The German government has awarded a major IT contract to cloud services provider Ionos worth some €410 million ($440 million), Ionos reported on Tuesday.
The "private Enterprise-Cloud" is to be certified by Germany's information security agency (BSI) and will be operated in the computing centres of the government's IT centre (ITZBund), which falls under the Finance Ministry.
The new Ionos system is to be sealed off from the internet, using the concept known as "air gapping," which makes it almost impossible for outsiders to access sensitive information. This means that software updates are done with portable storage devices, and not online, for example.
Users in the state administration will be able to access secure databases by means of the private Cloud.
"Providing a platform of this kind as air-gapped solution is a complex requirement that only a few providers can meet," Ionos chief executive Achim Weiß said.
The solution is not only highly secure, but would also be an important step towards digital and efficient administration, he added.
ITZBund is a central service provider within the federal administration that is responsible for providing and operating IT services.