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.

The Needs Plan template is available on Polo Strategico Nazionale website on the “How to join” page. 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 

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.

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.