VMware vCloud Air available for government and public sector through G-Cloud

'We're really hardening ourselves to the UK market,' Gavin Jackson, general manager of cloud services for EMEA at VMware, tells Computing

The government has authorised VMware vCloud Air for use throughout the public sector as part of the G-Cloud procurement network for cloud-based IT services.

VMware vCloud Air will enable government and public-sector bodies to deploy hybrid cloud technology on top of existing applications. It'll provide organisations with the opportunity to build new cloud-native applications in a manner that delivers both agility and security, the vendor said.

VMware has been awarded a place on the G-Cloud 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.

The flexibility of the services offered could provide benefits to public-sector bodies that get particularly busy at certain times of year, such as HMRC.

VMware's data centre is in the UK, meaning all citizen data is stored under UK and EU compliance and data sovereignty standards. Speaking to Computing, Gavin Jackson, general manager of cloud services for EMEA at VMware, said that the UK-based data centres will provide benefits to the government, VMware and the UK job market.

"We're hiring our teams in the UK, and we've located ourselves specifically in the UK so that we're under UK law," he said.

"So we're really hardening ourselves to the UK market and we continue to hire people from within the UK to operate those data centres and to provide services to government agencies," Jackson said.

"I think a lot of our competitors would be outside of the UK, maybe in Ireland or Amsterdam or other parts of Europe. But specifically we're located in the UK to harden ourselves to stringent data laws"

Jackson went on to argue that by adopting VMware products, government departments can become more efficient while cutting costs at the same time.

"In everything we do, we're looking at extending, leveraging efficiency from taxpayer money, we're trying to be as efficient as possible," he told Computing.

"UK government departments can leverage their existing network investments - rather than creating new networks - and they can use the private network they already have and reconnect that into our cloud through vCloud air," he added.

And according to Jackson, both government and private-sector bodies are looking to hybrid cloud as the way forward.

"We believe, as the government and private-sector organisations have told us, that hybrid is the platform of choice for all state IT departments and we believe that in having a VMware install base on premises means government can benefit from public cloud resources, but in a safe, secure and governed way," he told Computing.

Andy Tait, head of public sector strategy at VMware, also welcomed the addition of vCloud Air to the government's G-Cloud 6 framework.

"VMware vCloud Air is gaining rapid traction across the globe as IT departments see what can be achieved with true hybrid cloud," he said.

"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," he said.

"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," Tait said.

"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," he continued.

"This ultimately means a platform to deliver better, cheaper, more secure public services," Tait concluded.

There are some government organisations that have already deployed VMware, including Kent County Council, which in December told Computing that it will save £2.5m after migrating away from thousands of Windows XP devices to a VMware virtualised desktop environment.