Kodan is developing the core information system for public services in the capital region for the City of Helsinki. The development work has progressed to the construction phase, in which Kanto Company — a member of the same Kluuvi Group company family as Kodan and the subcontractor responsible for infrastructure in the project — and Kodan together create a sustainable and secure foundation for the city's services' core information system.

"Digital sovereignty is not, in this day and age, merely a principle, but a concrete starting point for decision-making, and the City of Helsinki takes this excellently into account already at the procurement stage. It is also important that Finland has a modern cloud service provider like UpCloud, which offers a competitive alternative," says Marko Loukkola, CEO of Kodan Oy.

The project requirements have placed emphasis on a cloud environment located in Finland as well as the service provider's location within the EU/EEA area. By choosing the domestic UpCloud, Kodan ensures that the project meets these strict criteria.

Choosing a Finnish cloud provider and domestic expertise is also a form of preparedness for the suddenly changed global political situation and a response to the need for digital self-sufficiency.

"It is truly wonderful that the critical core information system for the City of Helsinki can be implemented by a Finnish actor with modern cloud solutions, ensuring service availability in exceptional circumstances while maintaining full control over data management," states Hannu Heikkinen, Chief Digitalisation Officer of the City of Helsinki.

Domestic origin and operational reliability at the centre

The partnership with UpCloud ensures that the project utilises Finnish expertise and that data is stored primarily in domestic data centres. The solution supports Helsinki's goal of managing critical data within the framework of European legislation and reduces dependency on the largest global players in the field.

The system's operational reliability is ensured through redundancy: the primary data is located in Finland, and data backup takes place in Sweden.

"We are excited about the opportunity to participate in the project. In this day and age, the choice of a European actor is not merely a technical question — it is a conscious value choice in favour of digital self-sufficiency and European independence," says Joel Pihlajamaa, founder and CTO of UpCloud.

Further information and contacts:

Marko Loukkola
CEO, Kodan Oy
marko.loukkola@kodan.fi
+358 (0)44 552 5952

Nikolas Kohvakka
Project Manager, Kodan Oy
nikolas.kohvakka@kodan.fi
+358 (0)40 7734063

kodan.fi | upcloud.com | kantocompany.com | hel.fi

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Note: This text has been translated from Finnish into English using Claude (AI). You can read the original press release in Finnish on Kauppalehti.

Image source: Pexels | Max Avans