Address UK Government security compliance in weeks, not months

Digital transformation is usually a gradual process. However, with such a fast pivot in 2020 toward digital solutions, remote work and the cloud, it’s as though 2025 arrived five years early. As a result of this rapid change, over 70% of CEOs are accelerating their digital investment plans to speed up their digital transformations.

But organisations — and those in the public sector in particular — need to be careful to avoid throwing money at their current problems. They need to prioritise investing in tools, solutions and processes that work in both the short- and long-term — and across the entire technology transformation lifecycle.

That means their IT investments should accelerate speed to market, optimise costs, enable private sector like innovation and, ultimately, provide digital citizen-centric services to the public — all in a secure and compliant cloud environment.

But to reach these cloud outcomes, government organisations face many challenges:

• Compliance requirements
• Cloud security concerns
• Shortage of relevant skills and experience
• Budget restrictions
• Strategies for cost optimisation

To set yourself on a path to cloud migration success, there are four key areas: automation, security and compliance, continuous monitoring and cost reduction.

Four keys to a fast, secure and cost-saving cloud migration

1. Automation

With automated build, configure and migration tools and processes, you can reduce your migration timeline — so your organisation can get to the cloud faster. Whether you have one workload or many, automation can streamline the process and help build consistency across your cloud environment.

2. Security and compliance

To be secure and compliant, your environment needs to be fully aligned with NCSC 14 Cloud Security Principles and ready for UK-OFFICIAL workloads. From security and compliance policies, Public Sector accreditations and cloud certifications, to Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), firewalls and endpoint security, it all works together to protect your organisation and its assets.

3.   Continuous monitoring

The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office received 495 data breach notifications from government entities during the 2019–20 fiscal year. At least 10 of the data security lapses prompted the affected agencies to take remedial action.

You can protect your organisation by building on an environment that’s reliable and designed for business continuity. Be sure to include continuous monitoring, governance and disaster recovery capabilities into your migration plan.

4. Cost reduction

Throughout your cloud migration, you need to look for ways to control costs, while also getting all the benefits of the cloud. Automated tools and processes and continuous monitoring can reduce risk, speed up your timeline and cut costs, without sacrificing your ability to innovate in the cloud. Automation can also enable shorter landing zone deployment cycles, at a lower cost.

How a London NHS trust harnessed cloud in the pandemic

Central and North West London (CNWL) NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK, providing integrated healthcare to a third of London’s population and South of England with more than 300 different health services across 150 sites as well as offering services to customers overseas.

CNWL had to accelerate its transformation plans and migrate to a new private cloud system when the COVID-19 pandemic struck and changed overnight the way the world had to operate, with frontline healthcare provision more important than ever.

CNWL turned to Rackspace Technology for guidance, support and implementation of a new digital platform fit for the future. Like most NHS trusts, CNWL has a plethora of legacy systems and infrastructure and must ensure robust security across them all, at all times. The potential risks to patient care involved in a large-scale, "one step" migration are simply unacceptable.

Rackspace Technology worked with CNWL to modernise its infrastructure and reduce the time taken for some routine processes by two-thirds — time that can then be better spent on clinical work.

Learn more about our work with CNWL.