Orange Business has been selected to provide backbone services for TESTA-EIRIS, a secure private communications network designed to connect European Union institutions, agencies and Member State public administrations.
The project, short for Enhanced Infrastructure for Reliable Interconnectivity and Security, is intended to modernize the EU’s digital communications infrastructure with a more resilient, sovereign and secure pan-European network. Orange Business will provide Layer 2 and Layer 3 backbone capabilities, acting as network operator, integrator and platform provider alongside the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Digital Services, or DG DIGIT.
The network will be built around a single backbone connecting at least 12 points of presence across five strategic European regions. Orange said the architecture is designed for high availability, with a 99.999% target, and will support secure connectivity across distributed sites and multi-cloud environments.
The solution will combine the aforementioned backbone infrastructure, cloud connectivity and Virtual Private Network (VPN) technologies securely connecting distributed sites. Evolution Platform, Orange Business's AI-first, trusted connectivity platform for delivering enterprise digital services, will replace dedicated hardware with software-based virtual services.
Richard van Wageningen, president of Europe for Orange Business, said the contract reflects the EU’s focus on digital trust as cyber threats evolve and public-sector reliance on digital systems grows.
Read the full press release here.