Contact
The French government is riding the cloud wave...
A Project Initiated Since 2018
In 2021, the French government approved the adoption of cloud computing as an alternative to on-premise hosting solutions for state information systems. To support this approach, the government published a doctrine on the use and regulation of cloud hosting. This document aims to redefine and distinguish between the "internal" cloud managed by the government and the "commercial" cloud managed by a provider, with a minimum requirement of SecNumCloud certification (or its future European equivalent, EUCS). The main goal is to be immune to any extracommunity regulations when hosting data with a special level of sensitivity and confidentiality.
The Rules of the "Cloud at the Center" Doctrine:
- Search for a suitable cloud solution for any digital project, regardless of its size or duration.
- Integrate the cloud component into recruitment and ongoing training processes.
- Implement measures to encourage cloud adoption within each administration.
- Provide viable contract termination and reversibility conditions for projects using commercial cloud services.
- Adhere to resilience best practices by using cloud services deployed in various regions.
- Use either internal or commercial cloud to manage the entire application production cycle in new state IT projects and projects for its providers.
- Document exemptions to this rule with DINUM for projects costing at least one million euros, providing a comparative analysis of scenarios.
- Ensure that IT systems handling personal data comply with GDPR requirements, including data transfers outside the EU.
- Guarantee portability between different cloud environments.
- Supervise the design and implementation of interministerial collaborative tools to make them accessible to all state agents upon request.
- Prefer existing solutions to meet the needs of agents and citizens, whether through subscriptions to commercial SaaS offers or by deploying solutions on the state's internal cloud.
- Ensure that the infrastructures and services of publishers comply with GDPR standards for the mentioned services.
Find all the rules of the doctrines on numerique.gouv.fr
The Challenges of Sovereign Cloud
There are three main challenges:
- Transformation Challenge: The adoption of the cloud must be accompanied by associated practices in achieving excellence in digital service production (proximity between business and IT teams, scalability, DevOps, CI/CD processes, which ensure the adaptation of products to users)
- Sovereignty and Security Challenge: The adoption of the cloud must not impede the state's autonomy in decision-making or action, nor its digital security and the resilience of its infrastructures, the state's control over entrusted data and processing, compliance with European rules on the protection of personal data, even as the presence of non-European cloud actors is predominant
- Industrial Challenge: The adoption of the cloud by the state, and more broadly the public sector, must be an opportunity for the French and European ecosystem, with reciprocal benefits for public players to access competitive offerings at the European or even global level.
The legal and technical complexity of the topic requires partnering with a partner who:
- Master cloud computing solutions in an SAP context
- Understands European hosting rules and data sovereignty
- Has the necessary expertise to migrate highly complex critical environments to a secure cloud.
To meet these requirements, Applium has partnered with OVHcloud to create a 100% sovereign SAP hosting solution that complies with the highest levels of requirements and certifications. As an «Advanced Partner» of OVHcloud, Applium supports clients concerned about data sovereignty in their "Move to Cloud" strategy for their SAP environments. Furthermore, this partnership level demonstrates our commitment to offering concrete, quality solutions to address the challenges faced by SAP clients.
