VESK Public Sector

"Make ICT green and cheap and we will end up using it more, not less." Bill McCluggage, the UK’s Deputy Governmental CIO.

The public sector is under increasing pressure to reduce overheads whilst maintaining services and increasing security and efficiency throughout the organisation.  Just as important on the Cabinet Office's agenda is more efficient IT in which the adaption of innovative technology can play in reducing C02 emissions.

With the cost savings of virtualisation it's not difficult to see why many local authorities are migrating their infrastructure into the cloud, either partly or fully.  Moreover, there's a very good argument that 'Greener' IT doesn't have to be more expensive, in fact VESK's solution reduces IT power consumption by as much as 97.5% with no additional cost implications.

Uncertain future across local government such as budgetary constraints means departments need to be able to contract and expand with little or no overhead.  VESK's 'elastic' platform allows departments to add or remove users simply without long contractual terms and without any additional resource or cost overhead.

So what are today's key requirements for public sector ICT ?  Although there are many benefits, requirements and  possibilities, in general there are five main areas:

 

 

1) REDUCING COSTS
2) GREEN GOVERNMENT
3) SECURITY
4) BESPOKE APPLICATIONS
5) COMPLIANCE

 

Cloud computing, namely virtual desktops, leverage all of the above into a single, centralised infrastructure reducing the overall management of IT.

REDUCING COSTS
Typically, we have noticed a cost saving of anywhere between 25 - 75% on annual IT expenditure.  Moving your IT into the cloud requires very little CapEx and is therefore easier to budget on a monthly basis.  VESK is a Total cloud solution, reducing or removing costs in the following areas:
 - Microsoft Windows licenses
 - Microsoft Office licenses
 - Disaster recovery
 - Offsite backup
 - IT support (in-house requirement greatly reduced)
 - Hardware

COMPLIANCE
Practically all local authorities must comply with CoCo (Government Connect Code of connection).  VESK can help comply with CoCo, and in fact it's made simpler due to the high levels of security and ITIL processes adhered to in our datacentre's.
Council's implementing mobile working solutions are required to supply documentation and set aside resources to ensure all guidelines are covered.  VESK have completed this for a number of local authorities and therefore can help manage and comply with these regulations, simplifying the process.

GREEN GOVERNMENT
A typical thin client reduces IT consumption by 95-97.5% on average.  Almost half of all office power consumption in the UK stems from IT hardware.
Around 4.7% of all C02 emissions in the UK come from IT hardware.
Reducing overall power consumption by up to 50% allows public sector organisations to meet both corporate and social responsibilities and comply with the 'Green Government Initiative'.  Wyse computers are the largest supplier of thin clients in the UK, you can find here that VESK are the recommended provider of Daas, Desktop as a Service:  www.wyse.com

SECURITY
GCSx is part of the wider Government Secure Intranet (GSi) and provides connectivity to nearly all central government departments.  VESK can leverage connections via GCSx through its secure backend infrastructure.
We operate 4 main datacentre facilities in the UK, we are tested monthly for Intrusion Prevention and have one of the most secure infrastructures in Europe.
VESK are PCI, ISO27001, ISO9001 and FSA compliant.

BESPOKE APPLICATIONS
Through existing Government contracts, VESK are now working with a number of different software vendors to supply bespoke applications in our cloud.  If your particular applications are not already in our existing software library, we can still support virtually any application through our existing infrastructure.

The VESK outlook
VESK, with little under £3m initial investment, have already undergone the 'growing pains' of providing large numbers of high speed virtual desktops.  Even some of the largest hosting companies in the world have failed, and are still failing at offering virtual desktops and high IOP cloud-based services.  This is because their expertise lies in general hosting which is completely different to hosting high resource intensive virtual desktops and database applications.

Nearly every member of the VESK team is a technical engineer and it's only through the courage and entrepreneurial innovation that VESK have been successful in building a cloud platform that's fast enough, even when at full capacity.  In fact, our award winning storage platform has been built completely in-house and increases in speed the more users we add.

VESK's SLA has hit 100% for the last four consecutive months, leading us to believe we have the most secure, reliable and best performing desktops in the industry.