Over half of London’s boroughs are planning on refreshing their outdated IT infrastructure, FoI request reveals.
A Freedom of Information request to all 32 of the capital’s boroughs revealed that 53% of the 30 that responded said they were currently planning an infrastructure refresh project, with a further 20% in the process of rolling out a refresh.
Over 16% of councils also cited outdated infrastructure as their biggest challenge in the data centre.
HyperGrid, the enterprise cloud-as-a-service leader that conducted the FoI, said this showed local authorities were looking to more ‘flexible, higher-performing offerings’.
‘The FoI findings provide a clear indicator of a need for change and modernisation in local government IT estates,’ said Doug Rich, VP of EMEA at HyperGrid.
‘Legacy systems are no longer capable of coping with the challenges brought about by budget cuts, increased demand for higher-quality services and reorganisation to fit the changing role of local government.’
‘The demands of digital transformation and ever-increasing workloads mean that IT infrastructure needs to be high-performing yet flexible to rapidly changing requirements,’ he added.
Over 40% of the boroughs surveyed said they would consider a consumption or subscription-based model.
‘It is evident that there is a substantial appetite for changing the way IT is consumed in the data centre as refresh projects get under way,’ Mr Rich said.
‘Choosing a consumption-based model enables local authorities to be much more agile in how they update their infrastructure.
‘This can come in the form of cloud-based services, including email, apps or the government’s G-Cloud procurement system.’
Mr Rich concluded by urging local authorities to ‘consign the old ways of consuming IT to the past.’
‘Casting off traditional vendor lock-ins for a more flexible approach brings greater opportunities for a more cost-effective service,’ he said.
‘Digital transformation is placing a significant amount of strain on both public and private sector organisations, and local government cannot afford to be left behind.’
