New Crown Hosting Service: the implications

A few days ago the Cabinet Office issued a tender seeking a Crown Hosting Service (CHS) provider. The tender seeks a private sector partner to take a majority shareholding (up to 75% less one share) in ‘DatacentreCo’, a new private company to be established by the Cabinet Office to provide Data Centre Colocation Services (data centre space and the related services necessary to provide the operating environment for physical computing infrastructure). The operating environment has to be capable of housing computing infrastructure initially handling OFFICIAL security classification information (essentially up to IL3 Confidential under the old security classifications, and representing the vast majority of Government data) but potentially SECRET and TOP SECRET. Any successful provider will be required to provide the infrastructure from at least two separate locations.

The framework contract is expected to be awarded in 2015. The founder clients of CHS are expected to be DWP, the Home Office and the Highways Agency (see Highways Agency awards more ‘Tower’ contracts). There is a four year period during which Government departments and other Public Sector bodies can enter into call-off agreements. The value of the framework is put at between £50m to £700m.

In UKHotViewsExtra Georgina O'Toole considers the implications of this contract for the UK Government ICT strategy and for hosting and datacentre providers to UK Government. TechMarketView subscribers can read 'New Crown Hosting Service: the implications' now. If you are not yet a subscriber please contact Deb Seth to find out more.

Posted by Georgina O'Toole at '10:14' - Tagged: centralgovernment   hosting   infrastructure   government   framework