Between the 2022 and 2025, 75% of the public administration will have to transfer data and services to a new IT infrastructure. It's about the national cloud, which will be managed by the new Cybersecurity Agency, who is entrusted with the task of guiding the PA in the long (and complicated) transition phase. The government's strategy was presented by the innovation minister on Tuesday, Vittorio Colao.
The number one goal is to guarantee the security and autonomy of the new Italian cloud. This means that the physical structures from which the virtual space is generated (servers and cables) must not be accessible to third countries that Rome and Brussels consider hostile.
Furthermore – a few weeks after the hacker attack that brought the Lazio Region vaccine booking system to its knees – Colao explained that the new national cloud will be protected from accidents, hacking attacks and technical failures.
To achieve these objectives, the government will focus on a unified command structure: the National Strategic Pole.
In detail, there will be five clouds to manage and they will be distinguished according to the different needs and the various levels of importance of the data:
- Il encrypted cloud, the most critical, the one in which strategic data will be kept which will remain (together with the servers) within the borders of the European Union.
- Il mixed clouds, i.e. public and private under licence. The data will remain in Italy and the suppliers "will be subject to public supervision and monitoring," explained Colao. Also in this case there are advanced cryptographic checks.
- Il cloud contracted out to private individuals, who will manage some services. The indications of point 2 apply to surveillance and encryption.
- Il public cloud, whose data will remain in Europe and for which ordinary checks are foreseen.
- Il unqualified public cloud, whose data may also be stored in servers located outside the European Union.
The problem is that, in the field of the cloud, Italy and Europe still depend on non-EU suppliers, above all Chinese and American. And the giants of this sector take advantage of it. Some Chinese companies, for example, immediately warn: if the Beijing government orders it, they will have to transfer all the data managed in the cloud to it. Because of this Italy does not intend to appoint Chinese suppliers, but aims to create new Italian champions.
the premium three teams are already clear: Tim with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Sogei with Leonardo, Almaviva with Aruba. Their first objective is to create the National Strategic Pole.
