As Defence Digital continues to evolve its own cloud offering to meet future business and security needs, it is critical to have access to the full breadth of Microsoft consultancy to assure the bespoke private Cloud infrastructure that is built on the Microsoft Azure technology (chosen via competition). MOD will be the first and largest customer in the UK and Europe who will be running UK hosted Azure services in the cloud. The MOD requirement mandates data sovereignty and reliability and this non-negotiable requirement can only be supported by Microsoft for these services at this scale. Previously where MOD moved to O365 Cloud service, required regular and extensive access to the Microsoft product developers in the US in liaison with security cleared Microsoft Consultants in the UK was essential considering the critical and complexity which MOD represents as a customer.
The current requirements cannot be delivered without the direct access to Microsoft Support with the scale of the MOD’s of Azure cloud exploitation and the level of expertise required will not be available if we contract with a 3rd party consultancy. Furthermore, we have the evidence that by having direct links to product developers, we have been able to solve issues with the service that are unique to MOD’s future requirements. One aspect of exploiting cloud services is the use of power applications which MOD has already invested in. At the same time, there are several key initiatives that only Microsoft have the knowledge breadth and skills depth to deliver the scope of work which includes the power platform applications capability.
This contract also ensures the MOD is part of the Microsoft preview pilots for all Microsoft cloud offerings and only a handful of organisations around the world get early access to products before they are released. Having this early exposure gives the MOD the opportunity to influence and shape the products to suit our future defence needs: we will not get this access without a direct relationship with Microsoft.
Without Microsoft direct support the level of technical risk to MOD’s transition from existing monolithic contract arrangements would be too high to be appropriate for Defence. MOD is already using Microsoft expertise to mitigate these risks, in particular when leveraging expertise in the US product groups to assist us with this activity, again coupled with our on-site SMEs who provide the context of the often non-standard deployment of Microsoft technologies across Defence.
Latterly having one less commercial interface between the Microsoft Premier support and design consultancy has proven to deliver seamless interoperability, reduce risk and ensures that critical high-quality design work is delivered at pace and right first time.
Microsoft is the largest software provider to Defence; this consultancy is integral to supporting our business and military operations worldwide at all security tiers. In the case of a deployed we have previously used this contract to deploy Microsoft specialists to Operational theatres at short notice, Op HERRICK in Afghanistan, being an example.