The Digital Marketplace made the buying process simpler, clearer and faster for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Ben Denison explains how.
Describe your role
I’m the Chief Technology Officer at SFO. Our team is made up of in-house staff and specialist third party contractors. Together, we look after the systems we use to investigate and prosecute cases involving serious or complex fraud, bribery and corruption.
Explain the project
We wanted to move a range of systems, including those that we use to review digital evidence, to a colocation provider. We seize massive amounts of data for our investigations, and because cloud-based eDiscovery systems charge by volume, the costs are disproportionately high for us. We therefore needed to find a secure, scalable and affordable place to host our data.
Describe the challenges you overcame
Our main problem was timing. We didn’t think Crown Hosting would be ready in time for our project and we were in the final stages of negotiations with a commercial provider when it became available. We decided to go with the Crown Hosting option rather than the commercial provider. This was partly due to the price, but also because Crown Hosting could bring us on board quickly and simply.
How using the Digital Marketplace made things simpler, clearer and faster
The procurement and onboarding processes were straightforward. Our kit was delivered the day after we’d signed the contract and my team were unboxing and racking it 2 days later.
Explain your savings
When we started to discuss our requirements, the costs actually came down from what we’d expected to pay. We’ll spend less with Crown Hosting in 3 years than we would have done in a single year with the cheapest commercial provider. That’s a saving of more than £60,000 each year at the moment.
The saving will grow each year as we move more systems and more data to the datacentre. As our amount of data increases, the cost of Crown Hosting won’t change as much it would if we were paying for a cloud-based eDiscovery system or if we were using a regular commercial provider.
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