IT Lab joins consortium delivering 10,000 ventilators to NHS

Microsoft, Arrow and Dell among number of firms in group responding to government's call for much-needed healthcare equipment

A number of firms across the channel have banded together to form a consortium to deliver 10,000 ventilators to the NHS.

The healthcare authority and the UK government have called out for more of the life-saving equipment amid the outbreak of COVID-19, which affects the respiratory system.

Microsoft, Dell, Arrow Electronics, Accenture and PTC are "key enablers" of the consortium, meaning they will handle the IT support and infrastructure of the initiative.

The consortium is headed by Dick Elsy, CEO of High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC), a group of manufacturing research centres in the UK.

The consortium is also comprised of the following companies: Airbus, BAE Systems, Ford, GKN Aerospace, Inspiration Healthcare, Meggitt, Penlon, Renishaw, Rolls Royce, Siemens, Smiths Group, Thales, Ultra Electronics, Unilever and a number of UK-based F1 teams.

CRN understands that all the companies are working on the project pro bono and that the government has offered to underwrite the cost.

Microsoft partners Avanade, Content and Code and IT Lab are also part of the delivery system.

The latter was contacted directly by Microsoft to assist with HVMC's requirements to enable the various parties to collaborate through Teams, according to Peter Sweetbaum, chief exec of IT Lab.

"They needed somebody to set up a service desk support environment and a way for [the companies] to get functional training and use of Teams, and to escalate the use of some of the more advanced functions within Teams," he explained to CRN.

"We set up a dedicated desk within four hours of the request, fully enabled and with access to [the companies'] Teams environment, to be able to provide that support immediately to the HCMV.

"If you think about each of the engineering companies involved, each has representatives who need to collaborate with each other, to share information around designs, processes, information training and on how to use the output from HVMC.

"We'll continue to do this pro bono for as long as needed and we are very proud to be able to do our part in this."

Sweetbaum could not confirm at what stage the project is at but said that there is "significant collaboration" between the engineering participants on the Teams platform.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the HoloLens VR product are also being deployed as part of the supply chain of the ventilators.

Microsoft UK CEO Cindy Rose added: "There is no more critical sector at this moment than healthcare, which is why we have been working around the clock to support the NHS on a number of fronts since this COVID-19 crisis began.

"Now, through the power of HoloLens, Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365, we are proud to play a role in helping produce these critical life-saving devices."

Companies interested in joining the Consortium in this endeavour are invited to apply through the government's official web page.

Cloud constraints

Microsoft also announced that it would be putting "temporary restrictions" on its Azure cloud computing platform as it reported a surge of 775 per cent in its cloud services as a result of enforced lockdowns in a number of countries.

These restrictions include: limiting free offers in order to prioritise capacity for existing customers and limiting certain resources for new subscriptions, though it emphasised that these were "soft quotas" and could be raised on request.

"If requests cannot be met immediately, we recommend customers use alternative regions (of our 54 live regions) that may have less demand surge," it wrote in an updated blog post.

"To manage surges in demand, we will expedite the creation of new capacity in the appropriate region. We are expediting the addition of significant new capacity that will be available in the weeks ahead.

"If the implementation of these efforts to alleviate demand is not sufficient, customers may experience intermittent deployment-related issues."

Sweetbaum said that IT Lab has not seen any disruption in service for its customers and that it provides an opportunity for Azure customers to see the flexibility of the platform.

"This represents why Azure is such an incredibly powerful platform because it wouldn't grow to that extent if people didn't see that and realise that," he noted.

"[Our recently-acquired Sol-Tec team] has been involved in helping prioritise government critical workloads around anything response related, ensuring that those relevant workloads are getting ahead of the game and continue to operate."

He added that he has seen a surge in the use of Azure as customers realise they cannot access their on-premise infrastructure at the moment.

"One of the things that customers have realised is that if they've got a lot of on-premise infrastructure sitting in their offices, that's becoming a risk," he stated.

"If there are constraints around the delivery of elements needed to keep those on-prem environments running and operative it's going to be very difficult to get the relevant parts - and even to get on-site physically to address them - which is why we're seeing a really big surge in our cloud business overall.

"Those customers who still have things on-premise - critical types of applications and workloads - they're generally wanting them out of those environments."