Request for information - Ref No: FOI231146
Request
Thank you for your email of 25 April 2023, requesting information from Ordnance Survey in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000, as set out in the extract below:
“Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information:
- The duration of time the Ordnance Survey has been utilising cloud infrastructure.
- The criteria used to choose a cloud provider.
- The percentage of infrastructures in the Ordnance Survey employing cloud services.
- The supplier of cloud infrastructures used by the Ordnance Survey. (AWS/Oracle/Azure etc.)
- Case studies highlighting the successful implementation of the 'Cloud-first' strategy.
- The uptime of the Ordnance Survey cloud infrastructure.
- The annual budget over the last five years for IT-managed services.
- Please provide the percentage spent on cloud managed services”
Our response
Taking each request in turn, I confirm the following:
1. The duration of time the Ordnance Survey has been utilising cloud infrastructure.
The first (minimal) use of public cloud services was for our free API offerings in 2009. This was on Amazon Web Services (AWS). OS used its free Microsoft Azure allowance from 2012 for the “Download Service”.
2. The criteria used to choose a cloud provider.
It is our understanding of your request that you are referring to a provider of public cloud services for general compute and not SaaS services for employee management, M365 or D365.
- In order to fairly select a cloud provider, OS issued a tender for consultancy. The tender required companies responding to be gold partners or equivalent with Azure, AWS and Oracle, but otherwise be independent of those providers.
- This consultancy concluded in 2017 with a primary recommendation for Azure.
3. The percentage of infrastructures in the Ordnance Survey employing cloud services.
This information is not held as it is not recorded in the format requested.
4. The supplier of cloud infrastructures used by the Ordnance Survey. (AWS/Oracle/Azure etc.)
- Primarily Microsoft Azure.
- Some use of AWS.
- Apigee is used for API management.
5. Case studies highlighting the successful implementation of the 'Cloud-first' strategy.
This information is not held.
Under the duty to provide information and assistance in accordance with section 16 of FOIA, we can provide the following information which may assist you in this matter:
Ordnance Survey’s focus is geospatial data and case studies we hold are based around the benefits of geospatial data rather than cloud, they are published on our website ‘Insights’
6. The uptime of the Ordnance Survey cloud infrastructure.
This information not held.
Under the duty to provide information and assistance in accordance with section 16 of FOIA, we can provide the following information which may assist you in this matter:
We consider individual services, rather than the cloud infrastructure as a whole. Additionally, services may be in Azure, AWS, on-site or as SaaS services.
The below tables, detail information for the past 24 months for some representative and key systems in the public cloud (Azure).
DataHub portal: used for Business and Government to obtain detailed licenced data:
|
Date/time |
Total time (s) |
Uptime (%) |
Confirmed errors |
Unconfirmed errors |
|
June 2021 |
0.14 |
99.95 |
19 |
124 |
|
July 2021 |
0.14 |
99.95 |
21 |
137 |
|
August 2021 |
0.15 |
99.97 |
9 |
106 |
|
September 2021 |
0.15 |
100.00 |
0 |
107 |
|
October 2021 |
0.15 |
99.96 |
13 |
153 |
|
November 2021 |
0.15 |
100.00 |
0 |
113 |
|
December 2021 |
0.17 |
99.99 |
6 |
185 |
|
January 2022 |
0.19 |
99.99 |
5 |
286 |
|
February 2022 |
0.20 |
99.88 |
39 |
268 |
|
March 2022 |
0.24 |
99.97 |
11 |
452 |
|
April 2022 |
0.22 |
99.99 |
5 |
328 |
|
May 2022 |
0.22 |
99.98 |
7 |
350 |
|
June 2022 |
0.27 |
99.98 |
9 |
600 |
|
July 2022 |
0.31 |
99.99 |
3 |
804 |
|
August 2022 |
0.22 |
99.99 |
3 |
302 |
|
September 2022 |
0.23 |
99.92 |
32 |
293 |
|
October 2022 |
0.20 |
100.00 |
1 |
148 |
|
November 2022 |
0.21 |
99.98 |
6 |
184 |
|
December 2022 |
0.21 |
99.99 |
3 |
173 |
|
January 2023 |
0.20 |
99.98 |
6 |
116 |
|
February 2023 |
0.22 |
99.99 |
2 |
74 |
|
March 2023 |
0.22 |
99.99 |
4 |
157 |
|
April 2023 |
0.26 |
99.90 |
35 |
383 |
|
May 2023 |
0.20 |
100.00 |
0 |
5 |
OS Places API: is an API used by business and Government as the UKL’s most comprehensive address look-up service:
|
Date/time |
Total time (s) |
Uptime (%) |
Confirmed errors |
Unconfirmed errors |
|
June 2021 |
0.29 |
99.95 |
21 |
113 |
|
July 2021 |
0.31 |
99.94 |
19 |
143 |
|
August 2021 |
0.29 |
99.99 |
4 |
87 |
|
September 2021 |
0.31 |
99.99 |
3 |
114 |
|
October 2021 |
0.30 |
99.98 |
7 |
133 |
|
November 2021 |
0.29 |
100.00 |
0 |
117 |
|
December 2021 |
0.28 |
99.95 |
19 |
241 |
|
January 2022 |
0.24 |
99.99 |
3 |
276 |
|
February 2022 |
0.24 |
99.93 |
23 |
275 |
|
March 2022 |
0.30 |
99.97 |
10 |
505 |
|
April 2022 |
0.28 |
99.98 |
6 |
397 |
|
May 2022 |
0.29 |
99.98 |
8 |
436 |
|
June 2022 |
0.32 |
99.96 |
15 |
611 |
|
July 2022 |
0.36 |
99.99 |
5 |
779 |
|
August 2022 |
0.26 |
100.00 |
1 |
273 |
|
September 2022 |
0.24 |
99.96 |
14 |
224 |
|
October 2022 |
0.23 |
99.98 |
5 |
125 |
|
November 2022 |
0.26 |
99.92 |
23 |
179 |
|
December 2022 |
0.24 |
99.95 |
15 |
147 |
|
January 2023 |
0.25 |
99.93 |
23 |
108 |
|
February 2023 |
0.26 |
99.82 |
45 |
160 |
|
March 2023 |
0.25 |
99.89 |
37 |
130 |
|
April 2023 |
0.23 |
99.96 |
15 |
75 |
|
May 2023 |
0.21 |
100.00 |
0 |
0 |
OS Maps API: Adds detailed maps to GIS, web or mobile applications, including OS’s own consumer products:
|
Date/time |
Total time (s) |
Uptime (%) |
Confirmed errors |
Unconfirmed errors |
|
June 2021 |
0.39 |
99.95 |
21 |
110 |
|
July 2021 |
0.40 |
99.98 |
8 |
127 |
|
August 2021 |
0.40 |
99.98 |
6 |
102 |
|
September 2021 |
0.42 |
99.99 |
4 |
123 |
|
October 2021 |
0.41 |
99.99 |
2 |
117 |
|
November 2021 |
0.42 |
100.00 |
0 |
95 |
|
December 2021 |
0.44 |
99.98 |
7 |
232 |
|
January 2022 |
0.43 |
99.99 |
3 |
276 |
|
February 2022 |
0.42 |
99.94 |
21 |
248 |
|
March 2022 |
0.45 |
99.99 |
6 |
483 |
|
April 2022 |
0.41 |
99.98 |
8 |
354 |
|
May 2022 |
0.43 |
99.98 |
7 |
433 |
|
June 2022 |
0.46 |
99.96 |
15 |
618 |
|
July 2022 |
0.50 |
99.99 |
4 |
822 |
|
August 2022 |
0.41 |
100.00 |
1 |
296 |
|
September 2022 |
0.38 |
100.00 |
0 |
212 |
|
October 2022 |
0.37 |
100.00 |
0 |
119 |
|
November 2022 |
0.36 |
99.99 |
2 |
119 |
|
December 2022 |
0.36 |
100.00 |
0 |
102 |
|
January 2023 |
0.34 |
100.00 |
0 |
26 |
|
February 2023 |
0.36 |
100.00 |
1 |
62 |
|
March 2023 |
0.35 |
100.00 |
0 |
65 |
|
April 2023 |
0.35 |
100.00 |
0 |
36 |
|
May 2023 |
0.35 |
100.00 |
0 |
0 |
7. The annual budget over the last five years for IT-managed services
|
|
2023 Actual |
2022 Actual |
2021 Actual |
2020 Actual |
2019 Actual |
|
Annual Cost of IT Managed Services (£m) |
18.63 |
16.40 |
13.23 |
10.69 |
10.52 |
8. Please provide the percentage spent on cloud managed services
|
|
2023 Actual |
2022 Actual |
2021 Actual |
2020 Actual |
2019 Actual |
|
Cloud as a % of IT |
58% |
54% |
47% |
40% |
36% |
Internal review
Your enquiry has been processed according to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000. If you are unhappy with our response, you may request an internal review with our Internal Review Officer by contacting them, within two months of receipt of our final response to your Freedom of Information (FOI) request, as follows:
Internal Review Officer
Customer Service Centre
Ordnance Survey
Adanac Drive
Southampton
SO16 0AS
Please include the reference number above. You may request an internal review where you believe Ordnance Survey has:
- Failed to respond to your request within the time limits (normally 20 working days)
- Failed to tell you whether or not we hold the information
- Failed to provide the information you have requested
- Failed to explain the reasons for refusing a request
- Failed to correctly apply an exemption or exception
The Internal Review Officer will not have been involved in the original decision. They will conduct an independent internal review and will inform you of the outcome of the review normally within 20 working days, but exceptionally within 40 working days, in line with the Information Commissioner’s guidance.
The Internal Review Officer will either: uphold the original decision, provide an additional explanation of the exemption/s applied or release further information, if it is considered appropriate to do so.
Appeal to Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
If, following the outcome of the internal review you remain unhappy with our response, you may raise an appeal, within three months of receiving our response, with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Further information can be found on the ICO website (ico.org.uk) under ‘Report a concern’ or you may wish to call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.