Cross Cloud

In today's digital world, organizations and government agencies face the challenge of modernizing their IT infrastructures while meeting increasing security and compliance requirements. Migration to the Delos Cloud offers a promising solution to meet these challenges. The Delos Cloud, a physically separated, sovereign cloud solution designed specifically for German authorities, enables data to be stored and managed securely and compliantly.

In this blog article, we will take a closer look at the topic of cross-cloud by highlighting different types of cross-cloud collaboration and migration paths to the Delos Cloud. In doing so, we will draw on the experience and best practices from other sovereign cloud implementations.

A look at already established, specialized clouds from other providers, such as the Vianet Cloud in China and the US Government Cloud, shows how different the approaches to cross-cloud and cloud migration can be. This allows best practices to be derived.

• The Vianet Cloud, operated by 21Vianet, provides a physically separate instance of Azure services that complies with Chinese regulations.

• The US Government Cloud was developed specifically for US government agencies and meets the highest security and compliance standards.

The starting point for the Migration to the Delos Cloud can be either an existing public cloud tenant or an existing on-premises office landscape. Both migration strategies come with their own challenges. At the same time, evaluating the collaboration between the public cloud and the Delos Cloud is important. Cross-cloud collaboration in Office 365 enables companies to communicate and share data seamlessly and securely across different cloud platforms, significantly increasing the efficiency and flexibility of work processes.

The Microsoft public cloud offers a global infrastructure with unlimited data access and comprehensive Azure and M365 services that are available worldwide.

The Delos Cloud is a sovereign and secure cloud platform that has been specially developed for the digitalization of the public sector in Germany. It offers a vendor- and solution-neutral environment that is seamlessly integrated into the German Administration Cloud Strategy (DVS). Delos Cloud GmbH, the operator, was founded in July 2022 and is a subsidiary of SAP SE. It operates from two locations in Walldorf (Baden) and Berlin and is currently being set up. A key advantage of the Delos Cloud is that it meets the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) requirements for technical, operational, and legal sovereignty. This means that the data in the Delos Cloud is protected against uncontrolled access from outside and cannot flow into the USA.

The Delos Cloud offers Microsoft Azure as well as extensive collaboration tools and productivity solutions from Microsoft Office 365, which is specifically tailored to the needs of the public sector.

The Delos Cloud is open to organizations whose data is currently processed in the public cloud or on-premises, provided they have permission to use the Delos Cloud. This enables organizations that must meet the highest data protection and security standards to migrate their data to a sovereign cloud environment and even process data with the classification VS-NfD. In addition, there are ways to collaborate between the public cloud and the Delos Cloud. This allows organizations to utilize both cloud environments while meeting security and compliance requirements. Users can collaborate seamlessly across both cloud environments by setting up cross-tenant connections and configuring guest access, significantly increasing efficiency and productivity.

Migration between two Office 365 tenants to the Delos Cloud enables organizations to transfer their data and user accounts from an existing M365 tenant to the Delos Cloud. This process includes migrating emails, SharePoint data, OneDrive files, and other M365 services. It requires careful planning and the use of specialized tools and services to ensure that all data is transferred securely and efficiently and that Delos Cloud compliance requirements are met.

Migration from on-premises to the Delos Cloud involves transferring data, applications, and workloads from local servers to the Delos Cloud environment. The process involves several phases, including assessing the current infrastructure, planning the migration, transferring the actual data, and optimizing and managing the cloud resources.

Depending on the starting point (on-premises or cloud), using suitable tools to optimize the migration process can be advantageous. An example of this would be Delos-certified, cloud-based migration tools from third-party manufacturers. Such tools provide a comprehensive solution for tenant-to-tenant migration in Office 365, enabling secure and easy consolidation and migration of all Office 365 tenants, including Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. The standard migration tools offer an intuitive user interface that enables complete visibility of the migration project in real-time and ensures that mailboxes and other Office components remain accessible during the migration.

Essential steps for migration with tools

Migrating to Office 365 using a migration tool involves several steps that must be carefully planned and executed. First, a detailed migration plan is created, which defines the specific requirements and objectives of the migration. The migration tool is then configured to transfer the data and applications from the source environment to the target environment.

An important step is executing test migrations to ensure that all data is transferred correctly and no unexpected problems occur. Data is synchronized in real-time during the migration to minimize downtime and ensure business continuity. Once the migration is complete, a comprehensive check is carried out to ensure that all data has been migrated correctly and the new systems function properly.

Cross-cloud collaboration in M365 enables users to work seamlessly with colleagues and partners in different cloud environments. This is particularly relevant for organizations that want to collaborate with teams or partners outside the sovereign cloud. One example of cross-cloud collaboration is the collaboration between Delos Cloud users and Office 365 public cloud users. This requires the establishment of cross-tenant connections and the configuration of guest access.

In principle, one or more of the following technologies can be used:

• Azure AD B2B (Business-to-Business) Collaboration
  This approach allows organizations to add external users as guests in their Entra ID directories. These guests can then access resources such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive as if they were internal users. This facilitates collaboration with customers and partners without compromising security.

• Cross-Tenant Access Settings
  These settings in Entra ID allow administrators to define policies for accessing resources between different tenants. This includes configuring conditional access, multi-factor authentication,  and other security measures to ensure only authorized users can access the resources.

• Federated Authentication
  Federated authentication allows users from one tenant to log in to another without needing separate credentials. This is made possible by trusting relationships between the tenants, and it facilitates collaboration by simplifying the login process.

• Shared Channels in Microsoft Teams
  Shared Channels allow teams to bring members from different tenants together in a single channel. This facilitates communication and collaboration by enabling users to stay in their environment while working with external partners.

In addition to these collaboration processes, the option of parallel, isolated use of the public and Delos Cloud is also available. Collaboration-related workflows can take place in the public cloud, while data processing of particularly sensitive content takes place in the Delos Cloud. In this case, the cloud environments are not connected to each other.

Cloud migration and collaboration in Delos Office 365 gives organizations the flexibility and security they need to thrive in a connected world. By leveraging various cross-cloud capabilities and tools, organizations can modernize their IT infrastructure, securely manage their data, and seamlessly collaborate with employees and partners across multiple cloud environments. The Delos Cloud therefore not only stands on its own, but also enables collaboration in a modern digital world while maintaining the secure handling of public organizations' data assets.