DCN April 2017 | Page 44

Projects & Agreements Crown Hosting Data Centres: Supporting the Public Sector’s digital evolution A greater number of public sector organisations, including central and local government, are now expected to switch their data centre requirements to the Crown Hosting Framework following the move from the Government Digital Service (GDS) to Crown Commercial Services (CCS). CCS became the new custodian of the Framework Authority of the Crown Hosting Service (CHS), transferring from the GDS on 1st March 2017. One of the main aims of the CCS service is to provide a transition point to the cloud in support of the government’s Cloud First policy, by making it easier for public sector customers to procure data centre services. The immediate result saves them money and gives the commercial flexibility needed to transform their ‘as-is’ infrastructure environments. A key component of the joint initiative is to raise awareness across the public sector of the Crown Hosting Framework. It has already delivered significant savings to public sector organisations, including the Ministry of Defence (MOD), Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) amongst many others, all of whom have switched from legacy data centres to the new, agile framework. Crown Hosting is a key transition platform for the government’s Cloud First strategy, with the overarching objective of providing highly efficient, flexible data centre colocation. For further information visit: www.crownhostingdc.co.uk Colt Data Centre Services launches private connectivity to AWS and Azure Cloud from London data centres Colt Data Centre Services has announced that it has added private connectivity into two major public cloud providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure at its three London data centres. The announcement forms a central part of the evolution of the company’s data centre portfolio, which will see the same connectivity rolled out in a number of its facilities across Europe over the next few months. This new service allows customers to consume connectivity services ‘on-demand’ and in real time via an intelligent and intuitive online customer portal. Gaining full control, customers can flex bandwidth requirements up and down instantaneously. The on-demand flexibility also extends to pricing, giving customers the option to choose per-hour pricing plans, as well as more traditional fixed-term contract durations. Colt DCS’ dedicated cloud access on-demand allows organisations building hybrid platforms to avoid the high cost of fixed private network connectivity to key clouds, or the premium paid to collocate next to cloud gateways. Colt DCS can provide the same flexible, high capacity private connectivity to multiple cloud locations around Europe, connected via the same port in any of its London data centres without a requirement for additional network purchase. For further information visit: www.coltdatacentres.net