NHS Pages Novell For Cloud Workload Management

The NHS has called on Novell to include workload management and security for its cloud computing program, following the expansion of its existing networking deal with the company.

The deal is estimated to cost £6 million and will apparently “help lay the foundations for the UK Government Cloud Computing Programme and support the NHS’ ongoing commitment to green IT.”

Specifically, Novell is providing the NHS with its Open Enterprise Server 2 and Storage and Access Manager. This will act as the operating system backbone to support over 300,000 users, said Novell. Meanwhile it is also including ZENworks Configuration Management for remote management, so that IT personel can issue updates and fixes remotely.

To this end, the deal also includes Novell’s Patch Management, Asset Management and SecureLogin in order to keep patient records secure and confidential, and prevent any embarrassing data breaches.

The final element to the deal is Novell’s Teaming+Conferencing for real-time collaboration and communication between departments.

The deal should help the NHS secure and manage its workloads that will run in the cloud, and will help the health service lower its carbon footprint, all of which is very much in line with the government’s newly released IT policy, which calls for the effective use of open source, as well as energy efficient technologies and cloud computing.

“One of the goals for the NHS is to achieve greater value from its infrastructure. Standardising on open source not only reduces costs, but will also underpin two key strategic initiatives for the NHS – reducing our environmental impact and moving towards a cloud computing environment,” said Mark Ferrar, strategy director at the NHS.

Using Novell’s Intelligent Workload Management solutions will help the NHS keep patient data safe, streamline operations, boost green IT and prepare to move to a cloud computing IT environment,” said Javier Colado, president EMEA at Novell.