Azerbaijan eyes boosting DATA centres' growth Future belongs to cloud services

Reforms aimed at developing digital space continue in Azerbaijan, including the establishment of the Governmental Cloud (G-cloud) and cloud services to governmental, private, and foreign entities. In recent years, the government has allocated dozens of millions of manats to develop cloud technologies and transfer state information resources to a common database. Construction of large DATA-centres will be another mainstream: this trend was discussed recently at the "Technology for sustainable development: technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and cloud solutions" forum in Baku.

The concept of forming a government cloud in Azerbaijan was first formulated as part of the Strategic Roadmap for the Development of Telecommunications and Information Technology, approved in December 2016. In accordance with the decree of the head of state dated June 3, 2019, the creation of the G-cloud system in the country and the implementation of measures for the provision of cloud services began.

The purpose of the development of the centralised G-cloud system is to improve the efficiency of the process of formation, storage, maintenance, and integration of government information systems while ensuring the security of the main and backup databases. The implementation of the Government Cloud project is designed to ensure the reliable operation of state information systems, deployment of their infrastructure, and unification of all processes through common operational and software standards.

Today, the process of creating the "Government Cloud" is nearing its final stage: the work has accelerated noticeably after the Information and Computing Center (ICC) operating under the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport (MDTD) was merged with another structure of the Ministry - AzInTelecom LLC at the end of 2021. The merger helped to optimize the work of the DATA-centre infrastructure and processes of a single state information system being formed for cloud services, as well as to centralize the technical staff for organizing electronic services, reduce costs in this area and create a single mechanism of income control.

Thanks to the reorganization of AzInTelecom, the planned innovations in the work of DATA-centre will increase the effectiveness of such important initiatives on digitalization of the economy and public administration in Azerbaijan as Big Data, will help accelerate the implementation of the concept of "smart city" and "smart village".

In the course of implementation of initiatives in the G-cloud sphere in recent years by efforts of project supervisor - MDRC division AzInTelecom LLC - the experience of forming cloud services of advanced countries such as the USA, UK, Türkiye, Norway, Ireland, and Estonia has been used to the maximum extent. In particular, it has elaborated a long-term strategy for the development of the G-Cloud concept meeting modern standards and transferring information systems of 36 government agencies to the cloud.

To accelerate the work on the formation of cloud infrastructure in 2021-2022, Azerbaijan allocated 26 million manats from the budget, and this year it is planned to provide additional 24 million manats. At the expense of these funds, the relevant licenses are purchased, the G-Cloud core is formed, technical support for government agencies already connected to the system is implemented, etc. For the same purposes, work has been done to reduce costs and increase the productivity of government information systems, as well as to ensure increased security and stable and sustainable IT infrastructure. Among other things, the structure of the operational coordination centre and monitoring service will be formed within the framework of the project, which will work 24/7.

A key component of the Government Cloud Project is the creation of modern, high-performance, and high-capacity DATA centres in Azerbaijan. Moreover, according to international experience, the level of efficiency of cloud services and database security is achievable only by forming DATA centres in accordance with international certification of Uptime Institute of TIER III organisation, standards for the provision and management of IT services ISO-20000 and information security ISO 27001. All equipment used in DATA centres will be managed according to the "N+" principle, i.e. to ensure continuity of service, using an additional reserve base in case of technical faults or preventive maintenance.

Actually, according to this principle, the entire architecture of state server structures has been built in Azerbaijan in recent years, in particular, DATA centers that meet the requirements of Uptimeintitute TIER III operate in Baku and Yevlakh. Following the establishment of the aforementioned Centres, AZCLOUD cloud services were launched in Azerbaijan as early as December 2016.

Moreover, in recent years the cache servers of the social network Facebook and the Google search engine have been installed here, and content delivery to the countries of the region and further - Georgia, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan - has been established. However, the involvement of domestic DATA centres in transit and export functions and their participation in the provision of services on the international market is still insignificant.

Unfortunately, in Azerbaijan, due to inertia, some government agencies have not taken advantage of cloud storage and DATA centres for quite a long time, creating their own server structures. Such duplication of functions leads to an unjustified waste of funds and complicates operational processes, forcing each government agency or private company to maintain a large staff of system administrators, cybersecurity officers, etc. But even this does not always save information sites and server databases from massive hacker attacks.

Overcoming these bottlenecks, maximizing the involvement of Azerbaijan's public and corporate sectors in hosting their info resources and databases in the Government Cloud, as well as expanding the capacity and performance of DATA centres are the key tasks to be solved in the process of implementing the G-Cloud project.

"Today, there are two DATA-center in the country - in Baku and Yevlakh. Currently, the concept of the new DATA-centre has been prepared, and after its approval, AzInTelecom LLC plans to begin construction: the new centre is expected to be more capacious and powerful," Sadig Yolchuyev, Advisor to AzInTelecom LLC Chairman of the Board, said at a recent event "Sustainable development technologies: the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and cloud solutions". According to the adviser, currently large-scale work is underway to transfer all the information resources of the government and government agencies to cloud storage.

It is noteworthy that recently, against the background of growing cyber threats in the world, the attitude of the public sector and corporate structures to the prospect of transferring information resources and databases to single storage fundamentally changes. There comes an understanding that with the implementation of the project "Government Cloud", the centralization of public information resources in a common database within a single platform, government agencies will be able to reduce the considerable cost of managing information resources.

The uniqueness of cloud technology lies in the fact that it saves resources and allows for more efficient management of IT infrastructure from a single platform. According to international practice, states that have switched to centralised cloud technologies save 25-30% on IT costs. At the same time, their protection against cyber-attacks is simplified and made cheaper, and coordination between government organisations is improved, including e-services provided in the e-government portal.

Domestic banking entities are leading the way in this regard, aiming to make the most of cloud technology. "We recommend storing banking information in local cloud systems since Azerbaijan has already formed a national cloud storage that can be used by virtually all participants of the financial market," Elvin Shahverdiyev, head of the Information & Cyber Security Department of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA), who participated in the forum, said. At the same time, the department head reminded that the regulator does not recommend storing banking information and customer information in foreign cloud systems to avoid possible risks.