Governmental Clouds Security

Public bodies are a key player in Cloud computing area as it offers scalability, elasticity, high performance, resilience and security, together with cost efficiency while in the same time it could enable and simplify citizen interaction with government by reducing information processing time, lowering the cost of government services and enhancing citizen data security. Governmental Clouds offer to the public bodies, including ministries, governmental agencies and public administrations (PAs), the potential to manage security and resilience in traditional ICT environments and strengthen their national Cloud strategy. A governmental Cloud is a Cloud computing system owned and managed by central government and/or external providers/ bodies which provides a set of “building blocks” reusable services to create eGovernment services for public administration, citizens and private companies.

Published under Cloud Security

EU Cloud Stategy: “Cloud computing can help drive the transition to 21st century public services that are interoperable, scalable and in line with the needs of a mobile population and business that want to benefit from the European digital single market”

The EU Cloud strategy – subtitled “Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe”was launched by the European Commission in 2012. It describes the strategic plan of the European Commission aiming to enable and facilitate the adoption of Cloud services in the public and private Cloud computing sector across the EU.

ENISA, recognising the need for further guidelines to support Cloud deployment in the the public sector, launched this work with focus on security and privacy. These series of publications are targeted mostly to the public bodies in the EU (in whichever level of administration local, regional public administration offices, agencies and authorities) evaluating the costs and benefits for cloud deployment.

ENISA Publications

Security and Resilience in Governemental Clouds, 2011: This report identifies a decision-making model that can be used by senior management to determine how operational, legal and information security requirements, as well as budget and time constraints. Read the report.
Good practice guide for Governmental clouds, 2013: This report is assessing which EU Member States have operational government Cloud infrastructures and providing an overview of Cloud adoption in the public sector in the EU and offering some guidelines on the next steps. Read the report.
Security framework for Governmental Clouds, 2014: This report gives guidance on the process from pre-procurement till finalisation and exit from a cloud contract, explaining which are the steps to take when focusing on security and privacy. Read the report.

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