6 ms·

Is there a UK-based company capable of offering the same services?

exdsq 5y ago
Rackspace are US-based but have a large UK office in West London that could offer these services. They have their own data centres there and UK data privacy laws restrict what can be sent abroad. No idea if there are any UK-incorporated cloud companies of a similar size though.
- toyg 5y ago
  Oracle has UK datacentres in Scotland, used precisely in circumstances where location is important. Needless to say that not all operators are UK based though - Oracle's business model requires cheap manpower from developing countries...
  - __1cn 5y ago
    See: https://www.oracle.com/uk/industries/government/central/ https://www.oracle.com/uk/industries/government/central/ "Ensure Cloud Sovereignty" ... "...centralised, security-cleared, UK-based operations team..."
    - toyg 5y ago
      That stuff is caveated to hell and back in the actual contracts. Or at least it was when I was in Oracle a few years ago.
reallydontask 5y ago
The UK government could create such a company, given the size of IT operations that the government has. This could be a commercial entity that is owned by the government.
- C19is20 5y ago
  Would a UK.ltd company be able to easily hand over all the 'info' to the 'feds', though?
  - Zenst 5y ago
    Very good point and this approach does afford a back-channel with plausible deniability. After all - data held in a country is subject to the government of that country being able to demand/obtain access.
    - reallydontask 5y ago
      I would be very surprised if the data was hosted overseas.
    - ectopod 5y ago
      It doesn't matter where the data is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
asplake 5y ago
Just a guess, but maybe they’re getting tired of paying suppliers excessive amounts to build inferior and slower-moving versions of what exists already?
Zenst 5y ago
Yes, not sure of there reasoning but hardly a inditement for GDS and the G-cloud offerings they afford local and countrywide government services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Government_G-Cloud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Government_G-Cloud
- richardwhiuk 5y ago
  AWS is part of UK Gov G-Cloud.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    aha, now that then explains the decision more then.
wil421 5y ago
If the UK is anything like the US the contractor would need to be UK citizens, servers in the UK in special data centers, and most, if not all, of the work would need to be done by UK citizens. There might be some very very high level talks with non UK citizens. I am curious how it would work using the AWS tech that is probably built by a lot of non UK/US citizens. Maybe the UK will allow work done by US citizens.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Most big-name cloud providers have needed to do this in the past half decade because the GDPR necessitated that they warehouse EU-sourced data in a different infrastructure with different privacy and national exfiltration guarantees then the ones US law requires.
  - wil421 5y ago
    Yes but it has no citizenship requirements. It can all be off shored to anyone outside the EU.
timthorn 5y ago
There is a specialist UK Government IaaS provider: https://ukcloud.com/ https://ukcloud.com/ But AWS and MS have both deployed dedicated DCs for sensitive UK Government cloud requirements: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/data-classification/united-kingdom-uk-government.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/data-classifi... https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2017/09/21/police-uk-reached-major-milestone-can-store-data-microsofts-cloud https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2017/09/21/police-uk-reache... Those DCs can be audited in a way that the CSPs don't generally allow for "normal" customers.
- pc86 5y ago
  > > Is there a UK-based company capable of offering the same services? > There is a specialist UK Government IaaS provider: So, no?
  - Hallucinaut 5y ago
    The answer is yes. Not sure how you took GPs response as no. Unless you're interpreting the question as "does anyone that isn't AWS provide all AWS services" which is obviously not going to be true.
- Hallucinaut 5y ago
  UKCloud had also been developing their Secret tier offering for a number of years and has a little traction from my understanding.
  - buggeryorkshire 5y ago
    UKCloud are the worst provider I've ever worked with by some stretch.
maxehmookau 5y ago
No. There's not even a UK-based company that offers a decent interconnect to the NHS network that doesn't cost the earth. AWS is probably genuinely the best tool for the job here.

Rackspace are US-based but have a large UK office in West London that could offer these services. They have their own data centres there and UK data privacy laws restrict what can be sent abroad. No idea if there are any UK-incorporated cloud companies of a similar size though.

toyg 5y ago
Oracle has UK datacentres in Scotland, used precisely in circumstances where location is important. Needless to say that not all operators are UK based though - Oracle's business model requires cheap manpower from developing countries...
- __1cn 5y ago
  See: https://www.oracle.com/uk/industries/government/central/ https://www.oracle.com/uk/industries/government/central/ "Ensure Cloud Sovereignty" ... "...centralised, security-cleared, UK-based operations team..."
  - toyg 5y ago
    That stuff is caveated to hell and back in the actual contracts. Or at least it was when I was in Oracle a few years ago.

reallydontask 5y ago

The UK government could create such a company, given the size of IT operations that the government has. This could be a commercial entity that is owned by the government.

C19is20 5y ago
Would a UK.ltd company be able to easily hand over all the 'info' to the 'feds', though?
- Zenst 5y ago
  Very good point and this approach does afford a back-channel with plausible deniability. After all - data held in a country is subject to the government of that country being able to demand/obtain access.
  - reallydontask 5y ago
    I would be very surprised if the data was hosted overseas.
  - ectopod 5y ago
    It doesn't matter where the data is. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

asplake 5y ago

Just a guess, but maybe they’re getting tired of paying suppliers excessive amounts to build inferior and slower-moving versions of what exists already?

Zenst 5y ago

Yes, not sure of there reasoning but hardly a inditement for GDS and the G-cloud offerings they afford local and countrywide government services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Government_G-Cloud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Government_G-Cloud

richardwhiuk 5y ago
AWS is part of UK Gov G-Cloud.
- Zenst 5y ago
  aha, now that then explains the decision more then.

wil421 5y ago

If the UK is anything like the US the contractor would need to be UK citizens, servers in the UK in special data centers, and most, if not all, of the work would need to be done by UK citizens. There might be some very very high level talks with non UK citizens. I am curious how it would work using the AWS tech that is probably built by a lot of non UK/US citizens. Maybe the UK will allow work done by US citizens.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Most big-name cloud providers have needed to do this in the past half decade because the GDPR necessitated that they warehouse EU-sourced data in a different infrastructure with different privacy and national exfiltration guarantees then the ones US law requires.
- wil421 5y ago
  Yes but it has no citizenship requirements. It can all be off shored to anyone outside the EU.

timthorn 5y ago

There is a specialist UK Government IaaS provider: https://ukcloud.com/ https://ukcloud.com/ But AWS and MS have both deployed dedicated DCs for sensitive UK Government cloud requirements: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/data-classification/united-kingdom-uk-government.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/data-classifi... https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2017/09/21/police-uk-reached-major-milestone-can-store-data-microsofts-cloud https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2017/09/21/police-uk-reache... Those DCs can be audited in a way that the CSPs don't generally allow for "normal" customers.

pc86 5y ago
> > Is there a UK-based company capable of offering the same services? > There is a specialist UK Government IaaS provider: So, no?
- Hallucinaut 5y ago
  The answer is yes. Not sure how you took GPs response as no. Unless you're interpreting the question as "does anyone that isn't AWS provide all AWS services" which is obviously not going to be true.
Hallucinaut 5y ago
UKCloud had also been developing their Secret tier offering for a number of years and has a little traction from my understanding.
- buggeryorkshire 5y ago
  UKCloud are the worst provider I've ever worked with by some stretch.

maxehmookau 5y ago

No. There's not even a UK-based company that offers a decent interconnect to the NHS network that doesn't cost the earth. AWS is probably genuinely the best tool for the job here.