Sogei S.p.A. is an Italian company dedicated to developing IT solutions for Italy's national tax system. It manages the country's tax information system (SIF). The document discusses Sogei's history and technological infrastructure, including its adoption of cloud-enabling technologies like virtualization and industry standard systems. It argues that Sogei's service model and data center governance make it well positioned to help develop a "federated government-owned/controlled cloud" for the public administration sector in Italy. As an experienced partner of Italian institutions, Sogei could also help other governments establish effective e-government strategies and reforms.

1. RELATORE:
The Cloud computing in the SIF
Needs and experiences from requirements point of view
8th November 2010

2. 2
Agenda
• Company Profile
• The computing infrastructure of the Tax Information System
(in Italian SIF)
• Cloud: new paradigm?
• Which model for the services of the PA
• Placement and level of Sogei’s maturity for the challenges of Cloud

3. 3
Company Profile: Technological innovation since 1976
Starting the process
of modernization of
the Financial
Administration
Sogei is set up to
design, build and
operate a modern and
functional Tax Register
MEF acquires Sogei
Change the role of the
Company, that becomes:
- part of the "Tax
System" with a new
statutory responsibility
- owner of the IT
infrastructure
1976 1981 July 2002
the PA services
move to Web
technology,
simplifying the
individuals and
businesses burdens
1992
Treasury Department
acquires Sogei
July 2008
Ministry of Economy
and Finance confirms
the institutional role of
Sogei and assigns to it
new national and
international tasks
September 2009
Since 1976, Sogei S.p.A. is a Company dedicated to development IT solutions for the national tax system
and it is the integrating factor to the service of Italian and European civil society. With the most innovative IT
technologies, Sogei allows a wide range of integrated services and the information exchange, in a
coordinated framework of "Data Governance“.
Balance Sheet 2009
Payroll: 1.784
Turnover: € 318,8 Mil
Profit: € 39,2 Mil

4. 4
• Data Center:
3 Mainframe systems per over
28,000 Mips
Over 2,500 server systems,
including over 1,200 virtual type
Over 1 PB of data in SAN
infrastructure
Over 3 PB of Backup DB
2,000 local offices and other
linked Government Bodies
• Peripheral systems:
2,700 server systems
60,000 client systems
2,000 LANs
• Business continuity in Data Center:
1 Mainframe system per 900 Mips
Over 350 TB of DB
About 100 server systems
4 x 1 Gb links in high reliability
Company Profile: technological structures and treated data in SIF
TAXPAYERS
• 40.5 million individual
• 1.9 million companies (partnerships and joint stock
companies)
• 8.8 million registered V.A.T. holders
RETURNS AND PAYMENTS
• 34 million income tax returns, 5.7 V.A:T. returns, 3.7
million V.A.T. communications, 7 million Registry
Deeds
• 120 million on line payments
REAL ESTATE
• 63 million Real Estate units, 82 million land parcels
• 39 million Real Estate owners, 26 million landowners
• 85 million notes in digital format, of which 40 related to
the period pre-automation
• 340 thousand maps in vector format
• 28 thousand public domain
CUSTOMS
• 9 million waybills (import and export)
• 2.7 million declarations
• 60,000 lab analysis and 400,000 excise documents
GAMES
• over 650 million horse, sport and non sport bets
tickets
• 348,000 gaming machines with money prizes linked up
by network
• approx 132,000 registered gaming machines without
money prizes
• 27 million “”participation rights” for the games of skill at
a distance
TAXPAYERS
• 40.5 million individual
• 1.9 million companies (partnerships and joint stock
companies)
• 8.8 million registered V.A.T. holders
RETURNS AND PAYMENTS
• 34 million income tax returns, 5.7 V.A:T. returns, 3.7
million V.A.T. communications, 7 million Registry
Deeds
• 120 million on line payments
REAL ESTATE
• 63 million Real Estate units, 82 million land parcels
• 39 million Real Estate owners, 26 million landowners
• 85 million notes in digital format, of which 40 related to
the period pre-automation
• 340 thousand maps in vector format
• 28 thousand public domain
CUSTOMS
• 9 million waybills (import and export)
• 2.7 million declarations
• 60,000 lab analysis and 400,000 excise documents
GAMES
• over 650 million horse, sport and non sport bets
tickets
• 348,000 gaming machines with money prizes linked up
by network
• approx 132,000 registered gaming machines without
money prizes
• 27 million “”participation rights” for the games of skill at
a distance

5. 5
SIF infrastructure: since 2006 …
In 2006, SIF infrastructure already begun the modernization process necessary to
introduce the flexibility elements typical of the current Cloud paradigm.
The reason why today Cloud is so popular is because it has found the full maturity
of enabling platforms that facilitates its introduction:
High-Density Industry Standard systems (i c.d. blade)
Virtualization
Management, automation and pro-active advanced monitoring of infrastructure
Sogei fully adopted this technology, along with Legacy systems (Mainframe and
Unix), both to host new services and to implement new solutions, integrated with
the more traditional ones (although still necessary for the management of some
core processes).
This choice allows us to take the next step required by the Cloud:
Integrated Infrastructure Governance (Data Center Automation,
Provisioning, Real Time Infrastructure)

6. 6
This requires even more skilled personnel: over 200 skilled professionals have been already certified, or are in the
certification path, on different operating environments (VMWare, Linux, Windows, Oracle, Solaris, Storage Systems
and for monitoring, governance and provisioning tools)
… up today
Industry Standard
Systems
More than 570 server x64
using blade technology are
operating
The server setup time
(installation/configuration)
has changed from hours to
minutes
The servers consolidation
allowed to condense the large
amount of computing power in
the space of 11 rack (more
than 500% reduction vs
traditional servers, between
25% and 100% reduction vs
rack-mounted servers)
The capability of
rationalization, owned by
blade systems, allows the
reduction of about 90% in
connectivity complexity
Governance
Strong processes structuring
to support service delivery
The processes for a complete
and effective management of
Life Cycle Services are in the
design and realization phases:
• Service Operation (event,
incident, problem, request,
access management)
• Service Transition (change,
release & deployment,
service asset &
configuration management)
• Service Design (capacity,
availability, service levels,
services catalogue
management)
Introduction of ITIL 3.0
methodology
Virtualization
Today Server Virtualization
(especially on X64, but also
on RISC Unix platforms), is
the primary choice
SIF features more than 1.200
virtual server (only on
Linux/Windows
environment)
High consolidation ratio
between virtual and physical
servers
40-50 virtual servers are
installed on a monthly basis
starting from 5-6 physical
servers
Approximately a reduction of
80% in energy consumption
and in CO2 emissions is
performed

7. 7
Other enabling technologies and investments protection
Cloud enabling platforms
Sogei is already activated for:
virtualizing of the Storage infrastructure (1 PB SAN), in by experimental in 2007 and as
standard from 2009;
introducing tools of “Real Time Infrastructure” (currently in test) able to effect systems and
services repurposing in an independent way from the hardware infrastructure and
operating systems, to get a complete automation that involves all the levels of the Data
Center and that furnishes automatic tools of:
• provisioning (both system and application software);
• environment patching;
• compliance of systems with the Company's safety policies;
• dynamic allocation of the services on the server systems in order to have the power necessary to
manage sudden variations of the load.
Legacy Systems
Sogei in the middle term has to keep on investing on “Legacy” platforms (Enterprise
Unix environments with partitioning and virtualization capabilities as well as
Mainframe one), that, besides fully representing to today its standard for the
management of the integrated databases with virtualization and blade platforms, they
constitute a notable investment to safeguard.

8. 8
Cloud: new paradigm?
Since 2006 Sogei operates with a framework contract foreseeing the
disbursement of services, tied to precise Service Levels, with defined price
metrics and control mechanisms, making transparent the technological details to
the client. Is it this a model so far from the Cloud paradigm?
YES. If we think about Cloud only in technological terms: Sogei in 2006 has
begun to introduce elements of flexibility and virtualization that today are
considered discriminating elements to be able to think about Cloud as a tool for
optimizing the expenses and the business processes, reducing the response time
for the business needs and increasing the infrastructure agility
NO. If the Cloud is above all a model: the used approach in the SIF goes toward a
such direction, using all the possibilities that today the Cloud foresees in terms of
hosting, software and platforms
Is Cloud a technology
or a model?
Our idea of Cloud is a Model defining
and structuring the “modus operandi”
to access to software and receive
services, infrastructures and platforms,
supported by enabling technologies

9. 9
What model for PA Cloud?
• Experiences in USA and Australia learn to us as Cloud cannot be considered only a
tool reducing the PA expenses
• We have to keep in mind risks and ties that the PA environment imposes in terms of
data privacy, accesses control and tracing and security
“Federated government-owned/controlled Cloud”
(Gartner: “Cloud Computing for Government Is Cloudy”)
use of the model and the enabling technologies to build
Private Cloud for the PA

10. 10
• Sogei owns skills, processes, technologies and infrastructure to participate in
the process of rationalization of IT resources in PA
• The change in the service delivery model used by the SIF (introduced as a
precursor to the Cloud paradigm), together with the governance of
technological change, make the Sogei Data Center infrastructure ready to meet
the needs of its institutional clients, but also other national or international PA
Sogei placement and level of maturity for the Cloud challenges

11. 11
Sogei for emerging markets
Drawing on the over 30 years partnership with the Italian
Institutions, we can help Governments establish effective ways
to:
• Accelerate public sector reform and improve public services;
• Use ICT to build capacity;
by providing advisory and implementation services in:
• e-Government and ICT strategies;
• Taxation sector reform;
• Tax administration re-engineering and computerization;
• Human resource development;
• Raising government revenues;
• Payment systems.