From compliance mandate to strategic opportunity
For media and entertainment enterprises operating across regions, the EU Data Act represents a fundamental shift in how cloud infrastructure must be governed.
The Act – applicable from 12 September 2025 – will enforce cloud interoperability and portability, ensuring that customers can transfer workloads and data between cloud providers with minimal friction. By 12 January 2027, switching fees will be prohibited. All temporary fees must reflect only direct costs such as egress or data export.
This situation transforms cloud switching and interoperability from a technical or cost-optimisation task into a regulatory compliance requirement.
For global media organisations, the change also presents a strategic opportunity: the freedom to optimise for performance, pricing, and innovation, without being locked into a single provider.
Cloud switching enablement
With cloud-agnostic architectures and portable data schemas in place, organisations are well-positioned to comply with the EU Data Act while also gaining agility.
To effectively prepare for such a change, technical, operational, and financial teams should work together to build a portability-ready foundation that supports both compliance and agility.
Here is a short checklist of things that should be done to kick start the preparations:
Map dependencies and export formats for all media assets, manifests, encryption keys, and telemetry. Understanding exactly what data lives where – and in what format – is the cornerstone of smooth portability.
Negotiate exit SLAs and portability clauses in your Master Service Agreements (MSAs) before renewals. These ensure that providers remain accountable for seamless transitions when business or regulatory needs change.
Maintain interoperability evidence for audits and compliance reporting. Keeping documentation up to date demonstrates readiness and reduces the risk of last-minute compliance gaps.
Plan dual-run and staged cutovers for live or high-traffic events. Running workloads in parallel during migrations helps preserve uptime and viewer experience.
Align Cloud Financial Management (CFM) practices to track portability-related costs such as egress, API calls, and data transformations. Visibility into these drivers supports informed decisions on when and how to move workloads efficiently.
By taking these steps one by one, your organisation will be able to create a clear pathway to compliance with the EU Data Act while also strengthening its ability to adapt quickly, whether to optimise cost, shift regions, or embrace new innovation opportunities.
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Multi-cloud and multi-CDN synergies
Once storage and lifecycle management are optimised for portability, attention shifts to the delivery layer, where content performance directly impacts viewer experience, ad-fill efficiency, and monetisation.
A multi-CDN strategy, when coupled with intelligent traffic steering, delivers both performance and cost resilience. It aligns seamlessly with the EU Data Act’s interoperability principles, enabling frictionless content delivery across multiple providers and geographies.
Key enablers in this process include:
RUM-based routing for performance-driven traffic steering — using real user measurements to select the best-performing CDN in real time.
Real-time failover and standardised logging for performance comparison, service continuity, and compliance traceability.
Cost-versus-QoE (Quality of Experience) metrics to correlate delivery costs with actual audience satisfaction, ad-fill integrity, and playback quality.
The importance of the EU Data Act and multicloud convergence
The convergence of the EU Data Act compliance with multi-cloud and multi-CDN strategies gives organisations a unique opportunity to future-proof both their infrastructure and their business models.
By embracing portability and intelligent workload distribution, media enterprises can:
Avoid vendor lock-in and regulatory penalties.
Ensuring interoperability across clouds eliminates the risk of being tied to a single provider’s roadmap or pricing, while meeting the EU’s strict portability standards before they become mandatory.
Enable rapid platform migrations and dual-region streaming resilience.
Workloads, assets, and delivery pipelines can be replicated or shifted between providers and regions with minimal downtime — an essential capability for global events, disaster recovery, and audience growth.
Gain negotiating leverage across providers.
The ability to move workloads creates a more balanced commercial relationship. Providers must compete on service quality, innovation, and pricing rather than relying on customer inertia.
Drive predictable cost efficiency without compromising experience quality.
Multicloud visibility and multi-CDN optimisation allow costs to be tied directly to performance outcomes — aligning spend with measurable audience impact, ad-fill integrity, and playback quality.
The EU Data Act provides the regulatory push, but the true value lies in strategic flexibility — building an ecosystem that can evolve as technology, audience behaviour, and business priorities change. For digital media leaders, this is not just about meeting new rules — it’s about shaping a more agile, resilient, and performance-driven future.
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FAQ
What is the EU Data Act and why does it matter for media companies?
The EU Data Act mandates data portability and interoperability between cloud providers to promote competition and prevent vendor lock-in. For media firms that rely on multiple storage, encoding, and delivery platforms, it ensures they can migrate or duplicate workloads freely while maintaining service continuity.
When do the new rules apply?
12 September 2025: interoperability and portability requirements take effect.
12 January 2027: switching fees are fully banned; interim fees must reflect only direct costs.
What steps can executives take now?
Audit all data dependencies and exit paths.
Review cloud contracts and renewal terms.
Invest in monitoring and cost visibility tools.
Pilot workload mobility or dual-run tests between providers.
Do we have to be multi‑cloud?
Not necessarily. Operating in multiple cloud services environments can add complexity that isn’t always justified. What truly matters is a cloud-agnostic architecture – designing systems so that workloads can move or be replicated across providers when needed.
Even if your cloud adoption strategy focuses on a single provider, maintaining credible exit options strengthens your negotiating position and lowers long-term total cost of ownership.
The goal isn’t constant switching; it’s strategic flexibility – ensuring your cloud architecture supports agility, compliance, and the ability to optimise costs across regions or providers when business priorities evolve.
