140 UK Government Departments Bought 11,439TB Extra Storage in 2013 – Freedom of Information Act

More than 98% of central and local government organisations across the UK are still purchasing traditional legacy storage – even though it costs on average 3x more per terabyte than the software-defined alternative.

This is despite the government’s publicised efforts over the last few years to cut costs across the board.
 
The information sourced through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Nexenta Systems, Inc., in software-defined storage (SDS), examined the storage buying habits of 397 local and central government organisations. The 317 departments that responded to the request spent £933,527,446 on IT systems in 2013, of which £13,876,068 was spent on storage. The FOIA request was sent to 397 local and central public sector departments throughout July and August 2014.

The results showed:

• 140 government departments bought extra storage in 2013, spending £13,876,068 in total on 11,439TB equaling an average of £1213/TB
• Only five public sector departments bought open source or SDS in 2013. The figures show they spent £242,918 in total on 645.6TBs equaling an average of £376/TB

If all the public sector departments had purchased Nexenta SDS solutions with their lower cost per terabyte, they could have saved approximately £9,575,004 equivalent to the yearly entry level salary of 447 Band 5 NHS Nurses or 443 Firemen or 511 Prison Officers or 410 Police Officers.
 
Tarkan Maner, chairman and CEO, Nexenta, said: “The results from the FOIA analysis show that more needs to be done to educate the public sector on the benefits of SDS. UK councils are struggling to reduce costs across the board and this is an area where significant savings opportunity exists. SDS is packed with enterprise features but with a very low TCO – making it an ideal solution for the public sector. The market needs to understand the savings that can be achieved, and think how this money could be invested into other areas such as the NHS, emergency services and the prison service.”
 
“The UK public sector could really benefit from adopting a SDS approach. At the moment they are under extreme budgetary pressures but they still need to do more with less, particularly as their data repositories grow rapidly,” said Simon Robinson, research VP, Storage, 451Research. “SDS is coming of age and now offers enterprise features which will satisfy even the most conservative storage administrator. Education is key but it’s time the public sector realised the huge savings that could be made from taking a software approach.”
 
Dave Lewy, head of storage and systems, University of Sussex, said: “We chose a SDS solution because of its flexibility, scalability and attractive economics. I would recommend it to any public sector organisation looking to improve its storage platform whilst keeping a hold on the budget.”
 
This is the second time Nexenta has enquired about the procurement and spending habits of UK local authorities after conducting a similar FOIA request in 2012. Those findings showed that only one council in the UK was using open source storage compared with five today.