The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a contract to supplier Rackspace for the operation of a single, virtualised infrastructure known as the Joint Server Farm (JSF), which hosts web sites for the MoD, Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

JSF supports recruitment campaigns for the Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as a number of administrative and public information sites.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Tipton, head of the British Army’s Web Exploitation Group, said: “We now have a secure system with the ability to reconfigure at will. We have complete visibility over our system and its components and are beginning to fully appreciate how it all works.”

MoD partners will be able to manage and change web sites quickly to meet user demand, as well as launching new campaigns.

The MoD has already consolidated 67 servers to 12 physical hypervisors and 72 virtual servers within the MoD using virtualisation, reducing operating costs by a quarter.

The contract includes a managed security service.