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UKCloud
Company typePrivate
IndustryCloud Computing
Founded2011 (2011)
FoundersJeff Thomas
Jeremy Sanders
Phil Dawson
Simon Hansford
DefunctOctober 25, 2022 (2022-10-25)
FateInsolvency
Headquarters
Farnborough
Area served
United Kingdom
BrandsUKCloud

UKCloud Health

UKCloudX
Number of employees
250+
Websiteukcloud.com Edit this on Wikidata

UKCloud, also trading as UKCloud Health and UKCloudX, was a British cloud provider, headquartered in Farnborough, United Kingdom. It provided multicloud services to organisations in the UK public sector and other regulated industries.[1] The company was founded in 2011 as Skyscape Cloud Services,[2] rebranding as UKCloud in August 2016.[3] UKCloud, along with its UKCloud Health and UKCloudX divisions, supported the digital workload for organisations such as Genomics England, Ministry of Justice, Capgemini and London Business School.[4]

On 21 January 2022, it was announced that UKCloud had been acquired by Hadston 2 Limited - a newly created special purpose investment company led by UKCloud's Chairman, Jeff Thomas and backed by institutional investors, including Digital Alpha Advisors and BGF.[5][6]

On 25 October 2022, UKCloud went into liquidation.

History

[edit]

The company was established in 2011 by co-founders Jeff Thomas, Jeremy Sanders, Phil Dawson and Simon Hansford[7] as Skyscape Cloud Services, but changed the name to UKCloud Ltd five years later following a legal wrangle with Sky.[8]

In 2017, UKCloud Health was launched[9] to support health technology across the UK health and care sector. The UKCloud Health platform is used by health technology providers such as Babylon Health, IMMJ Systems[10] and Capgemini. In 2021, UKCloud Health launched Health Cloud.[11]

UKCloudX was announced in 2018 to focus on providing cloud services to the UK Defence and National Security sector. UKCloudX claimed to offer the first public cloud for high classification systems in the UK.[12]

In 2019, Cisco-backed Digital Alpha Advisors announced[13] an investment in UKCloud intended to increase the growth of the company.

The company focused on changing how the UK government purchases and uses IT services, detailed in the March 2011 UK Government ICT Strategy.[14] The company has since sold to government through the G-Cloud frameworks Digital Marketplace[15] and has been doing so since the first iteration of the framework in 2012. They offer a platform consisting of VMWare, Oracle, Openstack, and Microsoft Azure

UKCloud was a carbon neutral company who offered its customers carbon neutral hosting, which is achieved through an independent assessment of the CO2 emissions produced from direct and indirect sources required to deliver, followed by an offset-inclusive emissions reduction programme.[16][17]

All applications and data were hosted in UK datacentres and the company was incorporated as a British company under UK legal jurisdiction.

Administration

[edit]

On 25 October 2022, the Insolvency Service announced that the courts had issued winding-up orders against UKCloud and its parent company, and that they had entered in to liquidation. The Official Receiver will wind down the companies' activities and investigate the cause of their insolvency.[18]

The UK government underwrote the activities of the official receiver, which as of early 2024 cost it £17.5 million. The administration is expected to finish in the second half of 2024.[19]

Awards

[edit]

In 2016, UKCloud won the Communications Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA Award.[20][21] It has also won the Cloudex 20:20 Award and a UK IT Industry Award in 2013.[22] and are winners of The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 2016.[23]

UKCloud were winners for the Tech Track 100, ranking number 1 in the league table in 2016.[24][25]

In 2017, UKCloud were announced as recipients of the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in Innovation.[26]

In 2018, UKCloud won the award for G-Cloud Public Sector Provider of the year for the second year consecutively, the company also featured as one of the Future Fifty’s fastest growing technology companies.[27][28]

In 2019, UKCloud announced it had been recognised by the Best Companies scheme[29] with a one-star accreditation. UKCloud also won the Service Excellence award at Inspire'19.[30]

Partnerships

[edit]

The original public cloud platform was delivered in partnership[31] with QinetiQ, VMware,[32] Cisco, Dell EMC[33] and Ark Data Centres.[34]

UKCloud later moved to a multicloud platform, offering cloud environments from a choice of technology partners including Microsoft (Azure[4]), Red Hat (Openstack & OpenShift),[35] Oracle and VMware.

UKCloud partnered with Ark Data Centres to host its public cloud platforms within the UK government's Crown Campus, which is also used by Crown Hosting Data Centres.[36]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "UKCloud Interview". ukcloud.com.
  2. ^ Hall, Kat. "Skyscape rebrands to UKCloud following legal challenge by Sky". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  3. ^ "Skyscape Cloud Services Relaunches as UKCloud". ukcloud.com. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
  4. ^ a b "UK Cloud increases Azure support". Technology Business Today. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  5. ^ Cromar, Chris (2022-01-21). "UKCloud acquired by strategic investor Hadston 2". Public Sector Executive. Retrieved 2022-01-21.
  6. ^ Donnelly, Caroline (2022-01-21). "UKCloud acquired: Troubled government cloud provider receives funding lifeline". ComputerWeekly. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
  7. ^ "Business". The Telegraph. 2016-02-11. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  8. ^ HIS HONOUR JUDGE HACON (8 June 2016), Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd v Sky Plc & Ors [2016] EWHC 1340 (IPEC), retrieved 3 August 2024
  9. ^ "UKCloud enters healthcare industry". Cloud Pro. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  10. ^ "IMMJ Systems and UKCloud Health in partnership with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has been shortlisted as a finalist for the HSJ Partnership Awards 2020 – IMMJ Systems". Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  11. ^ Crouch, Hannah (2021-08-04). "UKCloud Health launches initiative to support NHS data strategy". Digital Health. Retrieved 2022-05-31.
  12. ^ "UKCloud goes after defence community and secret data with launch of UKCloudX". diginomica. 2018-06-21. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  13. ^ "UKCloud secures £25m from Cisco investment partner". NS Tech. 2019-03-18. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  14. ^ "Government Information Technology (IT)". GOV.UK. 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  15. ^ "Enterprise Compute Cloud (Assured)". Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  16. ^ "Attack Detected". www.thecrowd.me.
  17. ^ "Our green credentials - UKCloud". ukcloud.com. Archived from the original on 2016-08-02.
  18. ^ Kunert, Paul (25 October 2022). "Government IT provider UKCloud goes into liquidation". Retrieved 26 October 2022.
  19. ^ Clark, Lindsay (29 April 2024). "UK government faces £17.5M shortfall from UKCloud liquidation". The Register. Retrieved 29 April 2024.
  20. ^ "Skyscape Cloud Services Wins Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Emea Award". cyberparse.co.uk. December 8, 2015. Retrieved 2024-08-03.
  21. ^ "Technology Fast 500™ EMEA Winners | Deloitte Global | Technology, Media and Telecommunication". www.deloitte.com. Retrieved 2024-08-03.
  22. ^ "Digital by Default News". parked.digitalbydefaultnews.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-08-03.
  23. ^ http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/league-tables/tech-track-100/league-table/ Archived 2017-09-14 at the Wayback Machine and https://www.hiscox.co.uk/business-blog/ukcloud-from-last-years-one-to-watch-to-tech-track-100-no-1/
  24. ^ "Tech Track 100 - Fast Track". www.fasttrack.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-04-14.
  25. ^ "UKCloud - Fast Track". www.fasttrack.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-09-14.
  26. ^ "The Queen's Awards for Enterprise".
  27. ^ "Future Fifty - Growth Programmes". Tech Nation. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
  28. ^ "UK Cloud Awards 2018 winners revealed". Cloud Pro. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
  29. ^ "UKCloud Ltd Company Profile". Best Companies. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  30. ^ "UKCloud winner of the Service Excellence Award at the INSPIRE Business Awards 2019". INSPIRE19. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
  31. ^ "Who Are Our Partners". ukcloud.com. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
  32. ^ "Get on the Path to the Hybrid Cloud: See How VMWare VCloud Service Provider Partners Can Help". blogs.vmware.com. 2013.
  33. ^ "Skyscape Case Study" (PDF). www.vce.com. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
  34. ^ "Ark Data Centers". www.arkdatacentres.co.uk.
  35. ^ "UKCloud supports public sector cloud innovation with Red Hat". www.redhat.com. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
  36. ^ "Crown Hosting – A Surprising Government Shared Service Story". Crown Hosting Data Centres. Retrieved 2020-02-03.
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