The federal IT service provider of Germany relies on Cloudogu EcoSystem

The central federal IT service provider of Germany implemented the software development platform Cloudogu EcoSystem as its Software Life-cycle Management (SLM) solution. The decisive factors were the low administration effort, the seamless integration of the toolchain and the multi-tenancy capability of the solution.

Cloudogu EcoSystem is an open source platform for software development that simplifies the operation of the software development toolchain by standardizing the installation and maintenance of tools. The central federal IT service provider of Germany (Informationstechnikzentrum Bund or ITZBund for short) chose the platform for its Software Life-cycle Management (SLM) in a tendering process. This was part of a consolidation project (IT Konsolidierung Bund) that aims at the standardization of processes and technologies for the IT of the federal administration in Germany. The goal of the project is to reduce the heterogeneity of the IT infrastructures and to utilize synergy effects to improve the efficiency and effectiveness by implementing a flexible and modern IT infrastructure that is easy to administer throughout all locations and authorities. The project is planned until 2025. A pivotal role in this consolidation process is played by a reference architecture of a private cloud for IT services for public authorities, which is known as the federal cloud (Bundescloud).

Integrated development platform

The federal cloud provides everything from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) over Platform as a Service (PaaS) to Software as a Service (SaaS). A vital component of the PaaS offer is a SLM development platform, which provides a continuous development process. For this component the ITZBund chose the Cloudogu EcoSystem. The platform from Cloudogu offers the possibility to operate open source tools and commercial tools alongside and to integrate them into a toolchain. To this end, Cloudogu containerizes and preconfigures the tools and creates a consistent environment for development teams that meets all requirements of modern and agile software development. The platform uses locally installed instances that get their components from a central cloud backend. This way, instances can be assembled in a short time to meet the individual requirements of teams. The Cloudogu EcoSystem combines the simple administration of cloud services with decentralized operated tools that are individually configurable. “By switching over to the Cloudogu EcoSystem we now have a centralized and easy to administer development platform.” Axel Rockstroh, product owner „Bundescloud Entwicklungsplattform“ at ITZBund. „It allows us to gain efficiency and flexibility, especially for Software Life-cycle Management. Simultaneously, we were able to reduce the cost for everyday operation without compromising data privacy of comfort of the users.”

More flexibility, lower cost

A decisive reason for the ITZBund to choose the Cloudogu EcoSystem was, that the default platform already met the primary requirements like standardized provisioning via self-service, modularized integration of tools, simple administration and independence from tool vendors. Currently the ITZBund supplies more than 70 projects and organizational units through the federal cloud with the Cloudogu EcoSystem. The further expansion of the solution is already planned. „The federal cloud development platform (BundescloudEntwicklungsplattform) with the Cloudogu EcoSystem is an impressive example of a successful e-governance project” Thomas Grosser, CEO at Cloudogu.“ Together, all involved parties implemented a standardized and scalable platform for public administration with a lot of commitment.”

About ITZBund

The ITZBund emerged from the fusion of the Center for Information Processing and Information Technology (ZIVIT), the Federal Institute for IT Services, and the Federal Office for Information Technology. Approximately 3,100 employees based in twelve locations look after 91,000 IT workstations and 750 IT solutions. Among others, it realizes measures for the federal IT consolidation project (IT Konsolidierung Bund).