Benefits

Value for money

No OJEU process
Simple, standard HMG contract
Flexible contract period
1 to 7 years and beyond
Low cost irrespective of volume/size
Pay-for-what-you-use
Existing government telecoms on site from multiple Tier 1 providers
Inter data centre communications already in place

Dedicated government capacity in place
First customer live in five days
Benchmarked
Average £3 commercial saving* for every £1 spent by our Public Sector customers
No expensive procurement process
Due diligence completed
Accredited sites

Sustainability and social value

75% typical reduction in electricity used by relocated services*
99.9% typical reduction in carbon emissions from relocated services*
Electricity provided by renewable sources (REGO backed)
Use of fossil fuels for back-up power being phased out by the end of 2023

Wild areas, woodlands, ponds and beehives on-campus
Committed to the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact
Committed to supporting HMG to achieve Carbon Net Zero
Committed to our staff - Investors in People Platinum
Committed to training future staff - partnering with UTC Heathrow

Reduction in risk profile

Dedicated data halls for public sector use only
Financial assurance – no capex surprises
Risk redundancy – Tier 3+ Data Centres
- Cooling
- Power
Security
- Assured secure service
- OFFICIAL as standard and other levels of assurance available
- Assured by NCSC advisor, underpinned by CPNI

Specialist government telecoms and carriers on site
- Scalable and resilient connectivity to PSN, N3 and RLI/SLI services
High speed data centre interconnect at low cost
Redundancy – dual campuses with multiple data centres

Ease of use

Efficient to implement
Leverage existing framework suppliers
Not locked in, ability change without compromising data or infrastructure
Proven move-in ready solution
24/7 Intelligent Hands Service

Flexible

Pay-for-what-you-use charging model
Termination for convenience clause
Agnostic to your service providers – preventing lock in
Try out new platforms and move when ready
Guaranteed high fixed efficiency and high density
Low cost additional services
Intelligent Hands – reduce requirement for on-site staff at competitive rates

Route to the cloud

On site G-Cloud IaaS providers
Move legacy now and evolve to the Cloud when you are ready
Ability to exercise Termination for Convenience
Options for both public and private virtualisation

* Source: CCS Annual Report 2020-2021

Working with Crown Hosting allowed us to refresh legacy systems and adopt an agile approach to data. Everything that was ready to be moved to the Cloud has been migrated, but for legacy data not fit for format, the Framework is the place for it.

Juan Villamil

CTO, DWP

The Crown Hosting Framework

The CHDC Framework was established as a joint venture by the Cabinet Office and Ark Data Centres, to address the following gaps in the “Journey to the Cloud” faced by Public Sector:

Lack of control over individual IT stacks and their structure, meaning the transition to using Cloud services is hindered from the start if departments don’t have a solid understanding of their starting point and back end infrastructure;
Ageing and inadequate real estate that currently houses IT infrastructure, which often leave departments with expensive property and power bills, as well as resiliency issues and outages;
Non Cloud compatible Applications and Data, where departments undertake expensive Cloud assessment initiatives only to realise that it won’t meet all of their needs, and that they need to architect a Hybrid solution and retain some physical infrastructure.

The main objective of Crown Hosting is to support Public Sector in its IT transformation, by offering state of the art Data Centres, at very cost effective rates and with leading security and resiliency accreditations, where departments can migrate their physical infrastructure to and save money whilst planning their Cloud strategy.

Many government departments, such as D.W.P, M.O.D and Home Office, already use Crown Hosting, and the main benefits they have experienced are:

Control over IT:Government departments are able to migrate their existing IT from costly on premise and/or 3rd party facilities, giving them time and flexibility to assess their infrastructure and applications, whilst significantly reducing risk and cost.

A flexible springboard to the Cloud:The framework presents a highly flexible, simple HMG contract, that is agnostic to departments’ service providers and prevents lock-in, on a pay as you use basis. This enables them to consolidate their legacy infrastructure now and evolve to the Cloud when ready.

Risk Reduction:We provide a dedicated shared environment for Government organisations large or small, including 99.999% availability on power, with all facilities monitored 24/7, assured by NCSC and in line with CPNI guidance.

Efficient, Tier III Data Centres:Crown Hosting is powered by Ark Data Centres’ highly resilient, carrier rich campuses. The sites are also assured by an NCSC advisor, underpinned by CPNI, offering a minimum security level of OFFICIAL.

This ensures a significant reduction in risk profile for government departments, who benefit from using built for purpose Data Centres that satisfy their resiliency and security criteria.

Cost savings:Thanks to a pre-negotiated contractual framework (No OJEU process required) with a pre-approved pricing structure by Cabinet Office, government departments are reporting savings of over 60% compared to their existing IT facilities spend. For DWP, the estimated savings over 5 years amount to almost £1.3bn!

This contract with Crown Hosting is a key milestone for the Army and represents the achievement of a strategy to cohere our hosting with a wider Government model. The benefits and opportunities going forward are significant, not only cost reduction but sharing of services and experience to continue to optimise our delivery of secure hosting.

Col. Sara Sharkey

Army Info-IS-IAS-AH