An often discussed issue in Europe is whether the major European telcos might collaborate on building a cloud platform that would be optimized for their 5G and enterprise needs, and would be fully under their control rather than that of hyperscalers. This seems in the spirit of Europe’s Open RAN initiatives, which are taking on an increasingly Europe-first attitude to building a local ecosystem, and governments would presumably welcome a counterweight to the US giants’ power in the cloud once 5G becomes cloud-native.
A project by Orange and integrator Capgemini, to build their own cloud, could even represent a first step towards such as project, though it has arisen in response to specific rules set out for France and its public sector. The two companies plan to launch their own cloud operator and platform, called Bleu, to provide a sovereign cloud solution in France, in line with the government’s ‘cloud de confiance’ (trusted cloud) strategy.
The initiative does not exclude hyperscalers. The new platform will be based on Azure, and will enable public sector customers with access Microsoft cloud services such as 365. However, Orange and Capgemini will build their own platform on top, conforming with French regulations on security, data privacy and trust. All data centers will be in France and strictly separated from Microsoft’s global data center infrastructure; and Bleu will be operated by its own staff in France.
“The important point to note,” said an Orange spokesperson, “is that this is the first time that we have a sovereign cloud offer that includes access to a hyperscaler’s offer, for example, for users to still be able to use programs like Microsoft Word or Excel.”
Bleu will offer public sector customers such as government departments, hospitals and regional authorities a large catalog of digital solutions and collaborative tools, said the operator. These customers will require a trusted cloud to handle their sensitive data and workloads. And Orange would not rule out that Bleu could also support telco applications for 5G in future.
Bleu was described as “an unprecedented French hyperscale cloud, fully under French and European jurisdictions”, but Orange CEO Stéphane Richard does not seem to regard this as a requirement that is peculiar to his home country. He said platforms like Bleu would meet a “growing need in the digital world”.
He added: “Orange, as a trusted partner for the digital transformation of businesses, operates, integrates and manages a range of trusted infrastructure services for its customers, whether they are public or private entities. We are delighted to partner with Capgemini to create a trusted cloud solution for our existing and future B2B customers and public organizations that will provide a wide range of services, and in particular Microsoft 365, from within a sovereign infrastructure.”
Bleu will also join the Gaia-X initiative, which was set up last year with the objective of setting common standards for storing and processing data within Europe and reducing reliance on US hyperscalers for this. Orange and Capgemini are members of this body, which has not achieved high profile so far, but may enhance its role as more critical functions move to the cloud and as governments scrutinize the security and trust systems that may be necessary in the current technological and geopolitical climate. Blue will contribute expertise to Gaia-X to support the development of sovereign solutions on a European basis.
Aiman Ezzat, CEO of Capgemini, said in a statement: “The creation of a ‘Cloud de Confiance’ for France will provide French state and critical infrastructure organizations with the many benefits of flexible cloud services on a secure platform.”
Orange and Capgemini said that Bleu could integrate complementary partners in the future, although without providing any details.
In May, the government of France outlined its national cloud strategy, which mandates standards of performance and trustworthiness that must be met in public sector deployments, and that will be certified by the French National Agency for Information Systems Security (ANSSI) through its SecNumCloud label.
This is the latest in a portfolio of Orange cloud activities. Orange Business Services provides a global public cloud solution called Flexible Engine, based on a Huawei distribution of OpenStack. Orange has also joined Microsoft Azure’s Networking Managed Service Provider (MSP) program and has alliances with Google Cloud and AWS.