Digital Sovereignty as a Quality Attribute for Software Architectures

2026-06-30

AI Summary

This study addresses the longstanding lack of a clear and actionable definition of digital sovereignty within software architecture. It systematically models digital sovereignty as a software quality attribute for the first time, integrating cloud computing contexts with the European Union’s policy framework. The work proposes a scenario-based analysis approach to establish its measurability, core characteristics, and trade-off mechanisms with other quality attributes. By synthesizing techniques from quality attribute modeling, scenario analysis, and policy mapping, this research operationalizes digital sovereignty in engineering practice, enabling its validation, evaluation, and informed decision-making during architectural design. In doing so, it bridges the gap between high-level policy concepts and concrete system implementation.

Abstract

Digital sovereignty (DS) is an increasingly important concept and political agenda throughout the world, including in the European Union (EU). However, the concept is also regrettably vague. With this critical point in mind, the paper presents an analysis of digital sovereignty as a quality attribute for software architectures in the context of cloud computing and the EU's policy frameworks for it. The analysis reveals that DS can be sharpened analytically by conceptualizing it as a quality attribute. The analysis further demonstrates how DS satisfies many of the classical properties of quality attributes for software architectures, including their measurability and validation, the trade-offs they involve, and the scenario-based methodology commonly used for analyzing them.

Problem

• Digital Sovereignty
• Software Architecture
• Quality Attribute
• Cloud Computing
• EU Policy

Innovation

• Digital Sovereignty
• Quality Attribute
• Software Architecture
• Cloud Computing
• Scenario-based Analysis