The demand for privacy has never been greater. Cyber threats are growing exponentially — the average healthcare data breach now costs over $12 million per incident. State-sponsored attacks target medical records because they are permanent: unlike a credit card, a stolen health record cannot be cancelled. It retains value indefinitely for identity theft, insurance fraud, and blackmail.
Meanwhile, government surveillance and censorship continue to expand. Data stored with US-based cloud hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud) falls under frameworks like the CLOUD Act, which can compel those providers to hand over data even when the servers sit physically in the UK or Europe.
Organisations need a different approach. One that puts them back in control of their data. That is exactly what Sovereign Infrastructure as a Service (SIAAS) provides.
Traditional cloud providers like AWS and Azure advertise low hourly compute rates, but they heavily penalise production-grade database workloads through hidden recurring variables:
| Cost Element | Traditional Cloud (AWS/Azure) | SIAAS Sovereign Model (Fasthosts) |
|---|---|---|
| Base Compute | Metered hourly; scales up if database usage spikes | Fixed monthly rate — predictable budgeting |
| Storage Speed | Premium IOPS (SSD speed required for live databases) costs extra | High-speed NVMe storage included natively in the server package |
| Data Egress | Charged per GB to pull data out of their ecosystem | Zero egress fees — bandwidth is completely unlimited |
| IP Addresses | Recurring fees for static IPv4 configurations | Static IP and unlimited IPv6 addresses included for free |
To run a reliable, secure PostgreSQL database under the 2GB RAM minimum specification:
| Item | Estimated Cost |
|---|---|
| Compute (e.g., AWS t4g.small / Azure B2s) | ~$12 to $30 per month |
| Database Storage & IOPS (32GB SSD) | ~$4 to $8 per month |
| Data Egress & Traffic | $0.08 per GB after initial limits |
| Hidden extras (Backups, Snapshots, Static IP) | ~$5 to $10 per month |
| Estimated True Cloud Cost | £25 to £50+ per month, per client (fluctuating based on traffic) |
| Item | Estimated Cost |
|---|---|
| Compute, Storage & Bandwidth | Entry-tier Fasthosts VPS reliably covers the 2GB requirement |
| Estimated True Sovereign Cost | £3 to £10 per month, fixed |
The Immediate Savings: Each client saves roughly 70% to 80% on infrastructure overhead alone. Because they pay Fasthosts directly, this entire infrastructure bill disappears completely from your balance sheet.
Private clinics and dental practices in the UK typically pay between £50 to £250+ per month per location for an all-in-one Practice Management System (PMS) that handles scheduling, clinical records, and invoicing.
| Provider Category | Example Software | Typical Market Cost (UK) | Pricing Bottlenecks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private Medical & GP | Medesk, Carebit, Pabau, WriteUpp | £50–£200+ per month. Entries start low for solo users (~£12–£17) but jump immediately for multi-practitioner clinics. | Extra monthly fees for e-prescribing tools, heavy document/X-ray storage caps, and mandatory annual commitments. |
| Private Dental Practices | Dentally, Pearl, Software 4 Dentists | £70–£150+ per month per surgery. (e.g., Pearl charges £71 for the 1st surgery, +£26 for each extra room). | Upfront training/onboarding fees of £250 to £575+, alongside strict cloud storage data tiers. |
Most of these providers bake expensive cloud database margins into their licensing costs. Because your infrastructure model offloads data hosting to the client's own isolated VPS, you can price your application subscription aggressively below market average.
| Tier | Clinicians | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 | £80 + VAT per month | Independent GP, therapist, or single-practitioner clinic |
| Small Clinic | Up to 3 | £140 + VAT per month | Small practices — save compared to per-user pricing |
| Established Practice | Up to 6 | £250 + VAT per month | Full clinic or multi-surgery dental practice |
What is included in every tier:
In a typical private GP or dental clinic, text-based medical records consume almost zero space, whereas digital X-rays and imaging files drive 95% of the storage requirements.
The base Ubuntu operating system and PostgreSQL database require about 15 GB to 20 GB of baseline storage.
| Clinic Tier | Profile & Patient Volume | Image Volume (per year) | Total Capacity Needed | Recommended Fasthosts VPS | Est. Cost / Month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo / Micro | Up to 1,500 active patients | ~500 small dental/clinical X-rays | ~25 GB to 30 GB | VPS 1 (60GB NVMe Storage, 2GB RAM) | £3 – £4 |
| Typical Clinic | 2,000 – 6,000 active patients | ~2,500 varied X-rays and document uploads | ~40 GB to 65 GB | VPS 2 (160GB NVMe Storage, 4GB/8GB RAM) | £9 – £11 |
| High-Volume | 6,000+ active patients | ~5,000+ high-res X-rays, OPGs, and heavy attachments | ~100 GB to 200 GB | VPS 4 (500GB NVMe Storage, 8GB RAM) | £20 |
If a clinic outgrows their server space, they can upgrade to a higher tier through the Fasthosts Cloud Panel with a couple of clicks. The drive expands automatically and the application bridge remains uninterrupted.
One of the main reasons public cloud providers are more expensive is the massive operational and financial overhead required to build, maintain, and continuously audit software-defined multi-tenancy.
On a public cloud, hundreds of different companies share the exact same physical server hardware. To prevent data from leaking between these competitors, cloud providers must invest billions into:
All of these costs are passed directly to you in the monthly bill.
With your own private, isolated VPS:
This is the most powerful feature of the SIAAS model — and the one that saves you the most in the long run.
If you ever decide to part company, you do not need to request, export, or fight for your data. You just disconnect. The data stays on your VPS, in your possession, on infrastructure you control. There is no vendor lock-in because there never was one.
This is a fundamental reversal of the traditional SaaS model. Most providers aggregate data into massive, multi-tenant databases that they own and manage. If you leave, you face a painful, expensive data export process, often resulting in lost metadata or formatting issues.
With SIAAS, your data never leaves your infrastructure. No export fees. No data loss. No legal battles over who owns your records.
Public cloud data centres are constantly targeted by state-sponsored automated scanners. If you host medical data on a US-based cloud hyperscaler, that provider may be legally forced to comply with broad US government data warrants (like the CLOUD Act), even if the physical servers reside in Europe or the UK.
Using a regional, independent infrastructure provider (Fasthosts) forces legal requests to go directly through local courts. Your patient databases sit entirely under clean domestic legal jurisdiction.
We have a formal relationship with Fasthosts under their Partnership Programme. This means:
Yes. A dedicated, isolated VPS behind a secure tunnel is inherently more secure than a shared multi-tenant database exposed to the public web.
No cloud provider can offer greater privacy than this model. A cloud provider's business model relies on aggregating data. Ours relies on keeping it separate.
Your clinic could save 70–80% on infrastructure costs, eliminate vendor lock-in, and achieve greater security and privacy than any cloud provider can offer — all while getting a full-featured practice management platform at half the market rate.
| Traditional SaaS | SIAAS Sovereign Model | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly infrastructure cost (per client) | £25 – £50+ (hidden, fluctuating) | £3 – £10 (fixed, transparent) |
| Monthly software fee (3 clinicians) | £150 – £240+ | £140 |
| Data ownership | The provider | You |
| Leaving the provider | Painful export, data loss risk | Just disconnect — data stays with you |
| X-ray / imaging storage | Strict caps, extra fees | Unlimited (uses your VPS storage) |
| E-prescribing | Often charged extra | Included free |
| Vendor lock-in | High | Zero |
Ready to switch? Contact us to discuss how SIAAS can work for your practice.