UKCloud Wins Approval to Provide Multi-Cloud Solutions via Scottish Government’s Cloud Services Framework
London – 6 August 2019 – UKCloud, the multi-cloud experts dedicated to making transformation happen across UK public sector, has today announced that it has been awarded a position on the Scottish Government’s Cloud Services Framework which has an estimated value of £30m and runs for at least two years from today.
Cloud services are a key enabler to the Digital Transformation strategy adopted by the public sector. UKCloud has been at the forefront of providing a secure cloud platform and expert services that have enabled hundreds of public sector organisations across Scotland and the UK, to deliver more scalable and cost-effective public services. This new procurement framework is designed to accelerate cloud adoption across public sector organisations in Scotland by making it easier for them select and consume cloud services which meet a range of requirements including social value, compliance and value-for-money.
‘’As a UK sovereign SME, UKCloud has supported more than 250 digital transformation projects across public sector via various Crown Commercial Service frameworks including Technology Services 2 (TS2) and G-Cloud – directly and via our large ecosystem of partners. We are delighted to add the Scottish Government’s Cloud Services Framework providing prospective customers with another approved route to engage our expert services. Our aim is to help the Scottish public sector realise Scotland’s full potential in a digital world by supporting both the digital strategy for Scotland and the Data Hosting and Data Centre Strategy set within the Scottish Governments Digital Scotland Directorate.’’ said CEO for UKCloud, Simon Hansford.
UKCloud has continued to expand its portfolio of services in order to address the specific challenges that organisations within the UK public sector face, that impede the adoption of new technologies such as cloud. It’s portfolio now extends beyond the provision of core public cloud and private cloud environments, to also include professional services to help organisations on their path to cloud and easy access to third party software and services supported by specialist technology partners. All of these capabilities are now available via the Scottish Government’s Cloud Services Framework.
The Framework will underpin the Scottish Government’s data hosting and data centre strategy, which sets the vision that Scotland’s public sector data hosting is cost-effective, carbon neutral and makes appropriate use of cloud technology, for the delivery of efficient and highly available ICT services. The key policy drivers for this framework are closely aligned with UKCloud’s own. The Scottish Government’s Green ICT Strategy to reduce carbon emissions, plan for carbon reduction and meet the Scottish Government’s environmental targets closely aligns with UKCloud’s Green Credentials as a Certified Carbon Neutral Cloud Services Provider and UKCloud are also an accredited secure cloud service delivery supplier with accreditations including ISO27001, ISO27017, ISO27018 and Cyber Essentials Plus.
The Framework, which runs for two years, with the option of two further 1 year extensions, is expected to provide the whole of the Scottish public sector to access to approved Public Cloud; Co-Location; Private Cloud; Hybrid Cloud; Community Cloud; and Cloud Transition Services.
‘’UKCloud has always been known for the award-winning public cloud platform that we’ve created within the government-grade Crown Campus. Now, we’re able to take our public cloud architecture and deploy that as a private cloud – in your datacentre, in Crown Hosting or in our own facilities. And this year, we’ve delivered our first services that span between our own platform and 3rd party platforms such as Microsoft Azure. From multi-cloud to multi-classification and multi-deployment – we’re providing choices and options that you can’t get from anyone else.’’ said Leighton James, CTO at UKCloud
UKCloud’s experts are available to all public sector organisations to explore how they can benefit from multi-cloud services and solutions via a free workshop or jumpstart service.