This series connected a simple strategic idea—reducing lock‑in and increasing control—to how modern EU rules ask you to prove security, resilience, data respect, and product discipline. Open source is a means, not a certificate. The outcome regulators care about is operational: defensible governance, tested recovery, traceable software, and honest data handling.
Summary
- GDPR: accountability, ROPA, transfers, DPIAs, and security measures survive any migration; self‑hosting shifts evidence collection inward.
- DORA: ICT risk, third parties, incidents, and resilience testing apply to financial entities; stacks change, obligations do not.
- NIS2: cyber hygiene, supply chain, and reporting expectations intensify; open pipelines need owners and SLAs.
- EU AI Act: roles, risk class, documentation, transparency, and oversight follow the use case; open weights do not auto‑exempt deployments.
- Cyber Resilience Act: product security lifecycle matters when digital elements hit the market; SBOMs and patching become board‑visible.
- EU Data Act: switching, fairness, and interoperability push you toward portable designs and real exit paths.
Migration to‑do checklist
Strategy and ownership
- Name a single accountable owner for the migration (business + engineering + security).
- Define success: compliance posture, cost, exit time, RTO/RPO—not only “we use Linux.”
Inventory and architecture
- Catalogue critical systems, data classes, AI use cases, and third parties affected by the move.
- Document target architecture: identity, secrets, logging, backup, and network zones.
Regulatory artefacts
- Update ROPA / processing records; revisit legal basis and retention.
- Refresh transfer analysis and contracts for new subprocessors or regions.
- Trigger or update DPIA where high‑risk processing or AI changes the picture.
- Align DORA / NIS2 risk registers, incident playbooks, and test schedules with the new stack.
- Classify AI systems under the AI Act lens; assign provider/deployer duties and evidence needs.
- For in-scope products, map CRA expectations to your release and vulnerability management process.
- For lock‑in risk, test Data Act–relevant switching: exports, APIs, contract exit clauses.
Engineering discipline
- SBOM or dependency inventory integrated into CI; critical CVE SLAs defined.
- Reproducible builds, signed artifacts, and environment parity (dev/test/prod).
- Backup/restore and failover exercised on the new platform; results archived.
Operational readiness
- Training for admins; break‑glass access; patching windows; on‑call coverage.
- Decommission legacy systems and delete redundant copies (GDPR “storage limitation” reality check).
If you treat open source as portability plus evidence, migrations stop being one‑off projects and become a capability: you can adapt when law, vendors, or threat models move—which they will.
Need help untangling your regulatory obligations - ISO27001, DORA, GDPR, CRA, or the latest from Brussels? I support teams navigating audits, migrations, and compliance transformations. Contact me for practical guidance or hands-on support.