Kocho taps Zadara for sovereign AI cloud in VMware shift

Zadara has partnered with UK managed services provider Kocho as Kocho adds a sovereign cloud platform to its managed cloud services portfolio and reduces reliance on VMware.

Kocho works across cybersecurity, identity, cloud transformation, and managed services. It selected Zadara's sovereign AI cloud platform as its cloud infrastructure to meet customer demand for AI-ready services and tighter data controls.

The deal comes as many IT service providers reassess virtualisation and cloud infrastructure choices following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware. Customers have reported higher licensing costs and shifting contract terms since the deal closed.

Kocho cited escalating licensing costs, pricing uncertainty, and infrastructure complexity. It said it wanted an alternative to its traditional stack and chose a consumption-based model that shifts spending towards operating expenditure rather than upfront capital investment.

The companies said the move will allow Kocho to scale resources on demand and reduce capacity-planning effort. Kocho also said the managed platform will change how its internal IT team splits time between infrastructure operations and customer-facing work.

Microsoft alignment

Kocho has built its services around Microsoft cloud technologies. Zadara's platform integrates with Azure, aligning with Kocho's Microsoft-first approach for clients standardised on Microsoft services.

Kocho also pointed to data residency as a key requirement for many customers. The companies described the platform as "sovereign", a market term for cloud services that keep data within defined national or regional boundaries and apply local governance controls.

Multi-tenancy is another focus for managed service providers, which run services for multiple customers on shared infrastructure. Zadara said its platform supports multi-tenant deployments. Kocho said this will underpin its managed cloud offerings, including backup services, while keeping customer environments separate.

Jacques Fourie, Global Operations Director at Kocho, said the deal reduces the burden on internal teams.

"Zadara's distributed edge cloud delivers performance, data sovereignty, and real-time AI processing without data egress fees or financial lock-in. Partnering with Zadara has been a critical step in future-proofing Kocho's cloud services. Zadara liberates our team to focus on application work. We live in the house; Zadara provides the house."

AI workloads

Zadara describes its offering as a sovereign AI cloud and positions it for AI inference and data-intensive workloads, including edge deployments. It also promotes a distributed model with local cloud locations, which it says reduces the need to move data.

The partnership is framed around demand for AI readiness. For managed service providers, this often means providing infrastructure that can host AI workloads, handle higher data volumes, and meet compliance requirements in regulated industries.

Kocho serves customers across sectors including financial services, health, manufacturing, and professional services. It has highlighted clients such as Bupa, Aviva, Hallo Healthcare, Unilabs, and Liontrust Asset Management.

Partner momentum

Zadara has been expanding its ecosystem of service providers and technology partners in the sovereign cloud segment. It recently announced partnerships with Micro Support Group and Alerify, focusing on multi-tenant AI cloud deployments.

Zadara is headquartered in Irvine, California, and says it operates more than 500 edge cloud locations globally. It also says it can deploy cloud infrastructure in customer-chosen locations, including on-premises and hybrid environments.

Alasdair Hill, Sales Director for Northern Europe at Zadara, said the partnership centres on sovereignty and security for AI and data-heavy work.

"We are proud to partner with Kocho in delivering a cloud infrastructure that is sovereign, secure and built for the demands of real-time AI and data-intensive workloads," Hill said. "Zadara is enabling Kocho to drive innovation and provide unmatched value to their clients while ensuring performance, compliance and scalability."