The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with UKCloud for preferential commercial terms for public sector customers.
It covers the company’s cloud services, which extend to the provision of multi-cloud options, and provides for “double digit discounts” on the company’s UKCloudX Tier 2 hosting capability.
This follows similar deals in recent months for the use of the Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure platforms, reinforcing the Government’s commitment to its ‘cloud first’ policy. It also comes after the recent publication of cloud guidance, including on hosting strategy, by the Government Digital Service.
Gareth Rhys Williams, the Government’s chief commercial officer, said: “This agreement with UKCloud builds on the government’s ‘cloud first’ policy and incorporates key elements of the recent One Government Cloud Strategy.
“It shows the Government’s determination to adopt value for money technologies which improve services and ensure government departments and their staff have the digital tools they need, now and in the future.”
Multi-cloud choice
UKCloud, A UK based provider that brings together technology stacks from suppliers including Cisco, Dell EMC, Oracle and VMWare, said the deal will enable public sector organisations to choose from multi-cloud options alongside proprietary offerings. This makes it possible to mix and match technologies in public, private or hybrid clouds.
It also emphasised that it is the only provider involved in the One Government Cloud Strategy that use the Government’s Crown Campus data centre facilities – run in a joint venture with Ark Data Centres – which it said offers native connectivity to secure networks and options for multi-cloud services at high security classification levels.
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