On Tuesday, July 16, the government approved an investment of EUR 5.88 million from the Recovery and Resilience Facility for the implementation of the project "Development of cloud computing services for the Latvian State Radio and Television Centre in the framework of the national federated cloud", providing for the development and expansion of shared cloud computing infrastructure in the public administration.
"Digital transformation in public administration and local governments is one of the preconditions for successful further growth, including in the context of security. Budgetary possibilities are limited but needs are many, so it is important to utilize all available EU funding for digitisation," said Kaspars Briškens, Minister of Transport.
Digital transformation involves modernising state and local government processes and services, improving the interoperability of e-government systems and the availability of open data and e-services. Information systems delivering e-services need to be able to evolve quickly and efficiently and this requires for rapid growth of the virtual computing capacity. Accordingly, the shared service provider must be able to provide sufficient backup for the growth of data centre capacity and ensure business resilience with other infrastructure service providers.
The objective of the project is to develop and extend a shared cloud computing infrastructure for running public administration information systems in a single national federated (data processing) cloud to enable the provision of interoperable services in a secure environment with high level of confidentiality, integrity and availability.
The aim is also to create a single, integrated, secure data transmission network and access to public internet among all four implementers of the national federated (data processing) cloud: the Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC), the National Library of Latvia, the Ministry of the Interior Information Centre and the Ministry of Agriculture Agricultural Data Centre.
The project will provide for development of LVRTC's cloud computing and backup infrastructure, which will be integrated into the state administration's data processing cloud to enable the provision of interoperable services in a secure environment with high levels of confidentiality, integrity and availability, as well as create a single, integrated, secure data transmission network among other members of the state federated (data processing) cloud, providing access to the public internet network.
The implementation of the project will continue the move towards a unified management of national ICT resources and a more transparent accounting and usage of national ICT resources, as well as facilitate the operation of public administration cloud computing applications and information systems in a secure environment with high levels of confidentiality, integrity and availability.