German administration cloud goes live

From 1 April, the German Administration Cloud (Deutsche Verwaltungscloud, DVC), a new building block of administration digitization, is to go live. The aim is to provide authorities at federal, state and municipal level with a kind of digital marketplace through which they can obtain cloud applications from German public administration IT service providers in a simple and standardized way. After registering and logging in to the DVC, IT managers will then be able to order the desired services for their authorities.

"The German Administration Cloud is a milestone for digital sovereignty and the modernization of public administration. For the first time, it offers a common platform to use cloud services transparently and efficiently and to strengthen cooperation across all administrative levels," said Ina-Maria Ulbrich, State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Building and Digitalization of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Chairwoman of the IT Planning Council.

30 services on offer

The DVC is backed by the Multicloud of the federal and state governments. According to the press release, it currently only offers cloud services that have been developed and provided by IT service providers in the administration. Over 30 services are available at the launch – including collaboration tools, data platforms and administration software. Messengers such as dMessenger from Dataport, the IT service provider for Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen and Saxony-Anhalt, are also included.

The operators want to gradually expand the range of services. The provision of additional services from as yet unnamed "external administration providers" is also planned. Networking between the individual cloud data centers is also to be improved. Nine public IT service providers are to actively contribute to the development and implementation of the DVC. The Federal IT Cooperation Agency (FITKO) is responsible for managing the overall project.

(axk)