Marketplace for federated cloud-to-edge based services 

Topic description

Objective:

The objective is to deploy and operate an EU online marketplace for cloud and edge services. The marketplace should be the single point of access for trusted services, notably cloud and edge services (see topics 2.1.1 and 2.1.2), building blocks deployed under the Common Services Platform (see topic 5.3.1.1) and more generally any software and data processing services developed under EU programmes such as the Digital Europe Programme, Horizon 2020 or Horizon Europe. It should as well complement the AI-on-demand platform, in providing access to the necessary cloud services. By facilitating access to these services for crucial EU sectors, the catalogue of curated services, i.e. of services that comply with EU rules and requirements, will improve the EU’s open strategic autonomy. This will ensure that the digital transformation of the economy is undertaken on the basis of secure, fair, inclusive and resource-efficient infrastructures and services.

As a minimum, the EU online marketplace will provide a brokerage for the transaction and delivery of cloud infrastructures and services offered by entities from the public sector. Over time, it should become a critical resource for supplying cloud-to-edge services to the public sector, services of general interest and, where applicable, the private sector. As such, the call described in this section will be restricted according to the basis of article 12(6) of the Digital Europe Programme Regulation.

The marketplace itself should become self-sustainable financially and operationally by the end of this first grant. It should therefore be revenue-driven, wherever necessary. Its implementation, supervision of transparency and fair rules of operation and long-term sustainability should be guaranteed and governed by a broad range of relevant stakeholders (cloud service providers, cloud users, regulators, the public sector and civil society) who would for example, implement the principles included in the upcoming EU Cloud Rulebook. Ahead of the call, the Commission will consult relevant stakeholders in order to identify the appropriate governance.

The chosen project shall:

• Define clear rules for the open, fair and transparent functioning of the marketplace, including how these would be guaranteed in the long term through an appropriate governance structure;
• Deploy the technical infrastructure of the marketplace platform, with strong customer focus, user-friendliness, and inclusion and equality principles;
• Ensure that the marketplace is built over the cloud-to-edge middleware platform (see topic 2.1.1);
• Operate the platform according to security, energy and resource efficiency, data protection, ethical standards and portability requirements;
• Ensure the integration of state-of-the-art identity and access management services on the marketplace platform to support its operations;
• Design a curation/vetting process for services offered on the marketplace, notably for sector-specific services in regulated sectors (e.g. health, energy, finance…); these services should, inter alia, include the cloud-to-edge services (see topic 2.1.2) and middleware (see topic 2.1.1), the Artificial Intelligence tools (see section 2.3 3 and earlier EU funded projects), as well as building blocks deployed under the Common Services Platform (see topic 5.3.1.1).
• Where other marketplaces exist, such as marketplaces already developed in some Member States or services platforms addressing specific areas (such as the AI-on-demand platform developed under 2.3), this marketplace will put in place the required mechanisms to offer a seamless and integrated end-user experience.
• Adopt the appropriate governance to ensure the proper supervision of the marketplace by all relevant stakeholders, fostering interconnections with similar marketplaces and service catalogues that exist in some Member States;
• Enable access on such platforms, through a single EU portal for cloud users, to an online catalogue of existing cloud-to-edge based service offerings (such as predictive analytics, data visualisation, edge services, Artificial Intelligence services and language technology services ...) that are compliant with a pre-defined set of EU rules and requirements (to be compiled in the EU Cloud Rulebook), notably those referred under 2.1.2;
• Implement a service brokerage functionality to enable transactions between providers and users to take place on the marketplace;
• Ensure a vendor-neutral technical architecture and reference framework;
• Develop an agile and future-proof revenue model to cement long-term commercial viability of the EU online marketplace, while ensuring unbiased competition and strict vendor neutrality in the positioning of services on the marketplace; and, (If necessary), ensure the integration of trusted payment services on the marketplace platform to facilitate transactions;
• Report regularly (at least once per month) to the Commission throughout the deployment phase of the project.

Where possible, open source software should be used for the development of the marketplace, notably to demonstrate transparency, vendor- independence and neutrality in the offering of services on the platform.

In order to foster common building blocks, the project supported under this action will liaise with those supported by the Data Spaces Support Centre in the areas of data spaces, pool data provision, demand for the cloud, the promotion of competitive and seamless access and use of cloud infrastructures and services in the context of the topics in section 2.2.

Outcomes and deliverables

Outcomes:

• Strengthen the competitiveness and the innovation of the European economy and of common data spaces in the green digital age.
• Cloud-to-edge services uptake among public entities and private sectors that lag behind in cloud adoption, such as the European health sector.

Deliverables:

• The proper governance mechanism to supervise the marketplace by all relevant stakeholders, possibly through the setup of a legal entity.
• A large-scale and user-friendly interoperable European marketplace for cloud-to-edge based services for public and private entities across the EU and common data spaces. Interconnections of the marketplace with existing national cloud marketplaces.