Blacklight Software

Microsoft Azure

Blacklight work with Microsoft 365 to allow public sector organisations such as central and local government bodies, education, healthcare and social housing providers to improve collaboration and working processes.

Microsoft Azure offers a wide platform of specialist services from identity to AI.

Integrations with other systems allow for automated processes.

Features

• Web hosting
• API management and hosting
• Commuications Services
• AI and machine learning
• Generative AI
• IOT
• Identity Management
• Full configuration and customisation
• Document Recognition

Benefits

• Business Analysis, Development, UAT, Testing, Training, Go-live
• Microsoft Gold Partner
• Up-skill of internal staff
• One version of the truth through bi-directional integrations
• Improve collaboration and efficiency
• Save costs and time through automation
• Automatic Invoice Processing
• Full audit and governance capability
• Process integrations with line of business applications

£0 to £999.99 an instance a month

• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  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 Dylan.Hayes@blacklightsoftware.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

176685979020232

Contact

Dylan Hayes
01924640350
Dylan.Hayes@blacklightsoftware.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes
• What software services is the service an extension to: Blacklight Software build solutions upon the Microsoft 365 platform, including SharePoint, Teams, Exchange and associated services.
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: None applicable.
• System requirements:
  • Processor - 1.9GHz x86- or x64-bit dual core processor
  • Memory - 2-GB RAM
  • Display - Super VGA with a resolution of 1024x768
  • Bandwidth greater than 1MB per second (125 KBps/Kilobyte per second)
  • Latency under 150 ms
  • Windows 11 - Microsoft Edge/Edge Legacy, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome
  • Windows 10 - Microsoft Edge/Edge Legacy, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome
  • Latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Support Incidents are classified under the below levels depending on severity:; Priority 1: Critical,; Priority 2: Major,; Priority 3: Significant,; Priority 4: Minor.; ; The levels have the following response and resolve times:; Priority 1: 1 hour respond, 4 hours resolve;; Priority 2: 4 hours respond, 8 hours resolve;; Priority 3: 1 day respond, 5 days resolve;; Priority 4: 5 days respond, 10 days resolve.; ; Blacklight Help Desk operates between 8:00AM to 18:00PM Monday to Friday with 24/7 support available at extra cost.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• 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: Blacklight can tailor support levels to an organisation's support requirements. By default, incidents are assigned one of the below levels in our SLA depending on severity:; ; Priority 1: Critical - The system is unavailable for all users.; Priority 2: Major - The system is unavailable for some users and no workaround exists.; Priority 3: Significant - There is an issue which is impacting some users and no workaround exists.; Priority 4: Minor - There is an issue but users can workaround without impact.; ; The levels have the following response and resolution times:; Priority 1: 1 hour respond, 4 hours resolution;; Priority 2: 4 hours respond, 8 hours resolution;; Priority 3: 1 day respond, 5 days resolution;; Priority 4: 5 days respond, 10 days resolution.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Blacklight provide full transparency and in-depth communication through the life-cycle of the engagement. We provide on-site training and compliment this with further training documentation and training videos. Blacklight also prefer to be on-site for go-live to ensure a smooth transition to a business-as-usual system.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Data can be exported from Microsoft 365 at any point. Blacklight provide training on how to export data and can provide further assistance if required.
• End-of-contract process: Upon culmination of the contract, Blacklight can continue to provide services or aid the customer in the extraction of data or migration to another supplier.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • Android
  • IOS
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Microsoft 365 renders to fit all devices including desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile and is touch responsive.; ; Multiple mobile device apps are also available for specific service such as Team, SharePoint, Microsoft Lists, OneDrive, Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Description of service interface: Azure provides a rich range of service endpoints allowing access to data held within the solutions
• Accessibility standards: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Accessibility testing: Microsoft have carried out extensive testing to ensure that Microsoft Azure is accessible, more details can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/conformance-reports
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Microsoft Azure offers a rich and mature set of APIs. The Microsoft Azure APIs allows access to features and data within services such as Azure Virtual Machines for virtualized servers, Azure App Services for hosting applications, Azure Active Directory for identity management, Azure SQL Database for relational databases, Azure Cosmos DB for globally distributed databases, Azure Blob Storage for unstructured data storage, Azure Data Lake Storage for big data analytics, Azure Functions for serverless computing, Azure Logic Apps for task automation, Azure DevOps for software development, Azure Machine Learning for machine learning model management, and Azure Kubernetes Service for container orchestration and can be used to develop integrations and transfer data between other systems and Microsoft Azure. The Web API is implemented using RESTful APIs. More details can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/overview
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
  • PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Microsoft Azure is highly customisable, allowing organisations to adapt Microsoft Azure services to their needs. Blacklight can provide all levels of customisations and configurations from configuration of a Microsoft Azure service, to a fully managed service with bespoke applications.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Microsoft Azure is a cloud solution provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Azure solutions are hosted at secure Microsoft Azure Data Centers (Tier 5). Microsoft boast of an up time of 99.99%. The world-wide infrastructure of Microsoft Azure Data Centers operates at hyperscale and have proven able to scale to cope with surges in demand and ever-growing consumption.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Microsoft 365 provides various reports and analytics for monitoring usage metrics including activity reports.
• Reporting types:
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra features and support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Microsoft

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• 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
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Data can be exported from any time from Microsoft 365 in multiple different ways. Any document held within SharePoint and OneDrive can be synchronized to a local file system. Data held in other applications can be exported via administrative interfaces present in the services, or via programmatic methods such as scripting languages and APIs.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • ODF
  • Other
• Other data export formats: Microsoft Office formats
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • ODF
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • Integrations from other systems (APIs, scripting languages)
  • CSV Upload
  • Office document upload

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks:
  • Private network or public sector network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Other
• Other protection between networks: For data in transit, all customer-facing servers negotiate a secure session by using TLS/SSL with client machines to secure the customer data. Data is encrypted during transit and while at rest. This applies to protocols on any device used by clients, such as Skype for Business Online, Outlook, and Outlook on the web.
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Data is encrypted while in transit and also while at rest.

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Microsoft guarantee 99.9% availability for Microsoft 365. This is financially guaranteed by Microsoft who offer service credits if the Service Level is breached within a given month. These service credits are passed on to the customer by Blacklight.
• Approach to resilience: Microsoft ensure that resiliency and recoverability are built into their applications. Full information can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/assurance/assurance-data-resiliency-overview
• Outage reporting: Service outages are reported within Microsoft 365 in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Within the Admin Center the service health area can show users any planned maintenance and the current service health of their applications. Service health Instrumentation information can also be accessed via APIs.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
• Other user authentication: Users are authenticated through their Azure Active Directory account. Integration with other identity providers is also possible.
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Microsoft 365 provides granular user roles and security permissions. Administrator roles can be assigned to relevant users to restrict access to areas of the system.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• 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 have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: Between 6 months and 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: Other
• Other security governance standards: ISO 9001
• Information security policies and processes: Blacklight use security policies inline with ISO9001. This ensures that information security risk is controlled. The reporting structure follows the hierarchy to the board member responsible for security and governance.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Microsoft uses formal standard operating procedures (SOPs) governing the change management process. These SOPs cover both software development and hardware change and release management, and are consistent with ISO 27001, SOC 1 / SOC 2, NIST 800-53, and others. Blacklight uses ISO9001 configuration and change management procedures. Blacklight also utilise the ITIL framework and use tools such as DevOps for configuration and change management.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Microsoft continually monitor the threat landscape to look for new and emerging threats, and ensure the service is protected against these. Specific Azure services and applications are periodically updated at a regular cadence, but out of band updates may be made in response to critical threats, and updates and changes to the service are made on an almost continuous basis.; Microsoft provide access to the Microsoft Security Response Center that provides information to customers using Microsoft products.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Microsoft proactively monitors the security of applications against known threats. Alerts and warnings are also generated when an irregular event occurs.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Microsoft proactively monitors the performance of applications against acceptable service performance. Warnings are also generated when an irregular event occurs.

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: Yes
• Connected networks:
  • Public Services Network (PSN)
  • NHS Network (N3)
  • Joint Academic Network (JANET)

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Tackling economic inequality

  Fighting climate change

  We have engaged with local schools and colleges to provide careers advice to encourage underrepresented groups to consider IT careers. We have engaged with local schools and colleges to support the provision of IT curriculum topics.

  Tackling economic inequality

  We encourage the creation of a diverse workforce in our organisation which fully represents the diversity of the areas we are based in.

Pricing

• Price: £0 to £999.99 an instance a month
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Microsoft offer a free trial of Microsoft Azure. Blacklight can help customers who wish to make use of Microsoft's free trial of Microsoft 365.
• Link to free trial: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/free/

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  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 Dylan.Hayes@blacklightsoftware.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.