Frankfurt Health Department Modernizes Public Administration IT with the Exoscale Cloud
Munich, January 28, 2026 – The Frankfurt am Main Health Department, in cooperation with the Hessian Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Sport, Health and Care as well as VSHN AG, has introduced a pioneering platform for public administration: GA‑Lotse. The cloud‑native system is built entirely on open‑source technologies and is operated with full sovereignty on Exoscale’s European cloud infrastructure.
GA‑Lotse accelerates and simplifies data processing, connects public authorities, and drives digitalization forward. Funded through the Pact for the Public Health Service as part of the EU’s NextGenerationEU program, a highly secure, flexible, and scalable IT solution was developed in just eleven months. It meets the diverse requirements of health departments while ensuring unrestricted data sovereignty.
GA‑Lotse: Federal, Secure, Open Source
Each health department operates its own individually customizable instance of GA‑Lotse. Service modules—such as those for hygiene inspections, vaccinations, school entry examinations, or communication and calendar functions—are provided in a centrally managed, federated cloud. Sensitive personal and medical data are strictly separated at a technical level. Maximum security is ensured through a zero‑trust approach and “privacy by design” implemented from the ground up.
Exoscale: A Guarantee for Digital Sovereignty
The platform runs on Red Hat OpenShift and is hosted by Exoscale, the sovereign European cloud from A1 Digital. With headquarters in Switzerland and data centers including locations in Germany, Exoscale meets the highest compliance standards, such as ISO 27001, the C5 attestation for the public sector, and industry‑specific certifications like HDS (Health Data Space) for the healthcare sector. As an alternative to non‑European hyperscalers, Exoscale guarantees GDPR compliance and data storage exclusively within Europe—an essential factor for public institutions.
“Flagship projects like GA‑Lotse show that digital sovereignty in public administration is already possible today without compromising on quality, performance, or security—and that open source and sovereignty complement each other perfectly,” says Mathias Nöbauer, CEO of Exoscale.
Successful Implementation Through Strong Partnership
The technical implementation was carried out in close cooperation with VSHN AG, a specialist in platform engineering and DevSecOps. The complex infrastructure was set up within just a few months, and the go‑live took place on October 1, 2024. “Thanks to cloud operations as a managed service, local IT teams were significantly relieved, while scalability and extensibility are ensured at all times,” explains Aarno Aukia, co‑founder of VSHN AG.
“GA‑Lotse simplifies processes in health departments, strengthens collaboration, and frees up more time for our core mission—the health of our citizens,” emphasizes Bianca Kastl, IT security expert and GA‑Lotse Product Owner at the Frankfurt Health Department. “The sovereign cloud architecture ensures that we can perfectly combine innovation and data protection.”
With GA‑Lotse, the Frankfurt Health Department is setting new standards for digital transformation in the healthcare sector: European, sovereign, secure, and future‑proof.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN is a Swiss provider specializing in the operation of modern applications and cloud platforms. As experts in DevOps and Kubernetes, VSHN supports companies and organizations in securely building, operating, and continuously developing their digital services—from managed Kubernetes and OpenShift to databases and other cloud‑native services such as https://servala.com/. VSHN consistently relies on open source, high automation, and reliable 24/7 operations with a focus on quality, security, and data sovereignty. Learn more at https://vshn.ch/
About Gesundheitsamt‑Lotse – GA‑Lotse
GA‑Lotse (Health Department Guide) is an innovative, web‑based open‑source platform for the Public Health Service in Germany. It digitalizes various processes within health departments, making them more efficient and enabling citizens to interact digitally with ease—based on security by design and digital sovereignty. In 2025, GA‑Lotse received the InfoSec Impact Award from the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and Next e.V.
About Exoscale
Exoscale is a leading European cloud infrastructure provider offering fully data‑sovereign cloud solutions operated exclusively in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Bulgaria. With a focus on transparency, security, and independence, Exoscale delivers cloud infrastructure for organizations with the highest requirements for data protection and compliance. www.exoscale.com