FAQs

As stipulated in the regulations establishing Polo Strategico Nazionale S.p.A. (Article 33 septies of the Decree-Law of 18 October 2012, No. 179, especially paragraphs 1 and 1a), the Italian Administrations which can join include Central Public Administrations, Local Public Administrations, and Health Authorities.

PAs can join the Agreement without having to use a tendering procedure.

This process is described on the Department for Digital Transformation website (specifically in the section entitled, “The process of joining the Hub and contract activation”).

While in some cases migrating to the Hub’s infrastructure can be financed by accessing Next Generation EU funds, this is not a requirement for membership.

The process of a PAs migrating to Polo Strategico Nazionale’s cloud requires a few steps.

The Administration prepares and sends a Needs Plan to the Hub, using the available template. This plan describes the needs and services being requested. Within 60 calendar days of receiving the Needs Plan, Polo Strategico Nazionale prepares and sends back a Needs Project to the involved Administration. This contains a technical-financial proposal addressing the indicated needs.

The Administration may then approve the Needs Project within 10 calendar days of receiving it by signing a User Contract.

This is the Italian section dedicated to the Reserved Area.

The Italian Procurement Portal, however, is accessible at this link.

The Needs Plan template is available on Polo Strategico Nazionale website on the Italian pages “How to join” and “Documentation” . You will also find the other useful documents for the migration process there.

The Needs Plan should be sent to the following certified email address: convenzione.psn@pec.polostrategiconazionale.it

To proceed with joining, an Administration must: 

• prepare and send the Needs Plan to Polo Strategico Nazionale 
• await receipt of the Needs Project, which the Hub is required to send back within 60 days
• review the Draft Needs Project and pursue any further comments within 10 days
• if the PA approves the project, they will conclude a contract on the basis of the template attached to the Agreement 

Polo Strategico Nazionale must:

• provide support to the PA in drafting the Needs Plan
• send the Draft Needs Project to the PA with a description of services and their corresponding costs while also attaching the best migration plan
• update the Draft Needs Project accordingly within 10 days should there be any comments submitted by the Administrations
• if the project is approved by the PA, conclude the contract 

To access the Reserved Area just visit this section.

The Supply Portal is accessible at this link.

The Italian Cloud Strategy was created by the Department for Digital Transformation (Dipartamento di trasformazione digitale/DTD) of the Prime Minister’s Office and the National Cybersecurity Agency. The aim is to ensure the country’s technological autonomy, guarantee control over data, and increase digital service resilience.

This means Administrations should opt for a cloud paradigm over any other technological option when defining new projects and services.

An Administration’s data can be defined as: 

• Strategic. Has an impact on national security, for example, data used in preparing the state budget
• Critical. Serves socially relevant functions, such as health, security, and the economic and social well-being of the country, for example, health data
• Ordinary. Does not result in the interruption of essential or important state services, for example, data published on the institutional site of an entity

Cloud computing is a service delivery paradigm offered over a network. It is based on a set of pre-existing, configurable, and remotely available resources arrayed in a distributed architecture.

A PA can only purchase qualified Cloud Services, which must meet specific technical and organisational standards, data control measures, and encryption-key management and security controls.

By migrating to Polo Strategico Nazionale’s cloud, Administrations will be able to count on more secure digital services. Migrating to qualified Cloud Services also allows PAs to benefit from the advantages of scalability, elasticity, and strengthened security and resilience against cyberattacks. As such, they can offer better digital services to citizens and businesses.

Migration to qualified Cloud Services can be financed by accessing Next Generation EU funds. 

Administrations participating in the project will be able to count on the Business & Culture Enablement training service. This aims to promote full development of the skills needed for digitally transforming a PA. Consulting and system integration will also play a key role in achieving the country’s full digital development in this regard.

Polo Strategico Nazionale will support Administrations in an end-to-end, turnkey, physical and virtual migration process. The main services offered to PAs are Housing and Hosting, Private Cloud Services, Cloud Services with Cloud Service Providers, and Professional Services.

Housing allows Administrations to place and use their servers on an equipped space owned by Polo Strategico Nazionale.

Administrations also have the option of hosting their applications on rented servers owned by Polo Strategico Nazionale. This Hosting service guarantees interconnectivity with PA systems that are part of other services provided by Polo Strategico Nazionale .

Polo Strategico Nazionale provides Private Cloud services to Public Administrations. These include on-demand and as-a-service solutions, virtual infrastructure, and application management platforms that meet the various demands of Italian PAs.

PAs can access services with Cloud Service Providers in public or hybrid modes, depending on their needs. These solutions are currently implemented in partnership with Oracle, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. In the future, they may also be delivered through other Cloud Service Providers.

These are additional, optional, functional options for further developing PA services. They include:

• Re-platforming: solutions for redesigning platforms that host PA applications and which enable cloud transformation.
• Re-architecting: solutions for redesigning application architectures from a cloud perspective. 
• Professional Services and Security Compliance: Strategy & Compliance projects aimed at assessing infrastructure and application security as well as supporting continuing high security standards in administrations. 
• IT Infrastructure – Service Operations: specialised on-demand services that support operations involved in managing PA infrastructure and applications.
•  Business & Culture enablement: training and consultancy services for Administrations. These are designed to help PAs develop highly reliable infrastructure and support them over their technological development path.

Polo Strategico Nazionale provides 3 cloud migration services: Re-Host, in which the migration does not involve changes to the applications or software, Re-Platform, in which the migration adapts the application components to the cloud infrastructure and Re -Architect, in which migration transforms applications according to the cloud-native paradigm.

It is a migration service that does not involve changes to applications or software.

It is a migration service that adapts the application components to the cloud infrastructure.

It is a migration service that transforms Public Administration applications according to the cloud-native paradigm.

Each migration involves 3 phases:

• Explore: where the Administrations’ applications and software are analysed, to evaluate which cloud migration best meets their needs.
• Make: in which a setup is created that organizes the cloud environment to transfer all data safely.
• Go To Cloud: in which services are activated on the new cloud infrastructure, monitoring the functioning of the entire environment even after activation.

These are on-demand solutions for archiving large quantities of Public Administration data, then managing access to them in a fast and intuitive way.

In the field of Data Protection, Polo Strategico Nazionale provides the following services:

• Backup: on a single centralized console, so users can manage their data independently.
• Golden Copy: in order to analyze monthly backups to intercept silent malware that would compromise the validity of a restore in production.
• Disaster Recovery: to replicate data and processing in an off-premise location not involved in the disaster event.

It is a type of Polo Strategico Nazionale service that allows you to rely on:

• Management of encryption keys external to the control perimeter of the CSP;
• Guaranteed security by policy/design creating a segregated and self-consistent standard environment for each customer;
• Confidential computing, where activated, makes it impossible for cloud service provider operators to access the data during processing;
• The Hub & Spoke solution ensures that all network traffic can be controlled and monitored;
• Sovereignty over data stored through backup management also in the PSN private cloud.

Polo Strategico Nazionale offers integrated Public Cloud, Hybrid & Multicloud solutions through the use of a single Cloud Management Platform with the possibility of adding features that meet the needs of the individual Administration, such as customized workflows or advanced capacity planning.

This is a service provided by Cloud Service Provider (Microsoft Azure) via DC and proprietary infrastructure of Polo Strategico Nazionale, which provides a combination of public cloud (always in the Italian region) and private.

Business & Culture Enablement is a package of Polo Strategico Nazionale services which consists of:

• Change Management: accompanying organizations and people in the process of learning tools and resources for digital transformation;
• Training: provide an e-Learning platform with basic courses in the catalog and/or customized on specific topics;
• Specialist Support: propose professional support figures, who can be integrated with Change Management and Training services, to further accelerate the understanding of the processes.

They are a series of services offered by Polo Strategico Nazionale provided by Cloud Service Providers on PSN Data Centers, which include:

• A separation of the components, in particular between the dedicated Cloud part and the public one;
• Complete management (from hardware to software platform) by Polo Strategico Nazionale staff;
• Management of all phases, from software release to hardware and replacement management;
• The provision of services in a completely disconnected manner from the public regions of the Cloud Service Provider.

They are Strategy & Compliance projects, designed to evaluate the security of an infrastructure and its application park, working on the security standards of the Administrations.

They are a series of on-demand specialist solutions to support Operations for the management of the infrastructure and application park of the Public Administration.

What additional services does Polo Strategico Nazionale provide?

Polo Strategico Nazionale provides the following ancillary services for the Public Administration:

• Dedicated 1 Gbps connectivity: to optimize the migration process; 2 Gbps, 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps bands are also envisaged for which provision must be made in advance because physical access is carried out on Lambda Wave (DWDM optical fibre).
• Multicloud: to add features that meet the needs of the individual Administration, such as customized workflows or advanced capacity planning.
• Antivirus with centralized control: to protect IT environments through a Fully Managed EDR application.
• Windows and Linux operating systems: to meet the needs of Administrations.

Polo Strategico Nazionale provides IaaS Shared and IaaS Dedicated services. In the first case, a virtualized, logically isolated environment is proposed to the Administrations, with resources available when they are needed. In the second, an infrastructural private cloud is made available in a special area dedicated to the Public Administration, which provides private computational resources.

It is a distribution model of IT services that allows you to run and manage scalable, fast and efficient applications within containers.

It is a solution that provides for the provision of one or more technological platforms in the cloud where applications and data can be run. The platform then provides application elements and middleware (database, big data, Artificial Intelligence).

At the heart of Hub are the National Data Center. These are designed, built, and operated in a way that provides the energy efficiency infrastructures need while lowering environmental impacts.

The Hub’s four Data Centers are located in Lazio region (Pomezia and Acilia) and Lombardy region (Rozzano and Santo Stefano Ticino).

Energy efficiency in the Data Centers is pursued first and foremost through the targeted design of facilities and industrial plants using energy-efficient and environmentally friendly components and technologies. In addition, we use best-in-class IT equipment and products. These offer greater compactness and lower power consumption alongside high processing capacity.

Polo Strategico Nazionale is actively committed to sustainability. This means meeting the highest infrastructure standards, including a Tier IV and ANSI/TIA 942 Rating 4 and international certifications, such as ISO 50001, ISO 14001, and LEED Gold.

Polo Strategico Nazionale optimises operational energy consumption by using renewable energy and free cooling. Our IT equipment and best-in-class products offer greater compactness and lower power consumption, yet high processing capacity. We also work to minimise waste generation and reduce water consumption.

We have set the goal of reducing our overall carbon footprint and becoming carbon neutral by 2030. This means following the climate target plan drawn up and set out by the European Commission.