The provider of assured cloud services to the UK public sector has been awarded PGA accreditation, supporting IL0-IL3 data

London - March 11th 2013 - Skyscape Cloud Services Limited, the easy to adopt, easy to use and easy to leave Assured Cloud Services Company, today announced that it has been awarded Pan Government Accreditation (PGA) status from CESG (The National Technical Authority for Information Assurance), supporting IL0-IL3 data through the G-Cloud programme, extending its existing accredited offering through IL0-IL2 tiers, to include IL3.

UK SME Skyscape is the single largest provider in Lot I of the G-Cloud Framework, who with its channel partners account for a significant number of the accredited services now available. This enables the UK public sector to use a wide range of assured cloud services, allowing organisations to benefit from lower costs, reduced procurement times and a simplified tendering process, without compromising either performance or security.

"We are thrilled to have secured PGA accreditation status across all Skyscape products and services, supporting IL0-IL3 data," said Phil Dawson, CEO of Skyscape. "This will ensure that almost 30,000 UK public sector organisations can now purchase computing, storage or email collaboration services, confident in the knowledge that Skyscape has achieved the highest level of pan government accreditation."

Denise McDonagh, Programme Director for G-Cloud, said "Pan Government Accreditation to IL3 demonstrates that flexible, low cost cloud services can be highly secure and capable of hosting restricted data. Department's will be able to benefit from highly secure, agile and effective business outcomes at significantly lower cost, and Pan Government Accreditation removes the need to duplicate expensive accreditation effort traditionally carried out on a piecemeal basis".

"In today's economic climate, the UK Government is understandably looking for efficient ways to reduce costs, yet improve services to front line staff," continued Dawson. "At a time when the public sector is facing multiple challenges - including budget constraints and the use of legacy technology, to name but two - Skyscape has delivered exactly what was outlined in the Government IT strategy, investing in technology as a way to facilitate the changes that are needed to streamline and support the public sector. Skyscape was formed with this in mind, with a focus on providing services in a more agile, secure and cost effective manner."

Skyscape provides a range of assured cloud computing services dedicated to the UK public sector, delivered with leading technologies from Alliance Partners: QinetiQ, VMware, Cisco, EMC and Ark Continuity. Rod Halstead, Managing Director of Public Sector at Cisco UK said: "This latest news is a fantastic endorsement of Skyscape's cloud offering, which will ensure that public sector organisations can purchase Pan-Government accredited cloud services with a higher level of assurance than had been previously available."

Chris Johnson, Managing Director of QinetiQ's Cyber Security business also commented: "We are really pleased to help and support Skyscape in achieving accreditation of their cloud services through IL0-IL3 data. This will be a huge help for our customers and ourselves as its offering is greatly enhanced with the expansion of its Government accredited services, helping to reduce the compliance headache and expense. This will also enable independent software vendors to base their existing infrastructure on Skyscape's accredited infrastructure and further support the public sector with assured services that reduce procurement time and provide transparency when it comes to cost."

Skyscape is currently working on over 100 projects across central government, local authorities, police, healthcare and other publicly funded bodies.

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About Skyscape
Skyscape's cloud solutions (www.skyscapecloud.com) will help the UK Public Sector to transform the provision of IT services into a lean, elastic, assured, green utility by providing a genuine on-demand cloud computing service. With a range of UK sovereign services that are easy to adopt, easy to use and easy to leave, Skyscape's solutions reduce both the risk and cost of delivering IT. Skyscape services have been accredited by CESG Pan Government Accreditor (PGA). The company has signed the government's Procurement Pledge.

Media Contact
Charlotte Martin/Fiona Halkerston
Johnson King
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SkyscapeTeam@johnsonking.co.uk