Six firms will develop the European Commission’s cloud based technologies and capabilities, it has emerged…
The European Commission has chosen six firms to develop its cloud infrastructure in a bid to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of communications. Among the six firms are three consulting organisations, which includes Accenture, Atos, and IBM.
The commission sent out a Call for Tender for Cloud Services (CLOUD I) last year, which was the first step towards gaining its own cloud capabilities.
The first tender was organised into three separate lots. Each lot had different requirements, which would need different vendor solutions.
The first lot sought companies to oversee the Private Infrastructure as a Service. This involved gaining a computing and storage facility hosted by a single provider. This would be connected to the European Commission datacentres by a dedicated private network link. This tender has a maximal four year value of some €10m.
The second lot was for Public Infrastructure as a Service and involved computing and storage facilities over the public internet. This had a maximum value of just under €14m.
The third lot was for Public Platform as a Service. This included operating systems and/or database services built on cloud infrastructure and had a maximum value of some €10m.
In total 20 offers were made from 12 different parties. Seven firms bid for lot one, nine for lot two, and four for lot three.
The European Commission awarded the tenders to a range of firms with relevant skill sets. Lot one was won by British Telecom; lot two by British Telecom, IBM, Accenture, Cloud Team Alliance and Atos; and lot three was awarded to Telecom Italia, Accenture, Atos and IBM.
