SCC hails multimillion-pound council win

Reseller giant teams up with Oxford City Council

SCC has said its cloud offering Sentinel was the key behind a multimillion-pound contract win with a local council.

The reseller has won a five-year deal with Oxford City Council which will be worth £13.5m over the period, after which the council will have the option to extend the agreement for another five years.

SCC said its public sector cloud platform Sentinel was key to securing the deal, which will see it provide the council with datacentre hosting, server and storage, server technical support, database admin, and networking infrastructure and support.

The council will save more than £150,000 per year thanks to the new tech, it claims, adding that the cash will be reassigned to the delivery of public services.

Sentinel, which was launched in 2012, is a government-accredited cloud platform which protects public sector data classed as "official" and "official sensitive".

Last month, SCC hailed the initiative's success and unveiled plans to hire another 50 staff in the division. The reseller said in FY15, its Datacentre and Cloud Services arm – of which Sentinel is a part – grew 87 per cent annually.

Kelvin Ayre, practice manager at Sentinel, said: "As government changes, so does the shape of city councils, resulting in the need for a solution that is flexible, scalable, and cost effective. That is exactly why we're seeing so much success with Sentinel, and we look forward to a successful, long-term partnership with Oxford City Council."