AWS signs three-year cloud deal with the UK government

The AWS/government deal will see public sector organisations benefitting from economies o

The UK government has signed a new deal with AWS to speed up the adoption of cloud technologies in public sector organisations.

On Monday, the government's procurement agency Crown Commercial Service (CCS) signed a three-year Memorandum of Understating (MoU) with AWS, which treats all participating public sector and government entities as a single client. It means that there will be no need for public organisations to sign separate cloud contracts with service providers.

The arrangement will help public organisations receive the same cost benefits that AWS provides to its big commercial customers. Civil servants will also be able to improve their own technical skills as part of the deal.

The cloud arrangement, dubbed the One Government Value Agreement (OGVA), has been divided into two tiers:

The first tier will be available to entities that are at the initial stages of their cloud projects. Such organisations will get access to customised training and workshops through the AWS digital skills fund, with no direct cost to the government. AWS also gives these organisations access to cloud credits to fund their research projects.

The second tier will be available to public sector organisations that already have invested in off-premise infrastructure, and now seek to expand their existing cloud initiatives. AWS will offer various additional services to such organisations at 'advantageous' pricing.

AWS believes that the combined power of the two tiers will enable public sector entities to 'reinvent themselves and use the cloud to more rapidly experiment at a lower cost and lower risk than ever before'.

The latest AWS deal is similar to some earlier arrangements the government has struck with other major cloud providers, such as Google, Oracle and UKCloud, in recent months.

In June, the CCS signed an MoU with Google Cloud to enable UK public sector bodies receive a discount on Google's cloud services. Google Cloud said at the time that the deal would enable local councils, government departments, and the NHS to get a discount on its cloud services, based on their estimated spending on Google's cloud platform for next two years.

Eligible agencies have access to Google Cloud's services, including analytics, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, collaboration solutions, and application development.

Microsoft also signed a pricing deal with the government in April this year, offering all eligible public sector organisations discounted access to Microsoft Azure business tools.

IBM struck a similar arrangement with the government in August. The company said that the deal would enable public sector entities, including the NHS, to benefit from 'preferential commercial terms' when they shift their workloads to the cloud.