If you have considered your options and have come to the conclusion that you want to move away from US tech with your organization or as a private individual then, how do you start? If you’re still in doubt: read here why you need to migrate away from US tech NOW!
There are several things to take into account:
Risk
Exactly nobody has any idea on how the situation in the US is going to develop. However, you don’t need to be an Einstein to see that current directions involve a lot of risk for non-US based organizations and individuals. Also, it may turn worse at any unexpected moment. Not just some everyday risk that will cost you something. This is a risk that may put you out of business, because your business critical apps would be suddenly unavailable. Or – as an individual – you may lose access to all of your files, photos and what not. If everything is at stake (even when you do not exactly know how big the risk is or when it’s going to materialize) the precautionary principle comes into effect: you mitigate directly. In this case this means that you’ll need to migrate whatever is possible away from US tech and do it as fast as possible.
Vulnerability
How vulnerable are you actually? It does not only need to become clear exactly what US tech you are currently using (to get this clear will be a challenge in itself for many organizations). It also needs to become clear what it would mean if a certain service would stop. What would really hit you if worse would come to worse? And what would be just inconvenient? E.g. if you lose access to all of your communication systems and files, then you may be done and over with. If you lose access to your accounting system that runs as a SaaS on AWS, then that is very inconvenient, but it’s not the end of the world.
Please notice that I do not mention cost of migration or operational cost after the migration. This is on purpose as the focus nowadays is so much on money in every possible life situation. However, the topic here is business continuity with a not to be underestimated risk on the table. Of course cost is also a very interesting topic, but it is not the main thing.
It really depends on your specific situation what to do first. In general you could say that when you are doing this as an individual it is sort of straight-forward, but it may already be quite some work. If you are an organization it tends to get more complex fast the larger you are and the more you are using different applications that are all linked up together. Up to the point of maybe impossible. But even then there will be things that your can do and should do.
First things first:
1. Communication
Email, messaging, collaboration, videoconferencing, etc. You may need to keep part of the existing infrastructure alive for now, because there are just too many linked applications, but at least move what you can move. By doing this you ensure that your organization will be able to communicate internally and externally when an incident occurs.
2. Cloud storage
Again, you may need to keep part of the existing infrastructure, but at least secure access to your files needed for business continuity.
3. Office applications
Although your Microsoft account manager may have made you believe that life on earth is not possible without all employees having a Office365 (now Copilot, even worse) subscription, this is mostly nonsense. Notice the “mostly”. However, alternatives are often not as slick as the Office applications we are all accustomed to. Beware: this is where I expect a lot if not the most resistance of your employees.
4. Domain
Ensure that you will be able to manage the domains you own. If your main domain is controlled by the US (e.g. .com), you may consider to register a back-up domain. As large parts of the internet are controlled by US-based organizations (but not necessarily under direct US government control), this will remain a risk whatever you do.
If you have arrived at this point, you have already done a great job for your organization. Ask for a raise!
5. Social media
Create presence on non-US social media like Mastodon. Even if the reach of these is low today, this will change very fast when there is an incident. It will provide you with a means of communication to your customers if other services like X, Instagram or Facebook fail. You can look at this as an insurance policy and just start to build up a following here slowly.
6. Website(s)
Move your website if necessary. This may be a lot of work, depending on your specific situation. Don’t forget to take into account services that your website may depend on for functioning like Cloudfare and Google fonts. Many organizations recently discovered their dependency the hard way when Cloudfare experienced a major outage.
7. Applications
If you don’t know what applications specific for your organization you are using (self-hosted, in a cloud or SaaS) or even how many: don’t worry, that is normal. There are probably many. The point is to identify those that are business critical. And no: not everything is business critical. Certain applications may be critical for some roles to function, but that role may not be business critical. This may be hard to swallow for the people involved. Life will go on for a while without the accounting department for example as that can be repaired later.
8. Hardware
If applicable you may want to look at specific hardware and machines. You may encounter unpleasant surprises.
9. Platforms
Move away from Windows. People that have done it are still alive. It is possible, although your Microsoft account manager tells you otherwise.
What is missing from this list? Phones! There is alternative software available for some Android phones, but not so many. And not all the apps will run on this alternative software. iOS is a walled garden which is a disaster in itself for many reasons. No easy fix. So the solution is to ensure that everything you do on you phone also can be done on a computer or another alternative way. Do not underestimate how often you use your phone to enable something trivial, but you would be in trouble if you couldn’t do it. Think about opening a gate, get access to something, etc.
This is a lot of work. Start today.
Good luck!