within the 8RA programme and IPCEI-CIS, Adeptic Reply contributes with its multi-layer orchestration platform to the standardisation of software interfaces and data models, enabling a federated Cloud–Edge continuum where interoperability and portability become structural operating principles and support Europe’s digital sovereignty.