MoD loads Rackspace server deal

Military recruitment websites will be consolidated onto a single server farm following a deal between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Rackspace.

The MoDhas signed a three year deal with Rackspace Hosting that will see Rackspace provide a managed service to the Joint Server Farm (JSF), a single infrastructure for MoD websites from the Army, Royal Air Force and Navy. JSF is used for public facing MoD websites, including its recruitment websites as well as administration, public information and cadet websites. The JSF was created by the MoD to rationalise the infrastructure it had for websites to a single infrastructure as set out by the Transformational Government Agenda.

Rackspacealready provides the MoD with the infrastructure for its Army.Net service, a secure portal for email, instant messaging and chat between soldiers and their families back in Britain. The MoD now has 70 per cent of its websites hosted on Rackspace infrastructure.

Under the terms of the deal Rackspace will provide the MoD with firewall and intrusion detection and an SLA that guarantees100 per cent up time.