BlackBox Hosting has partnered with Everpure to offer sovereign cloud services in the UK, as organisations seek alternatives to foreign cloud providers.

As part of an overhaul of its legacy infrastructure, the managed private cloud provider has migrated thousands of customer services to Everpure’s platform. BlackBox Hosting supports more than one million end users and has spent more than a decade working with large software companies in the UK.

The announcement reflects a wider shift among British businesses seeking greater control over where data is stored and how it is managed. Concerns over data sovereignty have grown alongside regulatory scrutiny, cyber security risks and unease about reliance on overseas hyperscale cloud groups.

According to BlackBox Hosting, the new arrangement has strengthened its disaster recovery setup and improved resilience for business-critical workloads. It also reported a 12% performance improvement after the migration, along with lower storage latency and the removal of storage bottlenecks.

Customers experienced no downtime during the migration, the company said. It added that the changes were introduced without disrupting existing services, a key concern for businesses moving core systems.

Sovereign focus

Sovereign cloud services have become a more prominent issue for UK technology suppliers and their customers as organisations reassess where sensitive information should reside. For many businesses, the question is no longer just cost or scale, but also legal oversight, operational control and exposure to geopolitical tension.

For managed service providers such as BlackBox Hosting, that shift creates an opening to serve customers that want infrastructure hosted and managed with a stronger domestic focus. BlackBox saw an opportunity to update its platform in response to those concerns and offer services aimed at organisations seeking tighter control of critical data.

Everpure’s role centres on supplying the storage and data management platform that underpins the new offering. The companies did not disclose financial terms, but said the transition involved replacing older disk-based infrastructure with a newer flash-based system.

Operational changes

The overhaul has had a marked effect on BlackBox Hosting’s physical infrastructure. The company reported an 87% reduction in footprint and an 85% cut in carbon dioxide emissions after replacing its previous systems.

That sustainability claim may appeal to customers under pressure to reduce the environmental impact of their IT estates. Data centres and storage systems face growing scrutiny as companies balance demand for more computing power with emissions targets and energy costs.

BlackBox framed the changes as part of a broader effort to meet customer demand for secure, resilient and locally focused services. Its emphasis on disaster recovery also underlines the continued importance of continuity planning as ransomware attacks, outages and supply chain disruptions remain a live concern for businesses.

Executive view

The partnership comes as service providers try to distinguish themselves from the largest cloud groups by focusing on control, compliance and support. BlackBox Hosting’s customer base, which includes large software companies, gives it a platform to pitch these services to organisations handling substantial volumes of sensitive or regulated data.

One executive linked the launch directly to mounting concerns around data handling and risk. “The risks of inaction on data sovereignty are clear. Service disruption, data breaches, regulatory penalties, and financial or reputational damage are all top of mind. We’re excited to support BlackBox Hosting with its sovereign cloud offerings at a time when UK businesses are actively looking for solutions that can mitigate risk in an increasingly uncertain business and geopolitical landscape,” said Paddy Fitzpatrick, VP & General Manager UK&I, Everpure.

BlackBox Hosting expects sovereign cloud services to remain an important area of growth in the UK. “Our tailored infrastructure and platform-as-a-service solutions put us in a prime position to capitalise on the surge in demand for the sovereign cloud solutions we’re seeing across the UK right now. We’re delighted by the speed, ease of management, and quality of the support of the Everpure platform. We have complete confidence that as we grow, our Everpure footprint will continue to grow with us,” said Matthew Burden, Founder and Managing Director, BlackBox Hosting.

Aruba has joined the International Data Spaces Association, bringing the Italian cloud and data centre provider into a European industry effort to expand the use of shared data environments.

The membership gives Aruba a role in the association’s work on standards and adoption models for so-called data spaces, where companies exchange data under agreed rules on security, interoperability and control. Aruba is also taking part in the Data Space Adoption Forum, a working group focused on practical routes into these systems.

The move comes as businesses and industry groups across Europe try to widen participation in data-sharing networks beyond large companies with dedicated technical teams. One of the sector’s main challenges is not the underlying technology, but the expectation that organisations deploy and run the required infrastructure themselves.

That has created cost, skills and integration hurdles, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. Aruba’s approach centres on moving that infrastructure into managed environments, so companies can connect to data spaces without building and maintaining the full stack on their own systems.

Access Model

Aruba is developing managed services based on multi-tenant architectures and plans to offer data space connectors as a service. The model is intended to simplify deployment, automate onboarding and reduce the time businesses need to gain access.

The company is using technologies including Eclipse Dataspace Components and Virtual Connector in that work. The aim is to reduce operational complexity and make costs more predictable for participating organisations, especially smaller firms that may struggle to justify bespoke infrastructure projects.

That matters to European policymakers and industrial groups because SMEs make up a large share of regional supply chains. If data spaces remain expensive or difficult to join, the networks risk being limited to bigger participants, weakening their value as shared industry platforms.

The issue has become more visible as initiatives in manufacturing and transport have moved from concept to operational use. In those sectors, companies are increasingly trying to share information across supply chains while retaining control over how data is used.

Automotive Focus

Aruba pointed to the automotive sector as one of the more advanced examples of data space adoption. It cited Catena-X, a collaborative data ecosystem for the car industry, as an example of a system built around IDSA principles for trusted and sovereign exchange.

Within Catena-X, member companies define standards for interoperability across the supply chain. Aruba is developing a beta release of a connector designed to comply with Catena-X requirements.

The work could support use cases including company certification management and digital product passports. Aruba also linked it to broader supply-chain digitalisation and regulatory preparation, as businesses face growing pressure to document sourcing, production and lifecycle data more consistently.

For cloud providers, the shift offers an opening to position themselves as operators of shared infrastructure rather than simply sellers of computing or storage. In the model being discussed within the Data Space Adoption Forum, providers host compliant environments that allow customers to join data ecosystems with fewer integration demands.

That could change the economics of participation if the service model proves workable at scale. It would also align data spaces more closely with how many companies already consume software and infrastructure, rather than requiring a custom deployment for each new participant.

Founded in 1994, Aruba says it has 16 million users and operates seven data centres. The company has built its business across cloud, data centre and digital services, with infrastructure in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.

“Joining IDSA represents an important step toward contributing to a truly interoperable and accessible data ecosystem,” said Marco Mangiulli, CIO and R&D Director at Aruba.

“The challenge today is no longer to demonstrate the value of data spaces, but to make them scalable and widely adoptable. Through as-a-service models and collaboration with the Association and the Data Space Adoption Forum, we aim to simplify access for businesses, reduce technical barriers, and accelerate value creation across supply chains,” he said.

IDSA has more than 160 member companies and institutions and promotes a framework for data sharing in which data providers retain control over usage. Its work forms part of a broader push in Europe to create trusted industrial data networks that can support cross-border business processes.

“We welcome Aruba as a new member of the International Data Spaces Association. Their active work in the Data Space Adoption Forum brings the practical mindset the market now needs,” said Lars Nagel, chief executive officer of the International Data Spaces Association.

“By focusing on managed solutions and based on a powerful distribution channel of a cloud service provider, Aruba helps turn data spaces into a practical reality especially for SMEs. This is how data spaces become scalable in practice,” he said.

HBHR has launched HRGenie Auto, an artificial intelligence tool for HR and payroll users that can navigate the platform on a user’s behalf in real time.

The launch coincides with survey data from HBHR on payroll errors and employee expectations of workplace technology. Its poll of 2,000 UK employees found that 85% expect employers to use modern payroll technology to reduce mistakes, while 61% would look for a new job if payroll errors continued for six months.

HRGenie Auto builds on HBHR’s existing HRGenie system. Rather than only answering questions, it carries out actions inside the software while the user watches the process on screen.

The product is intended to reduce the training and support needed when employees, managers and HR teams use HR and payroll systems. HBHR said software changes, process updates and staff turnover often create a constant need for guidance, adding to the workload of HR and payroll departments.

Callum Pennington, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of HBHR, said: “The HRGenie has always been able to answer questions, complete tasks and tell you where things are. But HRGenie Auto takes that a significant step further. Now, when you ask the platform something, it doesn’t just give you an answer. It takes over. That might sound like a small change. It isn’t. The biggest hidden cost in HR technology has never been the software itself, it’s the time spent learning it. With HRGenie Auto, the platform becomes the teacher. It shows people what to do, in the moment they need it, without anyone having to step in. This is what modern HR software should look like. Less like a system you have to learn and more like a colleague who just gets things done.”

Payroll Pressure

The survey highlights the commercial and operational risks employers face when payroll goes wrong. HBHR found that 24% of employees said pay mistakes had made it harder to afford rent, food or energy bills, while 20% said they had missed a bill entirely because of a payroll error.

In London, the figures were higher: 34% of employees said they had been unable to cover a bill because of a payroll mistake, and 31% had to borrow money to make up the shortfall.

The polling also pointed to a retention issue. According to HBHR, 76% of Gen Z workers and 72% of millennials said they would be likely to seek a new role if payroll errors persisted for six months. Across all workers surveyed, 23% said they had spotted a mistake in their payslip in the past year.

Confidence in payroll accuracy also varied by age group. HBHR found that 29% of Gen Z and millennial employees felt confident about payroll accuracy, compared with 43% of baby boomers.

Compliance Shift

HBHR linked the launch to broader change in the payroll market as HMRC payroll and tax reforms take effect. Only 36% of employees surveyed believed their employer had told them what was changing, while 30% said they had received no communication at all.

That leaves employers facing two pressures at once: adapting to regulatory change and maintaining trust in pay accuracy. HBHR argued that the burden often falls on internal teams already managing compliance, staff queries and routine administration.

It also found that 72% of employees believe technology underpins their confidence that pay will be accurate and on time. For software suppliers, that creates an opening to position systems not simply as administrative tools but as part of the employee experience.

HBHR, formerly known as HealthBox HR, provides HR, time and attendance, and payroll software in one system. HRGenie Auto is available to customers now.

Pennington said: “Payroll has always been treated as a back-office function, but these numbers make it brutally clear that it now sits on the front line of the cost-of-living crisis. When employees are missing bills because their payslip is wrong, that is not a minor admin issue. It is a systemic failure. HMRC’s changes are a golden opportunity for businesses to assess and evolve their payroll, but if they try to navigate this shift with spreadsheets or outdated systems, they risk pushing more employees into debt and driving out their best talent.”