UK Sovereign Cloud Hosting for Defence and CNI
Your data and workloads run across two UK data centres, operated only by UK Sole Nationals with no dependency on foreign owned or hyperscale control planes.
UK Sovereign Hosting for the Sectors We Serve
In Defence, CNI and regulated industries, data location and access are set by regulators, contracts and customers. UK sovereign hosting meets those requirements without the residual exposure of a global provider.
UK Sole National Operation: A platform built, operated and supported only by UK Sole Nationals, security vetted for privileged access.
Accreditation Evidence: Platform controls aligned to the relevant Defence JSPs, with evidence provided to support your own accreditation.
Isolated Tenancies: A dedicated virtual data centre with its own firewalling, routing and network segments.
Data Residency: Data, workloads and management systems held in UK data centres, and never moved outside without your instruction.
Proof for Your Customers: Show your own customers that the services you provide them are UK hosted and UK controlled.
Predictable Cost: A monthly charge based on the resources you allocate, which you can grow or reduce as your needs change.
Site-Level Resilience: Run essential services across both UK sites at once, so they can keep running if one site goes offline.
Legacy Workloads Moved Intact: Existing workloads move onto the platform without change, so essential services can be migrated without re-engineering them.
24x7 Platform Monitoring: The platform is monitored around the clock, with platform incidents handled at any hour.
What Kind of Sovereign Cloud Do You Need?
Sovereign cloud covers a range of options, and each keeps a different amount under UK control. The right choice depends on what your workloads must keep in the UK.
| CRITERIA | STANDARD PUBLIC CLOUD | SOVEREIGN HYPERSCALE → | UK SOVEREIGN HOSTING |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where Your Data Sits | Any region, including outside the UK | UK regions only | Two UK data centres |
| Who Can Support It | Provider's global support teams | Provider support can include non-UK personnel | UK Sole Nationals only, security vetted |
| Control Plane | Hyperscale provider's | Hyperscale provider's | UK platform, no foreign or hyperscale dependency |
| US CLOUD Act | Applies to US-owned providers | Applies to US-owned providers | Not exposed |
| Built to Defence and CNI Requirements | Depends on who builds it | Yes, deployed by Defended Solutions | Yes, with evidence for your accreditation |
| Best For | Workloads with no sovereignty requirement | Sensitive workloads where UK residency is enough | Workloads that need full UK sovereignty |
Defended Solutions delivers both sovereign hyperscale and UK sovereign hosting, so each workload can run where it belongs, with one partner across both. Talk to us about which your workloads need.
What Every Tenancy Includes
Your tenancy runs on our enterprise platform across multiple UK data centres: Heathrow, the higher-resilience site for production and business critical services, and Nottingham for development, test and recovery workloads. Every tenancy includes the following as standard.
Dedicated Virtual Data Centre
Compute, memory and storage allocated to your organisation at the data centre you choose.
Your Own Network Edge
Firewall rules, NAT, routing and network segments under your control.
Secure Self-Service Portal
Role-based access for your administrators to create, resize and manage workloads through VMware Cloud Director.
Operating System Images
A catalogue of current operating system templates, kept up to date by Defended Solutions.
Self-Service Snapshots
Take virtual machine snapshots whenever you need them.
Resilient Internet Access
Connectivity through the Defended Solutions perimeter, with public IP addresses as required.
24x7 Platform Support
Platform incidents handled around the clock by the team that operates it.
Usage And Cost Visibility
Clear reporting of what your tenancy consumes.
Add-On Managed Services
Add any of the following managed services to your tenancy, whenever you need them.
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Managed Operating System
We operate, patch and harden your guest operating systems.
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Policy-based backup with defined retention, including a third, independent backup location.
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Global Load Balancing
Traffic distribution and failover across both sites for active/active services.
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Monitoring
Workload and application monitoring, alerting and dashboards for your own services.
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UK sovereign outbound email relay.
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Code and Artefact Repositories
Managed source control and artefact registries hosted within the platform.
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Vulnerability Management
Continuous vulnerability scanning with prioritised remediation reporting.
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SOC Service
Managed detection and response, with security monitoring of your tenancy.
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Endpoint Management
Managed patching, hardening, and endpoint detection and response.
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Penetration Testing
Scheduled or on-demand testing of your environment, with findings and remediation reporting.
Security and Assurance
Independently Certified
ISO 27001 and ISO 20000 certified management systems, alongside Cyber Essentials Plus.
Built for Accreditation
Controls aligned to NIST 800-53 and the relevant Defence JSPs, with evidence of platform controls to support your own accreditation.
Under UK Control
Operated exclusively by UK Sole Nationals, security vetted for privileged access, with every tenancy isolated by design.
Getting Started
Moving onto the platform follows five clear steps, with the approach and timescales agreed with you before anything moves.
Book a scoping call and we’ll work through your workloads, the site each one needs and how they’ll move across. That shapes a proposal setting out your tenancy size, monthly cost and timescales.
Service Tiers
Every tenancy is charged monthly, based on the compute, memory and storage you allocate. All tiers include the same platform, security and standard features. A one-off onboarding charge covers setting up your tenancy, and add-on services are priced individually.
- Standard resilience
- Development, test and recovery workloads
- Standard pricing
- Higher resilience
- Production and business critical services
- Premium pricing
- Active/active with Global Load Balancing
- Your most critical services
- Charged across both sites
Pricing is confirmed at scoping. Add-on services are priced individually.
Certified and Operated in the UK
The platform runs under certified management systems, with controls aligned to NIST 800-53 and the relevant Defence JSPs, and evidence provided to support your own accreditation.
The platform is operated exclusively by UK Sole Nationals, security vetted for privileged access.
Common Questions About UK Sovereign Hosting
Moving workloads onto a sovereign platform raises questions about control, resilience and what happens if you ever leave.
Here are the ones buyers ask us most often.
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A cloud platform where your data, workloads and the systems that manage them stay in the UK, under UK control. Ours runs across two UK data centres, operated exclusively by UK Sole Nationals with no dependency on foreign owned or hyperscale control planes.
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It’s held in the UK, but the providers are US-owned, so the US CLOUD Act still applies, and provider support can include non-UK personnel. For many workloads that’s acceptable. Where it isn’t, UK sovereign hosting removes that exposure.
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Private cloud describes dedicated infrastructure. Sovereign cloud describes who controls it and which country’s law it falls under. Our platform is both: each tenancy is a dedicated virtual data centre on a UK platform operated under UK control.
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It runs across two self-contained UK sites joined by a private interconnect, built on HPE compute, enterprise storage and Cisco networking. Clustered compute holds spare capacity in reserve, each site has diverse carrier connectivity and high availability firewall pairs, and critical services can run active/active across both sites.
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Defended Solutions runs the platform: data centres, connectivity, compute, storage, virtualisation and platform security. You run what’s inside your tenancy, including operating systems, applications, data and user access. Taking an add-on moves responsibility for that activity to us.
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With Defended Solutions, your data is returned to you and then securely deleted from the platform.
Every estate has its own specifics. If your workloads raise a question not covered here, we’ll talk it through with you directly.
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