As consumers, price is often the most important factor when deciding where we shop. Whether you’re buying broadband services or the weekly grocery shop, paying the price you want is the name of the game.

When it comes to work-based technology procurement it should be the same as at home. Price isn’t always the most important consideration that needs to be taken into account – it’s the value for money that is important.

For sectors like banking and government, risk is everything – financial risk, organisational risk, operational risk, implementation risk – especially when it comes to acquiring data centre services. You want to be able to rest easy clear in the understanding that your data centre service is in safe hands.

That’s why risk mitigation is a central element of the Crown Hosting Data Centres (CHDC) model. Delivered via a single supplier framework agreement, this innovative approach gives UK government and public sector bodies ‘off the shelf’ access to data centres that come pre-loaded with all the security and risk assurance that’s needed.

There’s no tie in to long inflexible contracts – it’s simply a case of getting in and out as needed, paying only for the services and capacity used. It’s an approach that allows savings to be realised more quickly and compute requirements to be scaled up – or down – as required.

To simplify things yet further, fully defined processes are in place to streamline on-boarding and a choice of secure connectivity options – PSN, N3, SL1, RLI, plus Tier 1, Tier 2 and private MPLS – are available on-tap.

We understand the enormity and importance of the risk mitigation imperative – it’s why we dedicate time and resources to understanding the unique requirements of every government customer we work with. And why we build each data centre just-in-time and to specific needs – which also ensures the latest technologies are in place from the get-go.

And while risk is an important aspect of any procurement decision, it’s also good to know that because our data centres are the most efficient in the UK, government and public sector organisations also get to take advantage of highly compelling prices.

Steve Hall