Why Switch.ch Chose MariaDB: A Swiss Case Study in Open Source, Digital Sovereignty, and Academic IT

At the MariaDB Foundation, we’re constantly engaging with users, partners, and collaborators to understand how MariaDB fits into their infrastructure—and what we can do better. A recent conversation between our Executive Chairman Kaj Arnö and Renato Furter from Switch.ch, Switzerland’s national research and education network, revealed valuable insights into open source adoption, digital sovereignty, and collaboration across European academia.

From MySQL to MariaDB: Why Switch Made the Move

Switch has been a MariaDB user for years. Their journey began with MySQL, like many institutions in academia. But when Oracle’s roadmap grew increasingly opaque and development around MySQL 5.7 stagnated, the Switch team made a practical decision: migrate to MariaDB. Compatibility was high, the migration was seamless, and MariaDB’s transparent open source future made the decision easy.

Today, Switch runs MariaDB 10.11 with minimal issues—none of which are rooted in MariaDB itself.

“We chose MariaDB because it was the most pragmatic and future-proof option,” said Renato Furter. “We haven’t looked back.”

About Switch.ch: Switzerland’s Open Source IT Backbone for Universities and Research

Switch is a Swiss non-profit foundation providing IT services to higher education institutions. Functioning as an extended IT department for Swiss universities, Switch’s mission is to deliver reliable infrastructure without profit, operating under the principle of a “black zero”—covering costs without generating excess revenue.

One example of this ethos is their Switch Drive service, currently running on ownCloud. While it started as open source, ownCloud was later acquired by a U.S. company. In response to growing concerns around data sovereignty — particularly in Germany — Switch is preparing to transition back to self-hosted Nextcloud which is originally a fork of ownCloud (for a comparison in German, see the Ionos.at blog Nextcloud vs. ownCloud:Nextcloud vs. ownCloud: Die beiden Cloud-Lösungen im direkten Vergleich).

“We prefer the independence and flexibility of open source,” Renato noted.

European NREN Collaboration: Building Open Infrastructure Across Borders

Switch doesn’t work in isolation. As part of the European National Research and Education Network (NREN), they regularly collaborate with peer organizations like SURF (Netherlands), DFN (Germany), and the Swedish NREN. These networks share infrastructure, knowledge, and software—including Nextcloud installations backed by MariaDB.

For instance, the University of Münster in Germany runs a large-scale Nextcloud installation on a MariaDB cluster. The annual Sync-and-Share meetings of NREN partners prioritize software collaboration, though database selection plays a foundational role.

Why Switch.ch Trusts MariaDB: Stability, Simplicity, and Open Development

Switch’s use of MariaDB is straightforward: a stable, open source database that meets their deployment needs. Yet the decision goes deeper than performance. Transparency in governance and development direction matters.

“We value the fact that MariaDB is developed in the open and not dictated by corporate interests,” Renato shared.

They’re also exploring high availability solutions, indicating a steady growth in the scale and ambition of their services.

MariaDB for AI and Vector Search: Supporting Next-Gen Use Cases at Switch.ch

Kaj took the opportunity to share recent developments in MariaDB, including our vector search capabilities and performance benchmarks. MariaDB offers faster recall than PGVector in some use cases, making it a competitive choice for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) scenarios.

While MariaDB doesn’t develop its own LLMs, we support the ecosystem with fast, open vector search. Switch has an internal working group exploring AI applications, and we see strong potential for synergy here.

MariaDB for Universities: How We Support Academic Institutions and Students

Finally, Kaj introduced MariaDB’s university program, offering course materials, student-friendly contribution paths, and AI-assisted assignment suggestions (see mariadb.org/mariadb-for-universities-program). While Switch doesn’t directly shape curricula, they support many institutions in Switzerland—especially in e-learning.

Switch expressed interest in continuing the conversation and identifying the right contacts at universities like ETH Zurich and others.

MariaDB and Switch.ch: Advancing Digital Sovereignty and Open Source in European Academia

Our conversation with Switch reaffirmed the value of transparent, open source solutions in a world increasingly concerned with sovereignty, interoperability, and trust. We’re proud that MariaDB plays a role in empowering educational networks across Europe—and we look forward to deeper collaboration with Switch and the wider NREN community.

Want to learn more or get involved in our university program? Reach out to us at foundation@mariadb.org.