CRAXEL UK LTD

Black Forest Platform

Craxel’s Black Forest unifies fragmented organisational data into a secure, AI‑ready knowledge graph, delivering real‑time, contextual insight at scale for cyber defence and analytics, enabling faster, better‑informed decisions while using significantly less compute than traditional data platforms.

Features

• Builds scalable knowledge graphs at line speed
• Fuses structured and unstructured data seamlessly
• Delivers real-time semantic context queries
• Reduces compute costs by up to 90%
• Provides zero trust searchable encryption
• Supports hyperscale storage like AWS S3
• Enables petabyte-scale complex queries instantly
• Offers flexible cloud, on-prem, edge deployment.
• Ingests data from any source rapidly
• Ensures full customer data control

Benefits

• Accelerate data‑driven decision‑making with timely, contextual insight
• Unify siloed data for consistent organisational views
• Automate data preparation, reducing manual integration effort
• Reduce time‑to‑insight from hours or days
• Simplify secure data sharing across departments and partners
• Enable real‑time exploration of live enterprise datasets
• Cut infrastructure costs through efficient compute and storage
• Streamline AI initiatives with governed, high‑quality data
• Improve incident response using instant contextual data access
• Maintain compliance with fine‑grained, auditable data controls

• Education pricing available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at gary.connolly@craxel.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 15

Service ID

207211210159134

Contact

Gary Connolly
07718133393
gary.connolly@craxel.com

About your service

• Service categories:

  Application Development and Deployment

  Data management

  Database management systems

  • Graph Database Management Systems
  • Data Lake Management Systems

  Database administration and development

  • Data Modelling
  • Database Development and Optimization

  Data integration and intelligence

  • Data Ingestion and Transformation Software
  • Data Access Infrastructure Software
• Multi cloud support: Yes

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model:
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
• Service constraints: Black Forest runs on standard cloud and commodity hardware but may require sizing for very high‑throughput deployments. Planned maintenance is scheduled, notified in advance, and designed for minimal disruption. Buyer‑specific constraints, such as data residency, security accreditation, and integration approach, should be confirmed during onboarding and architectural design.
• System requirements: Standard cloud infrastructure

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes
• Support response times: Responses depend on level of Service agreement.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Support is provided subject to customer requirement and will be on an agreement between the parties. ; ; This includes Technical Account Managers and Cloud Engineers.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: New Black Forest customers receive a structured onboarding experience designed to get them productive quickly and safely. Craxel provides packaged starter engagements, hands‑on implementation support, and full, role‑based documentation to guide every stage of adoption.; ; For each new deployment, a Craxel engineer is assigned and guarantees successful installation, initial configuration, and basic integration into the customer’s chosen environment. This includes validating connectivity, security settings, performance baselines, and helping align Black Forest with the buyer’s architecture and operating model. Where required, engineers work alongside buyer teams to define initial data sources, ontologies, and access‑control patterns.; ; Craxel offers 1:1 calls with customer teams to walk through architecture, usage patterns, and best practices, tailored to specific needs and maturity. Comprehensive documentation is available from day one, including step‑by‑step setup guides, API references, example patterns, and operational runbooks.; ; After go‑live, Craxel continues to provide remote support and guidance, helping teams embed Black Forest into existing workflows, iterate their data models, and scale usage across additional departments and use cases.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Customers receive all their data back should contract end. Black Forest keeps data under customer control throughout, enabling direct extraction using standard interfaces like SQL, SPARQL, and native APIs into customer storage. Craxel provides engineer-assisted egress by agreement to ensure complete, secure data recovery.
• End-of-contract process: Customer have the ability to export their data at any time, allowing for migration if required.
• Documentation accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the documentation is accessible: Via a webbrowser or pdf

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: No
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Description of service interface: Black Forest is accessed primarily through secure APIs and standard tools, not a single monolithic UI. Users interact via:; ; -Web‑based administrative console for configuration, monitoring, and observability.; ; -Programmatic access using REST APIs and SDKs for applications.; ​; -Standard interfaces (for example SQL, data‑tool connectors) for analysts and engineers
• Accessibility standards: None or don’t know
• Description of accessibility: The service is accessed by an HTML 5 web browser
• Accessibility testing: N/A
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: What users can do; Provision and configure deployments using automation and infrastructure‑as‑code workflows.; Register data sources, define ingest pipelines, and manage schemas or ontologies.; Insert, update, delete, and query encrypted data at high volume.; Configure access controls, roles, and data‑sharing policies.; Retrieve metrics, logs, and health information for monitoring and observability.; ; How setup works; Authenticate, then call deployment and configuration endpoints to initialise environments.; Use APIs to connect data sources and define pipelines and transformations.; Apply encryption and security settings programmatically as part of setup.; ; How users make changes; Adjust ingest settings, mappings, and retention through versioned configuration objects.; Update roles and policies centrally without redeploying the platform.; Evolve datasets, indexes, and query templates via machine‑to‑machine interfaces.; ; Key limitations; Underlying cloud/on‑prem infrastructure must exist; APIs sit above that layer.; Highly destructive or security‑bypassing actions are restricted to tightly controlled channels, not general application APIs
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
  • Other
• API sandbox or test environment: No
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: What can be customised?; Data sources, ingest pipelines, schemas, ontologies, and enrichment logic.; Indexing, retention, and performance profiles for different datasets or domains.; ​Security labels, access‑control policies, and compartment structures.; ; How users can customise?; Use APIs and infrastructure‑as‑code templates to configure pipelines, schemas, and environments.; Apply encryption, labelling, and access‑control policies via security configuration interfaces.; Tune performance, scale, and placement (cloud, on‑prem, edge) through deployment settings.; ; Who can customise?; Platform and data engineers customise pipelines, schemas, and performance settings.; Security and compliance teams configure policies, labels, and governance controls.; Business data owners define ontologies and domain‑specific semantics within agreed guardrails.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Service deploys to customers own On-prem/Cloud Infrastructure, no shared resources between customers

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Key metrics include:; ; Query volume, latency; ; Data ingestion throughput; ; Storage utilisation; ; API call counts by endpoint and client; ; Access patterns and peak usage periods
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
• Resource tagging: Yes
• FOCUS resource tagging: Yes

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: In-house
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed / Cryptographic Erasure
  • Data Erasure

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Methods:; ; SQL/SPARQL queries for records and graphs.; ; REST APIs for bulk/programmatic extraction.; ; Reverse ingest pipelines to buyer storage (S3, Kafka).
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats:
  • Json
  • Xml
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • JSON
  • XML
  • PDF
  • HTML
  • RDF

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: Other
• Other protection between networks: Craxel's network is not connected to customer instance.
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Point to point encryption.

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: As deployed software is under the management of the customer, SLAs are subject to agreement, based on use case requirements and agreed in writing by way of a contract negotiation.
• Approach to resilience: Multi node replication, kubernetes supported infrastructure provisioning.
• Outage reporting: Black Forest provides an API to inform of any outages.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication: Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Black Forest allows users to be assigned selected management interfaces through the UI. Admin users can give or rescind access to specific workflows, data, and interfaces to selected users.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
• How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: Other
• Other security governance standards: Cyber Essentials
• Information security policies and processes: Craxel UK's Information Security Policy establishes commitment to protecting information assets via Cyber Essentials. It covers all staff, contractors, systems, and locations processing company data.; ; Core Objectives: Confidentiality (authorised access only), Integrity (prevent unauthorised changes), Availability (timely access for operations).; ; Key Roles: Board approves policy/resources; Security Lead manages risks/incidents; Managers enforce compliance; Staff report issues.; ; ISMS Features: Annual risk assessments, asset inventory, incident procedures, continuous improvement.; ; Compliance: Monitored via audits, vulnerability tests, metrics. Violations trigger disciplinary/criminal action.; ; Policy reviewed annually or post-incidents/changes.
• Software Security Code of Practice: Yes

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Software change management is tracked, and any NUCs are communicated to a client before upgrade. ; ; Through mutual agreement between the parties, and agreed via way of contract amendment.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: Regular scanning of our software and the management and monitoring of CVEs
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Security Scanning tools e.g. Snyk, this is then managed with the development team and a patch SLA is agreed.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Craxel UK operates a formal incident response process with predefined phases: identification, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned, applied to common events such as malware, phishing, data loss, and unauthorised access. Incidents are reported immediately to the Security Lead by email, phone, or in person. All incidents are logged in an Incident Register and a post-incident report is produced, including timeline, impact, root cause, and remedial actions, which is shared with relevant stakeholders and, where required, regulators and affected customers.
• Post-quantum cryptography secure: No

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Pricing

• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: No

Discount percentage by annual call-off contract value (excluding VAT)

• Less than £250,000: 0%
• Between £250,000 and £500,000: 0%
• Between £500,001 and £1,000,000: 3%
• Between £1,000,001 and £2,500,000: 5%
• Between £2,500,001 and £5,000,000: 7%
• Over £5,000,001: 10%

Non-mandatory Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2022 certification: No
• ISO 9001 certification: No
• Quality management systems (QMS): No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Please provide your Cyber Essentials Certificate Number: 4ced6129-cc3c-4c8f-8227-58b405a20fdd
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Cyber Essentials Alternative: In relation to the services you do not have a current and valid Cyber Essentials Plus certificate which has been awarded by one of the government approved Cyber Essentials accreditation bodies but you are working towards gaining it, and will be in a position to confirm that you have been awarded a current and valid Cyber Essentials Plus certificate by one of the government approved accreditation bodies within 12 months of the date of award.
• Other security certifications: No

Social value

• Section B - Commitment for Future: Delivery:

  • Mission: Kick start economic growth. To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

    Policy Outcome 3: Resilient, innovative and flexible supply chains: Support economic growth through enabling resilient businesses, opportunities for small businesses and voluntary, community and social enterprises

    • Understanding of the types of businesses in the market and the level of participation by new businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, VCSEs and mutuals
    • Activities to identify opportunities to open up sub-contracts under the prime contract to a diverse range of businesses, including new businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, VCSEs and mutuals
    • Understanding of local demographics, needs and opportunities for the co-design of the goods, services and works to be delivered under the contract
    • Methods for engaging with different parts of the community (including the education system and charities representing the community) and how communities come together to inform decisions, strategy and projects to leave a positive legacy for future generations
    • Measures to involve local stakeholders and/or users in design (e.g. in the design of services, systems, products or buildings)
    • Plans for positive actions with community groups.

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at gary.connolly@craxel.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.