The Public Sector and the Cloud

A first class and fully accredited data centre infrastructure can ease the nerves around public sector migration to the cloud. Colin Speirs, iomart's public sector bid manager, explores the relationship between the public sector and the cloud


The public are grasping the benefits of using the internet to search for government services like never before, yet the take-up by the public sector of cloud services to support this growing number of people is not keeping pace.

While media watchdog Ofcom have published results showing the number of citizens using the internet on a weekly basis to find out more about government services doubled between 2013 and 2014,  there is still scepticism and nervousness about the adoption of cloud services by the people who provide them.

This can be broadly put down to concerns around the security of the data centre infrastructures that support the delivery of these services; the perceived complexity involved; and the difficulties of overcoming legacy IT systems.

Yet the pressure to drive cloud adoption continues. The launch of an expanded G-Cloud supplier framework in 2013 means that public sector organisations must consider potential cloud solutions when procuring new or existing services. Along with  a government drive for greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness this means  increasing emphasis on cloud computing at the top of the civil service. 

iomart has been a supplier to the UK public sector via G-Cloud since 2012. Our cloud expertise has been honed as the concept of delivering IT services over the internet has been developed. This means that as well as being able to deliver cloud services we also understand how best to address the challenges being faced by organisations looking to adopt them.  

A first class data centre infrastructure is the bedrock for cloud solutions ranging from bespoke hybrid clouds and email, through data storage and archiving, to Disaster Recovery and DDoS protection. As a G-Cloud supplier iomart holds the range of accreditations  needed to meet any regulatory concerns. 

We deliver to the security and standard of service any public sector organisation would expectSecure Infrastructure –we own and operate a network of data centres across the UK, connected by a private high speed dark fibre network. All data generated by our UK public sector customers stays in the UK. 

1. Tier 1 Hardware – our data centres are equipped with Tier 1 infrastructure from industry leaders including EMC, Dell, HP, Cisco, VMware and Microsoft. This enterprise grade technology guarantees a robust and resilient platform with 100% uptime guaranteed.

2. Service Level Agreement – we have complete control over our infrastructure allowing us to deliver some of the most impressive SLAs available. 

3. 24/7 Support – iomart’s team of developers, support staff and data centre teams are available round-the-clock.

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