Cloudogu EcoSystem at the German Federal Information Technology Center

ITZBund (The Federal Information Technology Center) is the central IT service provider of the German federal government that emerged from the merger of three independent federal administration IT service providers. As a result, the consolidation of the IT systems and processes of the merged companies was an inevitable and immense task. ITZBund chose the “Cloudogu EcoSystem” solution for the SLM (Software Lifecycle Management) development platform, which is indispensable for software development.

Company mergers are always a challenge from an IT perspective. Informationstechnikzentrum Bund (ITZBund for short) is no exception. By merging the Center for Information Processing and Information Technology (ZIVIT), the Federal Institute for IT Services, and the Federal Office for Information Technology in 2016, the IT service providers were consolidated at the federal level, with all the hurdles that have to be overcome for such a large project. Approximately 4,100 employees based in twelve offices look after 124,200 IT workstations and 750 IT solutions. This complexity that has grown over time can only be administered with considerable effort. Developing the system further is an even more complicated task. Braunschweig-based Cloudogu GmbH helped ITZBund to complete an important task: The Cloudogu EcoSystem development platform now centrally and securely supports the development teams.

The switch to the modern development platform Cloudogu EcoSystem was an enormously important step for us. Axel Rockstroh, “Federal Cloud Development Environment” service owner at ITZBund

The new platform was introduced as part of the IT consolidation of the federal government, which is scheduled to run until 2025. A central element of this strategy is the so-called “federal cloud” (“Bundescloud”), a private cloud reference architecture that functions as a platform for IT services for federal administrations, states and municipalities. The offerings of the federal cloud range from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) to Software as a Service (SaaS).

High Demands on the Development Platform

A core component of the PaaS offering is a Software Lifecycle Management (SLM) development environment. It supports the development of applications with server-based tools. Before starting the project, ITZBund evaluated various solutions available on the market and selected the Cloudogu EcoSystem for the SLM platform. The platform is based on an open architecture that uses proven open source technologies. The Cloudogu EcoSystem can be flexibly adapted to user requirements and supplemented with additional tools. All tools are integrated into the federal cloud platform and interconnected with each other in such a way that the amount of effort that needs to be spent on daily administration and maintenance is very low.

We have gained a lot of efficiency and flexibility, especially in software lifecycle management. At the same time, we were able to significantly reduce costs and the amount of effort expended on daily operations without having to compromise on security or user comfort. Axel Rockstroh, “Federal Cloud Development Environment” service owner at ITZBund

Quick Implementation of Customer Requirements

The project started with an extensive analysis of the Cloudogu platform and a proof of concept. To this end, the EcoSystem was rolled out in several departments of ITZBund and tested by the development teams as part of several pilot projects. The project was a complete success for ITZBund when the Cloudogu EcoSystem was first deployed in regular operations in May 2019. It now provides the solution to more than 6200 users on 360 instances. Further expansion of the solution is already in the works.

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