Skyscape Cloud Services Limited has delivered Compute-as-a-Service solutions to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), an executive agency sponsored by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), for the support of Research Cloud (R-Cloud), an online marketplace for suppliers to tender research project contracts. Dstl aims to meet suppliers’ expectations and accelerate contracting for science and technology research projects, replacing a tendering process that was previously based on spreadsheets and emails with an online marketplace dubbed Research Cloud, or R-Cloud.
One of Dstl's requirements for R-Cloud was an external cloud-based hosting environment with infrastructure based in the UK, for data protection and security reasons. Skyscape’s cloud services were chosen through the G-Cloud framework with the commercial data hosted on Skyscape's Assured OFFICIAL platform.
Now, unless a project is especially large or requires additional scrutiny, Dstl aims to go from a statement of requirements to a contract within 35 calendar days — a much shorter timeframe than was previously possible.
"Hosting the entire R-Cloud application on Skyscape's UK sovereign and resilient, Assured OFFICIAL cloud platform, allowed us to maintain the required level of security assurance, while simplifying the design and reducing the number of virtual machines,” said Dr Neil Higson, Project Manager at Dstl. “Our platform is delivering the efficiency and cost benefits to our contracting process that we'd hoped for, plus it’s more streamlined for everyone to use.”
“Security and efficiency were top priorities for Dstl and our credentials in both these areas meant that our IaaS solutions were the perfect match for this project and to support Dstl in its efforts to advance defence research,” said Simon Hansford, CEO of Skyscape Cloud Services. “Announcing this project at the DPRTE event in Cardiff enables us to showcase the role that G-Cloud has in supporting the digital transformation of government services ? using a flexible, scalable cloud solution, has enabled Dstl to innovate and transform its tendering process, without compromising on security.”
