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Computacenter (UK) Ltd

Computacenter - IBM IBM Observability by Instana (SaaS for OFFICIAL)

IBM® Observability by Instana provides enterprise observability to improve application performance management and accelerate CI/CD pipelines no matter where applications reside – public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, on premises, IBM Z® and more. With IBM® Observability by Instana, users can combine APM with automation capabilities.

Features

  • Monitor any application, service or request with application performance monitoring
  • Automatic, Continuous, Real-Time Discovery of Your Full Application Stack
  • Full-Stack Tracing of Every Request facilitates troubleshooting/performance optimization
  • Immediate Root Cause Analysis of every service impact
  • Mobile to mainframe - end-to-end observability single solution
  • One Second Metric Granularity User and Website Monitoring
  • Dependency Map for Real-Time Performance Analysis Leverage AI
  • Powerful, easy-to-use data analytics

Benefits

  • Automate observability - Gain full observability in dynamic environments
  • Get data in context - real-time understanding of component impact
  • Utilize Artificial Intelligence. Understand all factors to resolve issues faster

Pricing

£22.67 a server a month

Service documents

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 government@computacenter.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

1 6 1 0 2 6 4 4 5 7 2 9 2 2 7

Contact

Computacenter (UK) Ltd Karen Baldock
Telephone: +44 (0) 1707 631000
Email: government@computacenter.com

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Community cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
Service constraints
Full system requirements can be found here: https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity/softwareReqsForProduct.html
System requirements
https://www.ibm.com/software/reports/compatibility/clarity/softwareReqsForProduct.html

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
24 x 7 access to the IBM technical support team through cases (online), telephone, and instant messaging chat. Response times (on all days) is based on the issue Severity that you assign; see "Support Levels" later for details.
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
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support
Web chat
Web chat support availability
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support accessibility standard
None or don’t know
How the web chat support is accessible
IBM Observability by Instana includes the following major accessibility features: - Keyboard-only operation. - Operations that use a screen reader. IBM uses the latest W3C Standard, WAI-ARIA 1.0 to ensure compliance to US Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. To take advantage of accessibility features, use the latest release of your screen reader in combination with the latest Internet Explorer web browser that is supported by this product. The IBM Observability by Instana online product documentation and the user interface framework is enabled for accessibility.
Web chat accessibility testing
Please refer to the IBM Accessibility Checklist at https://www.ibm.com/able/guidelines/ci162/accessibility_checklist.html
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
IBM provides three levels of support : Basic, Advanced and Premium. Basic does not specify response objectives. Advanced and Premium specify the following objectives for initial response times: ||| Severity 1 (critical business impact or service down) : Advanced = 1 hour, Premium = 15 minutes ||| Severity 2 (significant business impact) : Advanced = 2 hours, Premium = 1 hour ||| Severity 3 (minor business impact : Advanced = 4 hours, Premium = 2 hours ||| Severity 4 (query, or minimal business impact) : Advanced = 8 hours, Premium = 4 hours ||| ||| Premium also includes an assigned Technical Account Manager, and quarterly business reviews.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
IBM can engage with your users in a number of different ways: A free pre-sales engagement can be held with you before purchase, to help you understand the product and map out use cases. This is useful for product demonstrations and technical exploration. We have a number of Proofs of Technology and Proofs of Concept available, to help you explore. After purchase, IBM can offer a service engagement. These is a paid service, offered on a Time and Materials basis, that aims to help you plan and set up your software, both for the initial configuration and for the long-term. After purchase, as part of the support contract, IBM provides a wealth of FAQ and how-to articles at no extra charge. IBM also provides web chat and forums, thus enabling your users to engage with technical support at no extra charge.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
Upon termination or expiration of the Agreement IBM will either delete or return Client Personal Data in its possession as set out in the respective DPA Exhibit, unless otherwise required by applicable law. See The IBM Data Processing Addendum at http://www.ibm.com/dpa (DPA)
End-of-contract process
The term of the Cloud Service begins on the date IBM notifies Client of their access to the Cloud Service, as documented in the PoE. The PoE will specify whether the Cloud Service renews automatically, proceeds on a continuous use basis, or terminates at the end of the term. For automatic renewal, unless Client provides written notice not to renew at least 90 days prior to the term expiration date, the Cloud Service will automatically renew for the term specified in the PoE. For continuous use, the Cloud Service will continue to be available on a month to month basis until Client provides 90 days written notice of termination. The Cloud Service will remain available to the end of the calendar month after such 90 day period.

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
The web-based interface of IBM® Cloud Application Performance Management is the Cloud APM console. The Cloud APM console is the user interface for Cloud APM. This unified user interface provides a single view across hybrid applications. You use the console to view the status of your applications and quickly assess and fix performance and availability issues.
Accessibility standards
None or don’t know
Description of accessibility
IBM Observability by Instana includes the following major accessibility features: Keyboard-only operations, Screen reader operations, Command line interface (CLI) to manage the cluster. Use the latest version of a screen reader with IBM Observability by Instana. The IBM Observability by Instana user interfaces do not have content that flashes 2 - 55 times per second. The web UI relies on cascading style sheets to render content properly and to provide a usable experience. The application provides an equivalent way for low-vision users to use system display settings, including high-contrast mode. You can control font size in the device web-browser settings.
Accessibility testing
Observability by Instana uses the latest W3C Standard, WAI-ARIA 1.0, to ensure compliance with Section 508 Standards for Electronic and Information Technology and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
The IBM Observability by Instana web REST API allows for retrieval of data such as traces and metrics, as well as configuration, such as service extraction and user management. This API enables automatic reaction and further analysis of identified incidents as well as reporting capabilities. The IBM Observability by Instana Agent provides a web service API which accepts custom events, metrics, health checks and other event sources.
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
API sandbox or test environment
No
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
You can customise alert, logging and notification settings, create custom dashboards and change data retention policies (self-hosted only). Custom events and alerts can be created based on data and metrics. Users can customise within the website or using the API. Agents and sensors installed can be configured with configuration files. You can create different perspectives and groupings of service to create custom views and contexts. User access can be managed through role based access controls. IBM Observability by Instana provides a number of integrations, SDKs which can be used to combine and export data with other services.

Scaling

Independence of resources
The architecture of IBM Observability by Instana services maintains logical separation of client data. Internal rules and measures separate data processing, such as inserting, modifying, deleting, and transferring data, according to the contracted purposes. IBM plan for and monitor the IBM Observability by Instana service for multi hosting. We also offer a Service Level Agreement as set out in the attached Service Definition.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
IBM Observability by Instana comes with over 250 domain specific sensors. These include host CPU, IO and memory. Processes, pods and containers for kubernetes metrics. Call latency, errors and logs. End user calls include metrics such as email, location, resources accessed. All services and endpoints.
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Reseller providing extra support
Organisation whose services are being resold
IBM

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Other security clearance
Government security clearance
Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
Physical access control, complying with another standard
Data sanitisation process
No
Equipment disposal approach
In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Data can be exported via API or requested through the web UI. IBM Observability by Instana has integrations and SDKs with a number of other services and platforms.
Data export formats
Other
Other data export formats
Using web REST API and webhooks Via integrations and SDKs
Data import formats
Other
Other data import formats
Via host agent REST API Via integrations and SDKs

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Data protection within supplier network
Other
Other protection within supplier network
IBM Observability by Instana encrypts performance data at rest by default using the Advanced Encryption Standard.

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
The detailed IBM availability Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) for the Cloud Service is available here : https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/overview?topic=overview-zero-downtime#SLAs . The SLA is not a warranty. The SLA applies only to use in production environments. There is compensation available for dropping under a certain availability during a contracted month, as follows: ||| If the service is under 99.5% available during a single contracted month you are entitled to claim 10% of the cost of the service as compensation. ||| If the service is under 99.0% available during a single contracted month you are entitled to claim 24% of the cost of the service as compensation.
Approach to resilience
Available at request.
Outage reporting
Scheduled outages are agreed and planned with buyers via email. Unscheduled outages are notified via email alerts to named contacts provided by the buyers.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
IBM maintains individual role-based authorization of privileged accounts that is subject to regular validation. A privileged account is a duly authorized IBM user identity with administrative access to a Cloud Service, including associated infrastructure, networks, systems, applications, databases and file systems.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months
How long system logs are stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
BSI
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
28/04/2022
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
Our ISO/IEC 27001 certification relates to the information security management system and not the products or services of the certified organisation.
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
Yes
Who accredited the PCI DSS certification
Gemserv Ltd
PCI DSS accreditation date
22/09/2021
What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover
As per section 2a of the PCI-DSS certificate, there are no areas that were marked as ‘Not Included’. We therefore confirm we are compliant across all relevant requirements for our services as a Hosting Provider, Managed Services and Payment Processing.
Cyber essentials
Yes
Cyber essentials plus
Yes
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
  • CSA CCM version 3.0
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • Other
Other security governance standards
SOC 2 (L1)
Information security policies and processes
IBM has an Information Technology (IT) Security policy that establishes the requirements for the protection of IBM's worldwide IT systems and the information assets they contain, including networks and computing devices such as servers, workstations, host computers, application programs, web services, and telephone systems within the IBM infrastructure. IBM’s IT Security policy is supplemented by standards and guidelines, such as the Security Standards for IBM's Infrastructure, the Security and Use Standards for IBM Employees and the Security Guidelines for Outsourced Business Services. Such are reviewed by a cross-company team led by the IT Risk organization every six months. IBM has a dedicated Vice President of IT Security who leads a team responsible for IBM's own enterprise data security standards and practices. Responsibility and accountability for executing internal security programs is established through formal documented policies. IBM Services teams also have dedicated executives and teams who are responsible for information and physical security in the delivery of our client services.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Configuration and change management approach
IBM maintains policies and procedures to manage risks associated with the application of changes to its Cloud Services. Prior to implementation, all changes to a Cloud Service, including its systems, networks and underlying components, will be documented in a registered change request that includes a description and reason for the change, implementation details and schedule, a risk statement addressing impact to the Cloud Service and its clients, expected outcome, rollback plan, and documented approval by IBM management or its authorized delegate.
Vulnerability management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Vulnerability management approach
With each Cloud Service, as applicable and commercially reasonable, IBM will a) perform penetration testing and vulnerability assessments before production release and routinely thereafter, b) enlist a qualified and reputable independent third-party to perform penetration testing and ethical hacking at least annually, c) perform automated management and routine verification of underlying components’ compliance with security configuration requirements, and d) remediate any identified vulnerability or noncompliance with its security configuration requirements based on associated risk, exploitability, and impact. IBM takes reasonable care to avoid Cloud Service disruption when performing its tests, assessments, scans, and execution of remediation activities.
Protective monitoring type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach
"
IBM maintains and follows policies requiring administrative access and activity in its Cloud Services’ computing environments to be logged and monitored, and the logs to be archived and retained in compliance with IBM’s worldwide records management plan. IBM monitors privileged account use and maintain security information and event management policies and measures designed to a) identify unauthorized administrative access and activity, b) facilitate a timely and appropriate response, and c) enable internal and independent third party audits of compliance with such policies. IBM systematically monitors the health and availability of production Cloud Service systems and infrastructure at all times."
Incident management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Incident management approach
IBM: -maintains and follows incident response policies aligned with NIST guidelines for computer security incident handling, and will comply with data breach notification requirements under applicable law. -investigates security incidents, including unauthorised access or use of content or the Cloud Service, of which IBM becomes aware, and, if warranted, define and execute an appropriate response plan. -promptly notifies Client upon determining that a security incident known or reasonably suspected by IBM to affect Client has occurred. -provides Client with reasonably requested information about such security incident and status of applicable remediation and restoration activities performed or directed by IBM.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Social Value

Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

Fighting climate change

Computacenter ensures that our business practices deliver effective stewardship of the environment in line with the Social Value Model. Computacenter's science-based emissions reductions targets are approved with the SBTi. Our Net Zero Journey Group Emissions is now just 16% of 2015 levels as outlined in our carbon reduction plan to achieve ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions by 2040.

Business travel is necessary, both for our customer requirements and for our staff. We have materially reduced business travel, ensuring all business trips are necessary, helping reduce carbon emissions. We are investing in technology to allow greater use of existing communication platforms as part of our ‘hybrid working’ strategy. One of the key benefits we believe this will help us realise is reducing emissions from business travel by 35 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2019). For G-Cloud services this means that we will drive the use of virtual, technology-enabled meetings as much as possible for all internal and external sessions, including those with our wider supply chain.

Further to this we can provide customer advisory services which include guidance and recommendations on how to improve their sustainability performance to help inform customer decision making whilst achieving the desired commercial and technical outcomes through the services being provided.

Computacenter has introduced incentives to encourage the replacement of the existing Fleet with Ultra Low Emission Vehicles. We have 44 electric charging points across 2 of our locations to encourage the adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles, either through our company car scheme or privately. For this framework specifically, this means that our consultants, project managers and engineering resource will have access to a ULEV vehicle via our company car scheme and the ability to charge a vehicle at Computacenter office locations.

Covid-19 recovery

Throughout the pandemic we have closely followed and implemented government guidance relating to the workplace and COVID-19. We created a COVID-19 risk assessment to enable us to understand the improvements that need to be made to our workplace conditions in line with the Government COVID-19 secure workplace guidelines and the business advice that is now current. It looks at the risks of COVID-19 in the workplace, such as hygiene, & cleaning and then states what we must put in place to mitigate these risks.

As we enter the recovery phase of the pandemic, we have introduced hybrid working for our employees. This will allow most employees including those delivering G-Cloud services increased flexibility in how and where they work ensuring that we still deliver the best service to our customers whilst looking after our people.

Our COVID-19 steering committee is there to identify activities that will improve workplace conditions then plan, build and regularly monitor various programmes focused on supporting the COVID-19 recovery effort. At these meetings, chaired by our Chief People Officer (‘CPO’) Sarah Long, our CIO John Gibbs and Services operations, the steering committee discuss changes that need to be implemented, identify areas of improvement, and review our roadmap of new activities.
Throughout the life of the contract, we will use our existing activities (as well as those that are in development in due course) to continue to improve workplace conditions in support of the COVID-19 recovery effort.

Questions relating to travel were included in the COVID-19 surveys that were issued through the pandemic. The assessment highlighted concerns people had about public transport. To help all employees; managers were coached and given guidance about being flexible with start/finish times. We continue to adapt our approach based on feedback received through the steering committee and employee surveys.

Tackling economic inequality

As a diverse and inclusive organisation with a strong focus on equality and driving in-work progression, our approach to recruitment and employment is aligned to recognised industry best practices such as the 5 principles of quality work as set out in the Good Work Plan.

Our Employee Impact Groups for disadvantaged or minority groups provide representation, support, and community engagement, feeding into our People Panel ensuring all voices are heard, underpinning our wider ambition of building a sustainable business for the long term.

We put specific measures in place to provide opportunities to under-represented groups or those who face barriers to employment, including comprehensive outreach programmes for schools and universities, as well as partnerships with non-profit organisations within our communities. We continue focus on reaching harder to reach groups and people who are underrepresented in our sector by working with charities and schools in the local community to offer career talks and work experience opportunities. Our school outreach programme has over 130 volunteers dedicating over 2,600 hours running activities for employability and life skills in schools, colleges, and universities.

Computacenter is one of the 9 founding members of ‘Technology Community for Racial Equality’ (‘TC4RE’), a group set up to drive racial equality throughout the technology industry, with which we are delivering a half-day virtual event on ‘Enabling Ethnic Diversity’ featuring a series of expert keynotes, live panel discussions and interactive workshops with representation from across the UK technology community.

Furthermore, Computacenter are a silver level partner in the Armed Forces Covenant and has introduced a programme that provides the opportunity to attain a degree and ServiceNow certification whilst receiving full salary for armed forces leavers. This programme is the first of many programmes we intend on running to help ex-forces personal transition back into the workplace and the IT industry.

Equal opportunity

Computacenter is committed to providing equal opportunities to all through fair recruitment practices and employment conditions across our organisation.
We are a Disability Confident ‘Committed’ employer, committed to making lasting changes to our business creating a diverse talent pool. We work with partners through our community outreach, who are specialists in disability. An example is our work with Knightsfield School in Welwyn Garden City, a specialist school for deaf children.  We run at least 3 ‘get work ready’ events with them, as well as offer up to 4 work experience opportunities and onsite visits every year.

For this contract, we will use existing initiatives (as well as others that are in development) to provide career opportunities for individuals from under-represented groups to address requirements for specific skills or roles with a focus on increasing skillsets through the life of the contract. This will include apprenticeships aligned to security and cloud/infrastructure departments, as well as industrial placements and graduate schemes for our ServiceNow Centre of Excellence, with specific focus on delivering cloud-based services to our customers.

Our workforce for services delivered under this framework will have access to existing initiatives aimed at supporting in-work progression and development for those from disadvantaged/minority groups. For example, our gender diversity initiatives include our Growing Together programme, which over 150 women have been through so far, of which over one-third have been promoted or taken a new role within a year following the mentoring and coaching provided.

We are also committed to driving racial equality across our business and the wider technology industry. We are a founding member of ‘Technology Community for Racial Equality’ which recently delivered a half-day virtual event on ‘Enabling Ethnic Diversity’ featuring a series of expert keynotes, live panel discussions and interactive workshops with representation from across the UK technology community.

Wellbeing

We understand how important employee Wellbeing is for a sustainable business model, therefore we are committed to creating a sustainable supply chain. Ensuring the wellbeing of our employees are looked after will positively affect productivity, recruitment, and retention rates.

In November 2021, a designated UK wellbeing manager was appointed and has since launched our wellbeing strategy, which aligns with the Social Value Model and the 6 standards of the Mental Health at Work Commitment, signed in July 2021. We are actively implementing the enhanced mental health standards as recommended through the ‘Thriving at Work’ review, and NICE mental health at work guidelines, as part of our Wellbeing strategy. The strategy encompasses four pillars of wellbeing, mental, physical, financial, and social.  We are a Menopause friendly organisation and have created a support network for those in need.

We have 109 Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) accredited staff in the UK, trained by Mind, who act as Wellbeing Champions providing mental health first aid support and promoting our wellbeing services which those delivering G-Cloud service provisions will have access to. These champions are from every business area and from different seniority. We hold events throughout the year organised by our UK wellbeing manager and Champions, which have included celebrating World Mental Health days, Menopause awareness, financial wellbeing webinars and sponsored events to raise money for our mental health charity partners.

2021 also saw the launch of our new groupwide app-based programme ‘Be Well’ which gives our people access to over 3,000 fitness, nutrition, health and wellbeing courses through Humanoo. Through this app we have launched an extremely popular groupwide step challenge and has encouraged our people to be more active, with over 35% of our workforce now using the app and covering over 1.8bn steps so far.

Pricing

Price
£22.67 a server a month
Discount for educational organisations
Yes
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
Free 14 day trial of full version of the product. No credit card required
Link to free trial
https://www.instana.com/ibm-trial-form-step-one/

Service documents

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 government@computacenter.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.