French State steps up digital transformation with support from Thales

Achieving a successful digital transformation is currently the number one concern for many companies and organisations, including the French public sector, which is implementing a far-reaching programme to digitise and modernise its information systems. France's state has signed two new contracts with Thales to help to modernise its critical information systems, manage the transition to the cloud and upgrade big data capabilities with appropriate levels of security.

• French Health and Labour ministries take further steps to modernise their IT systems with Thales support.
• Thales will support IGN – a key provider of online geographic information services in France – in its secure cloud transformation programme.

Health and Labour Ministries take further steps to modernise their IT systems

The Information Systems department of the Ministry of Health and Solidarity, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Sports launched an in-deptch technical, cultural and methodological transformation, with a view to working in close partnership with the different government departments based on a service-oriented and user-centric model.

To help them deliver this transformation, the Ministries will rely on Thales’s information managed services offer under the terms of a four-year contract. In addition to providing managed services for all the infrastructure hosted at the customer’s two Data Centres, Thales will help the Ministries to align their IT system management and modernisation activities with the state of the art, through measures such as automated application deployment, server virtualisation and migration to the cloud.

The French National Institute of Geographic and Forestry Information, digital actor for the regions, secures the migration of its Geoportail to the OSHIMAE interministerial cloud

The French National Institute of Geographic and Forestry Information (IGN), a key provider of digital services to regional bodies throughout France, has tasked Thales with taking forward its digital transformation. Thales will help IGN migrate its Geoportal to the OSHIMAE interministerial cloud, as well as providing support for operation, perfective maintenance and security supervision.

The IGN Geoportal is a showcase for French technology, functioning as a complete online ecosystem delivering 80 To of data per month rather than merely a website, and providing hosting and services infrastructure for ministries, professionals and the general public. With 120,000 requests per day and 1.2 million hits per month, geoportail.gouv.fr is France’s seventh most popular public website. As a point of reference for public geographic services, the Geoportal plays an essential role in public information, implementation of public policy and the development of online applications and services.

IGN needs to ensure that its information system is regularly upgraded to keep pace with new technology, while at the same time providing guarantees in terms of information security and service quality. Under a six-year agreement, Thales will also be responsible for operating the Geoportal (encompassing over 500 terabytes of data) on the OSHIMAE cloud, as well as providing perfective maintenance to enhance user access and adding new functionalities to the infrastructure. As a global leader in cybersecurity, Thales has also been chosen by IGN to provide security supervision of the system via its Security Operations Centre at Elancourt.