Nubo the French government sovereign cloud - Common Knowledge Scout

# Nubo French Governments Sovereign Cloud Initiative > [! note]- > The content of this page is generated by audio/video transcription and text transformation from the content and links of this source. Source: [https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud/](https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud/) <video src="https://video.fosdem.org/2025/aw1126/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud.av1.webm" controls></video> ## Summary & Highlights: **Overview of Nubo: The French Government's Sovereign Cloud** Nubo is an initiative by the French government aimed at achieving digital sovereignty through the use of open source cloud infrastructure. Developed by the Public Finance General Directorate (DGFiP), Nubo utilizes OpenStack, a prominent open source cloud software, to provide secure and independent cloud services for various public administrations. The project underscores the importance of open source solutions in ensuring data security, compliance with local laws, and resilience against geopolitical tensions. **The Role of OpenStack in Nubo's Success** OpenStack plays a crucial role in Nubo's architecture by offering a mature, community-driven framework that supports both public and private cloud infrastructures. Contrary to the belief that Kubernetes overshadowed OpenStack, the integration of Kubernetes has actually strengthened OpenStack's position by enhancing its capabilities to manage containerized applications. This synergy allows Nubo to offer scalable and flexible cloud services that cater to the diverse needs of public administrations. **Driving Forces Behind Digital Sovereignty** The push for digital sovereignty is driven by the need for local infrastructure that is resilient to external control and espionage. The Nubo project addresses these concerns by providing a cloud environment that is owned, controlled, and operated by the French state, ensuring that data and services remain under national jurisdiction. This approach not only safeguards sensitive information but also aligns with the EU's stringent privacy laws. **Challenges and Future Directions** While Nubo has made significant strides in establishing a sovereign cloud, challenges such as the migration from CentOS to Debian highlight the complexities of maintaining an open source infrastructure. Looking ahead, the project aims to enhance its contributions to the open source community and expand its offerings, including the introduction of Kubo, a namespace-as-a-service platform built on Kubernetes. ## Importance for an eco-social transformation Nubo's initiative is pivotal for eco-social transformation as it emphasizes the use of open source technology to achieve digital sovereignty. This approach ensures that data is managed in compliance with local laws, promoting ethical data handling and enhancing privacy protections. For eco-social designers, Nubo provides a model for developing community-driven, transparent, and resilient digital infrastructures. The project's reliance on open source tools like OpenStack and Kubernetes demonstrates the potential for scalable, sustainable solutions that can be adapted for various social and environmental applications. However, challenges such as geopolitical influences and the complexity of managing open source projects highlight the need for continued collaboration and innovation in this space. ## Slides: | | | | --- | --- | | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_001.jpg\|300]] | The first slide introduces Nubo, the French government's sovereign cloud project, highlighting its foundational role in achieving digital sovereignty. The slide features the names of the speakers, Louis Vigneras and Thierry Carrez, who represent the DGFiP and the OpenInfra Foundation, respectively. This introduction sets the stage for a discussion on how open source solutions are pivotal in building secure, independent cloud infrastructures for government use. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_002.jpg\|300]] | This slide provides background information on the speakers, Louis Vigneras and Thierry Carrez. Louis is a master's student in European affairs and an apprentice at the French Finance Ministry, while Thierry is the General Manager of the OpenInfra Foundation and a key figure in the OpenStack community. Their combined expertise underscores the collaborative effort between governmental and open source communities to drive the Nubo project. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_003.jpg\|300]] | The third slide delves into the history of OpenStack, an openly-developed open source cloud software. It highlights the global community's involvement, with significant contributions from regions like EMEA, NA, and APAC. The slide also addresses misconceptions about Kubernetes overshadowing OpenStack, explaining how Kubernetes has instead reinforced OpenStack's relevance by enhancing its infrastructure capabilities. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_004.jpg\|300]] | This slide discusses the current state of OpenStack as it celebrates its 15th anniversary, marking its maturity in the cloud computing landscape. It highlights the widespread adoption of OpenStack, with over 50 million CPU cores driven by its technology across both public and private clouds, showcasing its robust and scalable nature. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_005.jpg\|300]] | The fifth slide explores the broader OpenInfra ecosystem, emphasizing the role of open source solutions like Linux, OpenStack, and Kubernetes in democratizing access to infrastructure technology. It illustrates how these tools collectively enable organizations to build and manage their own infrastructure, making advanced technology accessible to a wider audience. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_006.jpg\|300]] | This slide identifies three key trends driving the growth of OpenInfra: the demand for AI infrastructure, the migration of users from VMware due to licensing changes, and the increasing importance of digital sovereignty. These trends highlight the evolving landscape of cloud computing and the critical role of open source solutions in addressing emerging challenges. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_007.jpg\|300]] | The seventh slide underscores the necessity of local infrastructure to ensure programmable compute capabilities, resilience against geopolitical threats, and compliance with EU privacy laws. It argues for the development of local cloud solutions to protect against potential disruptions from foreign providers and to safeguard sensitive data. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_008.jpg\|300]] | This slide outlines the benefits of open source software for achieving digital sovereignty, including permissionless access, independence from specific vendors, transparency through open governance, and interoperability with various providers. These attributes make open source an attractive option for building sovereign cloud infrastructures. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_009.jpg\|300]] | The ninth slide provides a brief history of the Nubo project, outlining the steps taken to establish a sovereign cloud infrastructure for the French government. It sets the context for the project's development and the milestones achieved along the way. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_010.jpg\|300]] | This slide details the initial context of the Nubo project, linked to the 'Investment Plan for the Future' (PIA), which aimed to modernize state-run hosting infrastructures and enhance sovereignty. The objectives included security, resilience, inter-ministerial collaboration, and independence, setting the foundation for the Nubo initiative. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_011.jpg\|300]] | The eleventh slide describes the two-part project structure of Nubo: a set of tools for creating and managing an open source cloud and an inter-ministerial hosting offer. These components are based on free software and provide industrial-scale cloud infrastructure management, emphasizing pay-as-you-go resources and enhanced security. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_012.jpg\|300]] | This slide outlines the key milestones in the history of the Nubo project, from its inception in 2016 to the production start-up in 2018 and subsequent developments. It highlights significant achievements such as OpenStack upgrades and the establishment of a customer portal and center of excellence. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_013.jpg\|300]] | The thirteenth slide presents the current structure of the Nubo cloud offering, detailing the setup of two independent sites with multiple availability zones. It illustrates how the infrastructure is divided to ensure redundancy and reliability, catering to both internet-exposed and internal state networks. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_014.jpg\|300]] | This slide provides an overview of the OpenStack components deployed within the Nubo cloud, including authentication, VM management, and network services. It also highlights the customer portal for onboarding and support, emphasizing the comprehensive nature of the Nubo offering. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_015.jpg\|300]] | The fifteenth slide offers a snapshot of the Nubo cloud's scale, with approximately 2,000 tenants and 450 projects. It details the infrastructure's capacity, including block and object storage, RAM, and CPU cores, demonstrating its ability to serve a wide range of public administrations. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_016.jpg\|300]] | This slide introduces Kubo, a namespace-as-a-service offering within the Nubo framework. It describes how Kubo leverages the Nubo IaaS API to provide flexible, containerized environments for projects, enhancing the cloud's capabilities and appeal to diverse users. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_017.jpg\|300]] | The seventeenth slide emphasizes the role of free software in achieving sovereignty, highlighting its ability to provide independence and control over technological trajectories. It suggests that open source is the chosen path for maintaining control over state-operated cloud environments. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_018.jpg\|300]] | This slide distinguishes between 'product' and 'project' in the context of software, explaining that the former refers to source code and licenses, while the latter encompasses everything else, like maintenance and support. This distinction is crucial for understanding the comprehensive nature of open source initiatives. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_019.jpg\|300]] | The nineteenth slide discusses the formal freedoms provided by free software, such as transparency, prevention of vendor lock-in, and cost savings. It underscores the importance of these freedoms in maintaining control over the technological and financial trajectory of state-operated cloud environments. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_020.jpg\|300]] | This slide addresses challenges associated with using open source products, such as alignment issues with project goals and geopolitical influences. It highlights the complexities of maintaining one's own fork and the impact of external changes, like RedHat's moves, on the Nubo project. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_021.jpg\|300]] | The twenty-first slide explores the transition from formal to real freedoms in open source projects, emphasizing the need to internalize competencies. It highlights the French Finance Ministry's long history of using free software and its preference for internalizing skills over licenses. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_022.jpg\|300]] | This slide provides a historical overview of the French Finance Ministry's use of free software, from early deployments of Linux and virtualization to the adoption of OpenStack. It highlights the ministry's commitment to open source solutions and their role in the development of Nubo. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_023.jpg\|300]] | The twenty-third slide attempts to define sovereignty in the context of a state-operated cloud, emphasizing the importance of ownership, control, and operation by the state. It argues that true sovereignty ensures that data and services are subject to national laws and regulations. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_024.jpg\|300]] | This slide outlines the future directions for the Nubo project, including continued contributions to open source projects and the development of the Kubo distribution. It highlights the challenges faced, such as migration issues, and the ongoing collaboration with DINUM to enhance open source initiatives. | ![[FOSDEM 2025/assets/Nubo-the-French-government-sovereign-cloud/preview_025.jpg\|300]] | The final slide expresses gratitude to the audience and the broader open source community for their support and contributions to the Nubo project. ## Links [OpenStack official website](https://www.openstack.org) [Description of the Nubo project](https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud/) [OpenInfra Foundation official website](https://openinfra.dev) [Video recording (AV1/WebM) - 75.4 MB](https://video.fosdem.org/2025/aw1126/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud.av1.webm) [Video recording (MP4) - 476.0 MB](https://video.fosdem.org/2025/aw1126/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud.av1.mp4) [Video recording subtitle file (VTT)](https://video.fosdem.org/2025/aw1126/fosdem-2025-6234-nubo-the-french-government-sovereign-cloud.vtt) [Chat room(web)](https://fosdem.org/2025/chat/aw1126) [Chat room(app)](https://fosdem.org/2025/app/aw1126)