Confident Office 365 for the Public Sector

The Delos Cloud is a sovereign and secure cloud platform based on Microsoft cloud technologies that has been developed specifically for the digitalisation of public services in Germany. It offers a vendor—and solution-neutral environment that seamlessly integrates into the German Administration Cloud Strategy (DVS).

1. Sovereignty and security: All data is stored in highly secure German data centers and remains within the country's borders.
2. Flexibility: The platform is based on Microsoft cloud technologies such as Microsoft Azure and supports applications from almost all manufacturers.
3. Operation in Germany: The platform is operated by German partner companies, with Microsoft's role limited to that of a technology supplier.
4. Partnership: Delos Cloud works closely with federal, state, and local IT service providers.

A major focus here is all Office 365 applications supporting user productivity and collaboration. The range of functions is similar to that of the well-known Office 365 E3 license. The most important features and services that will be available at the release in the second half of the year are:

The initial Delos Cloud Office 365 portfolio also provides a powerful solution for the public sector. Right from the start, there is a highly comprehensive suite of productivity and collaboration tools. The security features also ensure the security of users and their data.

Some additional security and compliance features and productivity tools will not be available later.
 

These include, among others, the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, which provides some additional features to protect against threats such as phishing or zero-day malware. In compliance, we will have to do without eDiscovery Premium for now. However, the standard version still offers extensive options for searching for content in Office 365 and creating eDiscovery cases.
 

In the first steps on the Delos cloud, authorities must do without device management via the Microsoft Intune platform. In our view, this is not a problem. Intune is usually not one of the first steps in an Office 365 migration. Therefore, the previous endpoint management tool can continue to be used, allowing adoption within IT departments to take place in smaller steps.
 

Furthermore, Teams phone functionalities will not be available for the time being. From our project experience, this feature is often introduced later. This gives public authority users enough time to prepare for the change from classic telephone systems and to develop appropriate emergency concepts (e.g., for control center telephony).

In our project experience, a migration project to Office 365 is not a sprint, but a marathon. It is advisable to carry out a new implementation in more minor phases, especially in an area such as the public sector, with many end users. In particular, the preparatory activities in the background require considerable personnel capacity and accompanying change management.
 

The initially planned Office 365 portfolio in the Delos Cloud provides public authority employees with all the essential functions they need to move their digital workplace to the cloud. This means nothing stands in the way of an initial pilot and the necessary preparatory measures. These measures can also take 12 months in the private sector, so we see a need for action here, especially given the expiring on-premises Office variants.
 

A pilot project can provide a valuable experience for end users and IT administrators. Managing the O365 environment requires fundamentally new concepts and methods. Close support within the change management framework is also necessary for users, and the transition to evergreen concepts without major releases requires new adoption roles and key user concepts.