VMware has announced VMware vCloud Air is officially available for government and public sector organisations in the UK to purchase, both directly and as part of the G-Cloud 6 framework – the latest version of the government’s cloud-based services network.
VMware vCloud Air enables public sector organisations to extend their on-premises IT infrastructure seamlessly to the public cloud. VMware vCloud Air can integrate seamlessly with the existing estate, giving the ease and flexibility to extend workloads, even mission critical applications, into the public cloud as and when additional capacity is needed.
The resulting hybrid cloud is compatible with existing public sector applications and also makes it easy to build new cloud-native applications, delivering agility and efficiency in a secure, reliable and compliant manner.
IT departments can view, manage and operate this “best of both worlds” cloud environment in a unified way using the VMware vSphere platform they already know and trust. As the data centre for the service is based in the UK, all citizen data is stored under UK and EU compliance and data sovereignty standards.
“VMware vCloud Air is gaining rapid traction across the globe as IT departments see what can be achieved with true hybrid cloud,” says Andy Tait, head of Public Sector Strategy at VMware.
“Many government services – such as passport processing or tax returns – have significant peaks and troughs throughout the year; yet have stringent data security requirements all year round. vCloud Air enables the public sector to keep business-critical applications in-house and also take advantage of the enormous scalability of public clouds securely, without having to invest in new tools, skills or under-used on-premises capacity.”
“Now that vCloud Air is government-ready, public sector and government organisations have the flexibility to run applications wherever they like across their IT infrastructure, with the reassurance that all data information remains local in-country and adheres to sovereignty laws,” continued Tait. “This ultimately means a platform to deliver better, cheaper, more secure public services.”
G-Cloud 6 is a set of frameworks for the public sector to buy cloud-based services through a digital marketplace. Public sector bodies can review the cloud services available and buy them through the Digital Marketplace. VMware has been awarded a place on the Framework agreement for the supply of VMware vCloud Air Dedicated Cloud, VMware vCloud Air Virtual Private Cloud and VMware vCloud Air Disaster Recovery as a Service.
