UKFast secures government Cloud deal

UKFast has secured a contract to supply the UK Cabinet Office with a cloud platform for its emergency ResilienceDirect service, which supports effective response to incidents like natural disasters, terror attacks and power outages.

The platform delivers a suite of preparation, response and recovery tools, supporting a co-ordinated and efficient response by organisations from COBRA and the emergency services all the way down to local councils and utility providers.

The win, worth circa ?250,000, follows the acquisition of public sector specialists Secure Information Assurance (S-IA) and a ?2.3 million upgrade in UKFast’s government data centre space earlier this year.

Martin Knapp, head of public sector at UKFast, said: “It’s a huge honour to be given this responsibility and to collaborate with the government on such an important project.

“It’s encouraging to see the UK government and the public sector making an effort to keep data in British data centres with British companies. Initial feedback from all parties following the launch of the project has been fantastic.”

The deal was secured after a procurement contest with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the incumbent provider, UKCloud.

UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones MBE said: “The government is making massive inroads to bring in more sophisticated systems in the face of modern-day terrorism and other threats. Using a cutting-edge cloud platform is the natural way to do that.  

“Britain needs world-class technology underpinning its critical infrastructure, especially during times of uncertainty. UKFast is completely focussed on building a stronger, more secure Britain.”