Capgemini and Orange have introduced that Bleu, a cloud firm launched in partnership with Microsoft, is partaking commercially with ‘choose French private and non-private organisations’ in anticipation of companies going reside by the tip of 2024.
Bleu, which is described as ‘absolutely operational’, was launched with the purpose of assembly particular cloud wants of assorted excessive degree organisations, together with the French state, regional authorities, and hospitals amongst others. The corporate had obtained validation from the European Fee final yr, and is now trying to set out its path to assist put together migration, and perform checks and pilots with shoppers for the nascent platform, which is predicated on Microsoft 365 and Azure companies.
The providing is exclusive to the French market and pertains to the ‘cloud de confiance’, or ‘trusted cloud’. It is a label awarded by ANSSI, France’s cybersecurity company, guaranteeing the very best degree of safety ‘significantly towards the extraterritoriality of US regulation’, as a 2022 Euractiv article (French) put it. The precise qualification is SecNumCloud, a ‘safety visa’ from ANSSI which goals to information administrative authorities, operators of important significance (OVIs), in addition to all European and French financial operators in direction of trusted suppliers.
This heightened scrutiny has led to intense competitors from French cloud suppliers. Thales, finest recognized for cybersecurity however with a robust curiosity in cloud, signed a strategic partnership with Google Cloud in 2021. The primary fruit of that labour was S3NS, a brand new firm launched in 2022 with the purpose of providing a ‘first step’ in direction of the trusted cloud.
OVHcloud, cited because the main hosting supplier in Europe, has numerous choices that are certified beneath SecNumCloud, whereas Dassault Systemes introduced Outscale, claimed as the primary cloud operator to obtain the ANSSI safety visa for SecNumCloud 3.2 on its public cloud companies, in December.
If you’re pondering this sounds somewhat like a sovereign cloud – a cloud computing structure designed and constructed to supply information entry in compliance with native legal guidelines – then there are variations, in accordance with Dominique Luzeaux, former director of the Protection Digital Company. Quoted in a Le Monde Informatique article this time final yr entitled ‘Le cloud souverain est mort, vive le cloud de confiance’, Luzeaux famous a ‘vital’ hole separating the sovereign from the trusted cloud. “Already on the base, sovereignty relies on oneself, whereas belief relies on a relationship between oneself and the opposite,” wrote Luzeaux. “The 2 are usually not comparable.”
As one would count on, the bunting was firmly out for Bleu from Capgemini and Orange. “As a number one participant within the digital transformation of companies in France, Orange is conscious of the precise challenges when it comes to information safety and sovereignty for vital infrastructure operators and public establishments,” stated Christel Heydemann, CEO of Orange. “We’re assured that Bleu will meet these wants by offering a cloud answer based mostly on Microsoft companies whereas being absolutely compliant with the requirements set by French authorities in its ‘trusted cloud’ doctrine.”
Aiman Ezzat, CEO of the Capgemini Group, added that he was ‘proud’ of the work executed by all sides to grasp an providing which can ‘leverage the complete energy of Microsoft cloud companies.’ “Bleu brings a singular mixture of safety and repair advantages, together with the widest vary of technological improvements, enabling French organisations to speed up their digital ambitions by way of the approaching years,” stated Ezzat.
The corporate added it was trying to receive the ANSSI SecNumCloud 3.2 qualification in 2025.
Picture by Rafael Garcin on Unsplash
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