NHS Digital to make VMware available across the NHS on AWS

NHS Digital to urge NHS trusts to shift to the cloud

NHS Digital has struck a deal with VMware to enable organisations across the NHS to use VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS). It comes as NHS Digital is now migrating its own VMware vSphere workloads to the cloud to drive down costs and, it claims, to improve operational efficiencies.

NHS Digital intends to migrate most of its services from its on-premises environment to VMware Cloud on both AWS and Microsoft's Azure cloud. It claims that using vSphere will enable it to shift applications and services into the cloud without significant re-architecting. Critics, though, would argue that a straight ‘lift and shift' from on-premise to cloud rarely generates significant savings, or helps to improve agility by much.

VMware Cloud on AWS provides a hybrid cloud that extends consistent infrastructure and operations across NHS Digital's on-premises data centres and the AWS cloud for VMware-based workloads.

NHS Digital claims that VMware Cloud on AWS has enabled it to create a new "commercial model" to act as a single cloud service broker to both organisations across NHS and the UK public sector. This model will provide better economies of scale and help facilitate a shift to cloud across the NHS.

"The uptake of digital services in the NHS is accelerating so the NHS and social care's IT backbone must be up to the job. With VMware Cloud on AWS, we're providing a resilient platform to support digitally-enabled care today and in the future.

"We now have a commercial framework in place to enable NHS and public-sector organisations to confidently use the cloud. Together we can benefit from the economies of scale and cost efficiencies of this model," said Rob Shaw, deputy chief executive of NHS Digital.

"We choose the right cloud for each workload," added Michael Flintoft, associate director, Platforms and Infrastructure, NHS Digital.

"VMware Cloud on AWS is the absolute best option for running our vSphere-based environments in the cloud. It's easy to move solutions across the different environments and it's easy to run and manage.

"We built a virtual data centre in the AWS cloud in less than three hours. That speed and agility is just what we need to harness innovation and make the best digital services available for the NHS and social care sector."

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