Beyond the media madness and storm waves aroused in many political, economic and social areas by last summer Snowden scandal contributed to a kind of “clouds dispersion on the sky” that threatened ecosystems involving cloud model. Negative impact offered a chance to catalyse positive forces, governments began to realize how much they need the cloud, the scientific community has focused on finding solutions to prevent any leaks, and European forums have accelerated the development of community standards.

From the European Community perspective of cloud assimilation, 2014 will be quite important, governments of many countries having ambitious plans. A first signal was in November 2013, when Cloud -For-Europe program started in Berlin. Cloud for Europe is a research project funded by the EU with EUR 9.8 million, which brings together 23 partners from 11 countries. The purpose of this initiative is to provide a clear picture of the requirements of the public sector and usage scenarios for cloud computing.

Prof. Dr. Radu Popescu – Zeletin , Fraunhofer FOKUS director and host of the Cloud for Europe conference in Berlin, summarize the concrete needs of the public company : “We need measures that enhance security when entering or leaving the cloud, when storing information and when changing the system, too.” One of the major topics discussed in Berlin focused on security issues and build confidence in the cloud, despite the spy scandal. Basically Cloud -for -Europe program aims to centralize security policies at Community level, without trying to impose new central authority. “We do not want a new centralised European super infrastructure. Our role is rather to federate and enhance national, regional and local initiatives,” said Neelie Kroes , European Commission Vice-President in his speech opening the conference Berlin. “We need trust if we want to build an open cloud market that does not stop at regional or national borders.”

Another major event related to the concerns of the European Future Internet Assembly  conference cloud is (FIA), which will host Athens in March 2014, the time coinciding with the Greek Presidency of the European Union. FIA 2014 will focus on reshaping the Internet infrastructure and implement the latest technological innovation and integration between traditional and cloud networks , network virtualization trends , software and services for networks, applications and social media , environmental issues and assimilation of open platforms .

Turning to concerns about Cloud in the public sector some major trends is expected for 2014. Many of the local and central government organizations in the UK will have to adhere to the April 2014 national program “Public Service Network Code of Compliance”  which establishes clear procedures to align the rules GPG13 information security and event management facilities ( SIEM ) for public cloud infrastructures .

Beyond the concerns of the British government to develop PSN already noted a trend towards cloud opening of local authorities who require a continuous exchange of information with the central structures, due to a general increase in confidence in the effectiveness of cloud services.

While the British have almost everything perfect and aim to gradually align new programs in Italy the public acquisition process has only just started. CONSIP organization which oversees Government procurement, recently announced tender for cloud computing services offered by central and local administrations. At a total estimated investment of around 1.95 Billion Euro, the program implementing cloud services will bring Italian government savings over 3 Million by simple adoption of cloud model. Given the fact that public investment in IT exceeds the annual average 5.2B Euro, we can say that the simple migration to the cloud will reduce investment at about 390 Million Euro per year, which is by no means negligible.

Photo Source: cloudtimes.org