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We are living history and we are spectators of one of the most important moments of the contemporary age. The whole world, which until recently was grappling with unstoppable economic growth, has had to put the brakes on its course.

Many of the activities we did before Covid-19 disrupted our lives need to be rethought. Even the way we work will probably never be the same again.

Just think of the so-called agile working, or to put it in the Anglo-Saxon way, smart working. Those who can make a living with a computer and a good internet connection have solved about half of their problems.

The “Cura Italia” Decree

With the “Cura Italia” Decree-Law of 16 March, the government announced measures that will help public bodies to activate digital services for citizens and businesses more quickly and at the same time to start smart working for their employees.

“Faced with the urgency we are experiencing these days,” said the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitalization Paola Pisano, “The measures introduced today will greatly accelerate the modernization of the technological equipment of the Public Administration, allowing the rapid purchase of services that can guarantee the agile working of employees and the provision of online services for citizens and businesses.”

In fact, the Decree introduces until 31 December 2020 for all Public Administrations a “facilitated process” for the acquisition of digital goods and services, with particular reference to technologies that operate in the Cloud such as hosting services, applications for teleworking and direct services to citizens and businesses.

Entities will be able to purchase these goods and services through a negotiated procedure, but without a call for tenders and in derogation from any provision of law other than criminal law (subject to compliance with the provisions of the code of anti-mafia laws).

In short, this seems to be excellent news that manifests the government’s intentions to go in the direction of digital transformation. This emergency measure will serve not only to ferry the Public Administration, citizens and companies beyond the moment of the Coronavirus crisis, but also to accelerate that process towards the modernization of the State and, why not, the streamlining of bureaucracy.

The Ministry of Technological Innovation and Digitalization

The Ministry of Innovation, Technology and Digitalization, led by Minister Paola Pisano, professor of Innovation and Management at the University of Turin, had already launched the plan for the rationalization of the digital infrastructures of the Public Administration , working on several fronts.

First of all, there is the development of a Cloud enablement program, which accompanies all Italian Public Administrations, central and local, step by step, in identifying the services that can be migrated and the most suitable solutions to manage them in the cloud.

And then, a tender together with Consip, the central purchasing office of the Italian public administration, which will be published at the beginning of 2021, with a new procurement model that will make the procedures required of Public Administrations to equip themselves with Cloud services and new skills to be able to manage the migration of their services much more streamlined and faster.

This last point is central to the transformation of services, as the procurement process is one of the most expensive activities for Public Administrations. Today, purchasing requires a significant amount of time and resources, and as a result, the purchase of digital products and services is slow and struggles to keep up with the evolution of technological solutions.

The tender that the Ministry has built with Consip significantly improves this scenario, proposing a multi-supplier model, in which entities will be able to choose between multiple suppliers to find the most convenient solution that suits their needs. While waiting for the Consip Public Cloud framework agreement (expected in 2021) to be active, central and local Public Administrations, small and large, can start working towards the PA Cloud.

The European Union

The strategy for digital infrastructures in Italy is part of the strategic and investment path undertaken by the European Commission led by Ursula von Der Leyen, which makes the digitalization of the Union one of the cornerstones of its unitary policy and which has published the “Action Plan on data management and artificial intelligence”.

According to the document, the digital transformation of the EU economy depends on the development of infrastructures that can handle data, that are secure, energy-efficient, cost-effective and operate according to the best quality standards. This is because Europe needs to reduce its technological dependence on non-EU countries precisely in strategic infrastructure, the assets on which the data economy is based.

A dependence that today represents potentially a critical factor for the autonomy and security of the Union and leads to a weaker force on the international scene.

Cloud Migration

The process of migrating to the cloud is not a simple “move” of a service from an obsolete data center to a more secure or efficient one. Rather, the Ministry explains , “it is a cultural process, of evaluation, redesign and rethinking of some services, which can be discontinued, migrated or simply outsourced to companies that provide ready-to-use solutions.”

According to an estimate by the Agency for Digital Italy, there are about 11,000 data centers of various sizes and capacities in Italy, managed by 22,000 Public Administrations. This situation generates enormous problems, in terms of waste of resources (money for management and maintenance, energy, cooling systems, etc.) and security (these are often infrastructures reduced in very poor condition, or perhaps located in areas at hydrogeological risk, which manage our data).

Our strategy for digital infrastructures aims to exponentially reduce this number, “shifting” the services of Public Administrations from obsolete or inadequate data centers, which are destined to be progressively decommissioned.

According to a census carried out by Agid, there are 1252 data centers in Italy. Among these, 1190 have been classified in group B, i.e. they are the most obsolete structures, which will have to be decommissioned as soon as possible, because they lack the safety and efficiency requirements necessary to manage public services, 62 have been classified in group A. These data centers will be able to continue to work, managing services that we have defined as “non-strategic”.

But the news that is not comforting is that only a partial number of the more than 22 thousand Italian administrations participated in the census.
The Ministry, however, aims to involve administrations that have data centers classified in group A in working groups, to develop a strategy to support local authorities that have data centers in group B.

The aim is to help them migrate their non-core services to more efficient infrastructures, or to provide the skills needed to choose and use cloud services that fit their needs.