Continuing its commitment to cloud customers through extensive engineering and infrastructure investments, Oracle today expanded its UK presence with the addition of an Oracle UK Government cloud region. This news builds on Oracle’s recently announced expanded UK and EU-Germany Regions, which are expected to come online in the second half of this calendar year.
Oracle’s dedicated UK Government cloud with allow all elements of the UK Government to move workloads to the cloud while still meeting domestic security requirements and protocols. It builds on the broad portfolio of security and encryption solutions already in place and meets all HMG Cloud Security Principles. Additionally, Oracle UK Government Cloud has been awarded a Cyber Essentials Plus certificate, certifying Oracle’s public sector cloud solutions as meeting the standards endorsed by the UK Government. Along with Oracle’s recently-achieved ISO 27001 certification, Cyber Essentials Plus provides further validation of Oracle’s offerings in areas including security, protection and cyber security controls for the UK public sector market.
“At Oracle, security is at the heart of everything we do,” said Dermot O’Kelly, senior vice president and country leader, Oracle UK, Ireland & Israel. “We understand that the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your information is vital to your business. Security is embedded in Oracle’s “DNA”- within the product, the development cycle, and cloud operations practices – to ensure your information remains your information. Mission critical data can only be maintained by having the most stringent security measures in place. Today’s announcements show we share the Government’s commitment to provide the highest possible levels of security.”
With today’s news, the UK Government will be able to continue to leverage Oracle cloud to drive costs savings, extend digital government, and introduce new services to citizens. Additionally, the potential use of the integrated Oracle cloud alongside Oracle’s support services will help UK government leaders combine processes and data so they can provide joined up services.
Oracle has been investing in the UK over several years, starting with SaaS and adding Oracle Cloud Platform and Infrastructure services last year. Enhancements with the next generation IaaS architecture and the addition of a range of IaaS and PaaS cloud services are due in the second half of this calendar year. Oracle already has a major presence in the UK with Imperial College NHS Trust, YellowDog and Birmingham City University using Oracle cloud services in the country.
Mike Parsons, Director General, Capabilities and Resources at the Home Office said, “The security of our data is of paramount importance to us. The solution Oracle has built for us is delivering the security we need, meaning we can confidently begin to move away from our existing on-premise infrastructure and realise the benefits of hosting our business-critical data in the public cloud.”
The Cyber Essentials scheme was developed jointly by UK Government and the security industry to fulfil two functions. The scheme provides a clear statement of the basic controls all organisations should implement to mitigate the risk from common internet based threats, and it offers a mechanism for organisations to demonstrate to customers, investors, insurers and others that they have taken these essential precautions.
