CROWN HOSTING DATA CENTRES AND THE CLEAREST ROUTE TO THE CLOUD

August 2015

Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited 3

What is Crown Hosting Data Centres 4

Data centres of the future, today 5

Is my organisation eligible? 5

Crown Hosting Data Centres: easy, reduced risk route to the cloud 6

1 Easy to use 6

2 Lower operational risk 7

3 Value for money 8

4 Vendor neutral environment 9

5 Route to the cloud 10

The next steps 10

CONTENTS

4 Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited

WWW.CROWNHOSTINGDC.CO.UK

WHAT IS CROWN HOSTING DATA CENTRES?Crown Hosting Data Centres is a joint venture with the UK government to provide data centre colocation hosting and connectivity services to any organisation that is part of the public sector. The secure service has been assured by CPNI and CESG, offering Pan-Government Assured services on the same flexible and low cost commercial terms as Cloud.

The Crown Hosting Data Centre service is complementary to those sold via the Digital Marketplace (G-Cloud), offering on-demand colocation services for legacy and new private infrastructure with very flexible contract lengths including very long (seven plus years) for those customers worried about the cost of migrating physical infrastructure between data centres every few years.

Crown Hosting Data Centres makes it easy for government and public sector organisations to purchase hosting services more quickly and efficiently than traditional procurement methods.

Delivered via a single-supplier framework agreement, you simply buy the services you need ‘off-the-shelf’ - with no hidden charges or lock-in.

This innovative approach gives you low cost data centre services that come pre-loaded with all the security and risk assurance you need. So you can deploy in days – not years.

Crown Hosting Data Centres are located on campus environments in close proximity to many G-Cloud services from on-campus G-Cloud suppliers. This secure hub approach allows many customers to transition to the Cloud securely without moving off site whilst also being able to connect to off campus cloud services as required.

“Crown Hosting Data Centres will enable technology leaders to keep legacy systems running, which will provide the platform to design and develop new services based on user needs. We will also finally have an effective overview of this legacy estate and where it sits. That view will help us reduce over-specification and standardise what government needs from a legacy hosting environment.

Crown Hosting Data Centres is now a reality with three Founder Customers - the Department for Work and Pensions, Home Office and Highways Agency - and more to follow. Services are available to call off immediately from the framework.”

Liam MaxwellChief Technology Officer for HM Government

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DATA CENTRES OF THE FUTURE, TODAYFlexible, advanced and agile by design, Crown Hosting Data Centres offers a rich portfolio of colocation and connectivity services to support you today and into the future – delivering a secure hub from which to plan your longer-term Cloud transformation.

Offering the UK’s most efficient data centres for the public sector, our approved platforms feature pioneering real-time dynamic cooling and load matching technology that delivers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) along with maximum operational flexibility.

It’s why organisations like the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are taking advantage of the same state-of-the-art delivery environment - benefitting from the highest quality data centre services available on the market, with the lowest environmental impact and running costs.

Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited

IS MY ORGANISATION ELIGIBLE?Over 50,000 UK public sector organisations in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are entitled to use the Crown Hosting Framework Agreement - from central government departments to hospitals and schools.

The extensive list of eligible bodies includes:

• Local authorities and councils• Fire and rescue services• National parks authorities• Non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs)• Hospices• NHS organisations• Housing associations• Third sector and charities• Schools, higher education and further education institutions,

including universities• Police services• Public broadcasting service providers

To find out if your organisation qualifies to take advantage of Crown Hosting email info@crownhostingdc.co.uk

The benefits

• Simple ‘pay for what you use’ pricing

• A choice of durations – from one month to seven years or more

• Rapid on-boarding – low and high density compute in any configuration

• Available via a call off agreement from a centralised single-supplier framework

• OJEU process already complete

• Scale services up or down – no minimum volume commitment

• A choice of service and security levels

• Simple route to the cloud

• Vendor neutral environment.

Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited6

WWW.CROWNHOSTINGDC.CO.UK

EASY, REDUCED RISK ROUTE TO THE CLOUDOffering fully flexible bespoke solutions that can be tailored to any requirement, large or small, there’s never been a better time to take advantage of the government’s data centre services.

Here are some of the reasons to make the move to a Crown Hosting Data Centre.

1 EASY TO USE

The unique campuses used by Crown Hosting Data Centres have existing government telecommunications in place. This makes it particularly easy to buy the data centre colocation hosting and connectivity services you need.

With exceptional carbon efficiency, connectivity, business impact and security accreditations already in place, utilising the Crown Hosting framework means there’s no requirement for a full OJEU process, tender or selection procedure. Via a simple, standard government contract you simply call off the services you want and fast track your time to deployment; the quickest so far was one week from initial enquiry to installing equipment.

Once you’ve defined the scope and duration of your initial requirement, the dedicated and experienced Crown Hosting Data Centres team will be on hand to help plan and facilitate your migration.

With Crown Hosting Data Centres, there’s no need for complex rack forecasting – you can flex your requirements as often as you need. Both low and high-density compute needs can be accommodated, and there’s no minimum volume initial commitment.

The modular design of our data centre’s means you can scale up or down at any time, and we ensure that you only pay for what you need. Plus, you’ll find a wide choice of contract options are on offer, from one month to seven years and beyond – and you’re free to terminate early without charge, subject to the appropriate notice and transition to a G-Cloud service as required This means you can evolve to a cloud first strategy when you need to without paying a penalty.

When it comes to connectivity, the carrier neutral facilities on offer means you’re not restricted when it comes to selecting the option that work best for you.

• No OJEU process

• Simplified, standardised and centralised procurement process

• Government approved data centre services

• Fully defined on-boarding/off-boarding processes

• Predefined SLAs

• Flexible contract periods

• Existing government telecommunications.

A choice of options

• Floor space, cabinet space, dedicated hall space facility options available

• Durations: one month, six months, one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, plus options for extension beyond contract period

• Scalable and resilient connectivity to PSN, N3, RLL/SLI services and high speed data centre interconnect, plus carrier neutral telecommunications connections

• Density options from 2kW to 50kW per rack/m2

7Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited

2 LOWER OPERATIONAL RISKDelivering all the resilience and performance you need to support mission-critical operations, comprehensive service level agreements (SLAs) give you the assurance of synchronous replication and industry leading availability.

Crown Hosting Data Centres feature dedicated public sector halls with guaranteed power, cooling and physical security – which includes individually lockable cabinets, aisles and rooms – plus state-of-the art backup and disaster recovery structures.

To assure uptime, your entire IT infrastructure is monitored 24x7, with real-time reporting delivering up-to-the-moment performance data on asset performance and efficiency.

Meanwhile, our onsite engineering teams work round-the-clock, undertaking pre-planned preventative maintenance on critical mechanical and electrical components – and are always on hand to support fit-outs, moves, additions and changes.

The security of your business-critical data and systems is also a primary concern. All of our facilities operate a multi-layered defence in depth physical security system, and visitor access into and within each data centre is stringently controlled. All our personnel are cleared to SC level, and a number of our people have undergone developed vetting.

All our sites are regularly independently audited both for physical and cyber-security; an ISO 27001 Information Security Management certification ensures that all controls to protect the handling and storage of information assets are undertaken.

All Crown Hosting Data Centres operate at least OFFICIAL as standard, higher levels of security are available to be tailored to your specific security assurance needs.

Highly secure by design

• Operating at OFFICIAL, and above levels of assurance

• CPNI and CESG assured with certification from the Pan Government Accreditor

• Staff cleared to SC and above where required

• ISO 27001 certification

• Concentric rings of physical security

• Multiple data centres per campus

• Two campuses, 70 miles apart, connected by diverse multi-terabit dark fibre

• Compliant with ISO 9001 standards for quality management

• Per data centre module power SLA, 2N UPS plus N+1 generators with 72 hours of fuel on site and 4 hour priority delivery of additional fuel

• 24x7 automatic monitoring

• Onsite personnel for building operations, security and Intelligent Hands to undertake tasks on your behalf

• Scalable and resilient connectivity to PSN, N3 and RLI/SLI services

• High speed data centre interconnect.

8 Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited

WWW.CROWNHOSTINGDC.CO.UK

3 VALUE FOR MONEYWith Crown Hosting Data Centres you’re able to achieve significant operational cost savings; value-for-money for the public sector purse was a key evaluation criteria in the competition for the service.

Transparent ‘pay-only-for-what-you-use’ billing eliminates the risk of hidden charges and you’re able to tap into a pricing structure that includes aggregated volume discounts and power at cost.

What’s more, all Crown Hosting Data Centre contracts come with the lowest total cost of ownership, which at a stroke minimises your power utilisation by 50% compared to industry norms.

The ready-to-go pre-installed electrical infrastructure means there’s no additional capital expenditure, while meet-me-rooms within each data room significantly reduces your cabling costs.

Designed from the ground up to deliver the most environmentally efficient platform in the industry, Crown Hosting Data Centres can also significantly contribute to your HMG Greening commitments and minimise your carbon footprint.

The data centres operate within a comprehensive sustainability framework that’s compliant with ISO 14001. Plus their intelligent cooling technology dynamically adjusts environmental controls to match compute demand.

Benefitting from the most efficient data centres in the industry today means we’re able to generate you carbon savings in excess of 6,000 tonnes per MW of power.

Transparent low costs

• Cabinet Office certified value for money

• Twice the industry- average efficiency

• Low on-boarding charges – pre-installed infrastructure enables fast set up

• No requirement for floor strengthening

• Low latency inter-site connectivity cuts the total cost of ownership

• Environmentally friendly

• Free cooling 99% of the year

• BREEAM certified

• BS ENS0600 Enhanced Class 4 compliant, ISO 14001 certified, participants of the EU Code of Conduct.

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4 VENDOR NEUTRAL ENVIRONMENTFree to connect to your cloud provider of choice and not limited by your choice of managed service provider, Crown Hosting Data Centres is agnostic to any G-Cloud service providers allowing you the flexibility to disaggregate and reduce cost.

We simply make sure it’s fast and easy to draw down cloud services to your data centre. This means providing all the secure on-campus direct connectivity needed to get to the public and private cloud platforms of your choosing – efficiently and safely.

Our goal is to ensure you access the highest bandwidth, lowest latency and highest security connection possible – and sometimes you won’t have to connect via the Internet. Because we don’t want to tether you in any way at all, we won’t control the network equipment required to access the critical cloud services you need. You get to deploy, and manage, the core infrastructure needed – we simply provide the racks.

Crown Hosting Data Centres takes an unequivocal cloud-neutral stance, and this generates significant advantages for all our customers – including colocation providers, who gain the assurance of knowing we won’t compete for your business.

As part of our commitment to making it fast and easy to efficiently access the cloud, we offer a community of providers that can be securely accessed without leaving campus. Our neutral position means that Crown Hosting Data Centres doesn’t offer a packaged deal – you negotiate your own commercial relationships with these providers. We simply act as a showroom where you can explore the available options and make your choices accordingly.

• Connect privately to your private cloud

• Add or change providers as often as you need or as demands change

• No hidden tie-ins – your cloud service relationships are fully independent of your data centre services

• Select cloud providers that represent the best fit for your specific wants and needs – and negotiate your own terms.

Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited10

WWW.CROWNHOSTINGDC.CO.UK

5 ROUTE TO THE CLOUDOne of the most appealing benefits to the public sector about our service is the ability to immediately lower your costs by consolidating all of your racks into one set inside a secure Crown Hosting Data Centres hub. You can decide at a later date how to get to the public or private cloud.

So, the pressure is off. You can enjoy all of the cost savings now and reap the benefits we’ve already discussed very quickly, without compromising on your longer-term cloud migration strategy.

Clouds need data centres too. Their physical infrastructure has to be hosted somewhere. Crown Hosting Data Centres are provided by Ark Data Centres on large dedicated, secure campuses that are also home to a number of significant G-Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) suppliers. In effect, providing a seamless and secure transition path to the cloud.

Simply put, Crown Hosting Data Centres is designed to support existing, private infrastructure in the public sector and through the close proximity (local network) to G-Cloud IaaS suppliers, facilitates the journey from legacy infrastructure to the cloud. This close proximity also enables infrastructure flexibility; your services composed of components that are both cloud suitable and unsuitable can be created without the technical constraints of geographical separation.

So, Crown Hosting Data Centres complements G-Cloud, because it provides you with a physical space to host your non-cloud based computer servers and systems alongside G-Cloud suppliers. Until now, individual departments paid to either build their own data centres or outsource the service as part of their own locked in IT contracts.

THE NEXT STEPCrown Hosting Data Centres substantially reduce the operational risk and cost of colocation hosting and connectivity services for public sector departments and organisations.

Delivering all the agility, efficiency and security you need, accessible via a centrally managed framework agreement that simplifies procurement, there has never been a better time to make the move.

TO FIND OUT MORE, CALL +44 (0) 333 207 0703.

WWW.CROWNHOSTINGDC.CO.UK

+44 (0) 333 207 0703

Copyright © 2015 Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited

Crown Hosting Data Centres Limited registered in England and Wales number 09274699.

Registered and Head Office: Spring Park, Westwells Road, Hawthorn,Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9GB