An Interview with Emma Wehrwein on FACIS and the Future of Federated Cloud and Edge Infrastructures in Europe
In this episode of the Ohr am Netz (“An Ear to the Internet”) podcast, host Sidonie Krug speaks with Emma Wehrwein, Senior Project Manager and Project Lead of FACIS. The initiative is part of Europe’s broader push to build federated, interoperable cloud and edge infrastructures – systems in which providers can seamlessly collaborate, exchange data securely, and deliver reliable digital services across borders. In this interview, Wehrwein explains why interoperability matters, what technical and organizational hurdles stand in the way, and how FACIS aims to ensure that users never again have to think about what’s happening behind the scenes.*
To kick things off: What exactly is FACIS, and what core challenges in Europe’s cloud and edge landscape does the project tackle?
Emma Wehrwein: Well, if you look at today’s cloud and edge landscape in Europe, you quickly notice that many things run side by side – but not really together. There are countless providers, each with their own interfaces, contracts, and architectures. That makes it incredibly difficult to operate modern digital applications across providers or even across countries. But that’s exactly what we need – especially for things like autonomous mobility, smart cities, or intensive AI applications. These only work well when cloud and edge environments interact seamlessly.
This is where Europe’s 8ra initiative comes in, of which FACIS is a part. We’re an innovation project within the initiative, supporting the creation of foundational building blocks that allow federated digital infrastructures to function in practice – environments where different cloud–edge providers can communicate and exchange data in a sovereign, secure way.
I know it all sounds very technical – and sometimes it is. But at its core, it’s about something quite practical: ensuring that digital services in Europe finally work together the way real-world use cases require.
It sounds a bit like you’re building a universal language – one that all systems can speak across borders and across the cloud–-edge divide. The technical implementation is complex, but the idea behind it is easy to understand in today's globalized world.
Emma Wehrwein: Exactly. The 8ra initiative works very deeply at the infrastructure level. FACIS supports this by tackling challenges that are both technically relevant and highly practical. One area we focus on – and that is often underestimated in digital collaboration – is clear service quality agreements between different providers.
In traditional IT environments, every provider defines their own rules. That no longer works when many services need to operate across multiple clouds, edges, or countries. End users are left confused: Who is responsible for what? What level of quality can I expect?
We’ve now created the first European framework for multi-provider Service Level Agreement (SLA) management. It’s already published on our website. It helps providers define understandable, comparable service-level commitments and establishes shared rules that ultimately make things more transparent for customers.
You’re also working on Federation Architecture Patterns. The name sounds a bit like Star Trek – what’s behind it?
Emma Wehrwein: Or it almost sounds like like you’d need a full IT architecture degree to understand it. But the idea is actually simple. These Federation Architecture Patterns, or FAPs, are essentially reusable blueprints that show how to build digital solutions in a way that ensures smooth collaboration across multiple clouds or organizations.
So essentially, you’re identifying approaches that work well in practice – and instead of everyone reinventing the wheel, you’re providing blueprints that others can replicate.
Emma Wehrwein: Exactly. Think of it like a tried-and-tested recipe. The idea is to prevent every organization from having to figure it all out on their own, and instead to offer interoperable, proven solutions. For example, one of the patterns we’re working on models an entire data processing chain (IoT/AI FAP): an IoT device collects data, the data is securely shared, aggregated in a data lake, and then analyzed with AI. We provide this entire workflow as a blueprint.
What were some of the sticking points or challenges you encountered - those moments where you thought, “Wow, that’s tougher than expected”?
Emma Wehrwein: Interestingly, the biggest challenges haven’t been technical. We’re a year into the project, with another year to go, and one major realization is that many obstacles are cultural or organizational.
We talk a lot about federated identities or data flows, but where the real effort lies is in shifting mindsets. Many organizations still operate with a very centralized IT mentality: one provider, one platform, one control point. But federated ecosystems work the opposite way. They rely on shared rules, shared responsibility, and – very importantly – trust among partners who may never have collaborated before.
That requires a significant shift in thinking and a lot of educational work. It’s not “just” an IT integration task.
The human factor – it’s always there. Can you give an example? How does interoperability work today in a federated multi-provider environment, and how would it work in the future thanks to FACIS?
Emma Wehrwein: The term “interoperability” sounds abstract, but it’s really about something practical. With 8ra and FACIS, we want services from different providers to work together so seamlessly that users never even notice that there are multiple clouds, edges, or operators involved.
A great example – and really the vision we’re working toward – is Cloud Roaming. If you travel within the EU, you don’t sign up for a new mobile contract. Your phone automatically connects to a compatible local network. You use a service from whichever provider is local, but with your identity and your contract.
We want to bring that concept into the cloud and edge world. This means that services or companies can access resources across different environments without needing to re-register, re-integrate, or negotiate new contracts. In practice, that could mean a company facing sudden high demand can automatically tap into additional resources from another trusted European provider – no manual intervention required.
So the system handles everything in the background, and the user never has to deal with it. That's perfect.
Emma Wehrwein: Exactly. Another analogy is the Internet itself – it’s decentralized. You don’t notice when one node fails; the workload simply gets routed elsewhere. That’s the vision we’re pursuing.
The 8ra initiative will run for another two years, FACIS for another year. We’re actively working with market stakeholders and real-world use cases to understand what’s needed and to ensure scalability.
Projects often end up in a drawer once they’re finished. How will you make sure that FACIS results live on and are actually used in the market?
Emma Wehrwein: That’s a crucial question for us. We don’t want FACIS to remain just a research project – we want the results to be used.
We’re following two key strategies:
- Sustainable open-source publishing: Everything we develop is released as open source. Machine-readable SLAs, federated identity mechanisms, FAPs – everything flows into the XFSC open-source project under the Eclipse Foundation. That ensures long-term, independent usability and further development. And because the eco Association leads the project, it’s important to say: we have no commercial product interests. We’re not building a closed platform. Our goal is to support a decentralized, federated European digital infrastructure.
- Close collaboration with industry through demonstrators and proof of concepts: We don’t build things in an ivory tower. We test early and work directly with market players. That ensures our solutions work in real scenarios and address real needs – which is essential for adoption.
And we have to experiment. Germany is great at engineering perfection before going to market – but the IT world doesn’t work that way. Iteration and early value creation are key.
So – sleeves rolled up, one year to go. We’re rooting for you, and we’ll definitely check back in. Thank you so much for the conversation and for explaining FACIS. Thanks to Emma Wehrwein for giving us this deep insight into how, in the future, users may not have to think about any of this – because everything will work together automatically in the background. Wonderful - thank you.
* This interview has been translated into English from the original transcript.
