Fordway

Azure Virtual Desktop Management

Fordway’s Azure Virtual Desktops ensures operational requirements are cohesively managed for all virtual desktops. Including the underlying infrastructure, desktop configuration and security. Pro-active management is via dashboards and alerting to ensure environment is running smoothly. Monthly meetings and reports will highlight and mitigate issues. Continuous Service Improvement will be applied

Features

• Operation and Management of entire Virtual Desktop estate
• Align virtual desktop performance and service levels with business needs
• Unique AVD environment with network security and appropriate connectivity
• Patching and Updates performed automatically
• 24/7/365 service monitoring and support
• Operational dashboards on key components
• Host pool creation and management
• Backups of configurations and devices to agreed policies and retention
• Performance monitoring
• Fast provisioning/support with no on-site re-builds

Benefits

• Ensure your Virtual Desktop Environment delivers real business benefits
• 24/7/365 service support and management
• Can also provide 24/7/365 security management
• Independent operation and management, working for clients best interests
• Experienced personnel, with real-world business/strategy/technical knowledge
• Enhances Zero Trust Networking with no data on devices
• Higher performance as applications, data and user all in cloud
• Multi-years of operating various virtual desktop solutions
• Automatic updates and patching of machines in downtime
• Third party add-ins/management for really complex requirements (e.g. Citrix)

£15 to £45 a device a month

• Education pricing 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 tenders@fordway.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

180593147956798

Contact

Richard Blanford
01483 528200
tenders@fordway.com

Service scope

• Service constraints: None
• System requirements: MS Azure subscription required - Fordway can provide this

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Priority 1 incident 24 x 7, 15 minute response. ; Priority 2 incident 24 x 7, 1 hour response Priority 3 incident 12 x 5, 4 hour response.
• 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: Through the Fordway Customer Portal
• Web chat accessibility testing: Tested and works with JAWS for visually impaired users
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: The services are supported 24x7x365 by Fordway's Service Desk to assure service availability. Fordway has a standard SLA that details response times which can be tailored to customer needs. Additional support options and services can be added to the standard support levels.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Fordway will review the current desktop estate, plus the usage of devices for work. Then determine the best type of virtual desktop solution to deploy. Fordway will build the infrastructure, manage the migration and cut over the existing desktops and policies to the new virtual desktops. Also training the users on how to use the new services, from any device. Fordway will also improve the security posture whilst configuring the virtual desktop solution.; ; Fordway can operate and manage the entire virtual desktop infrastructure on behalf of the customer, ensuring pro-active dashboards and reporting/alerting and issues being raise/resolved by our 24/7/365 service desk.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Fordway have an exit procedure where we work with the customer to exit or migrate away from this services, depending on the configuration of the solution. Data is held for 30 days following service termination, within this period it can be copied to other cloud services, physical devices shipped to Fordway's datacentres or supplied on agreed media.
• End-of-contract process: Fordway have an exit procedure where we work with the customer to exit or migrate away from this service, depending on the configuration of the solution. This exit procedure will include any data, performance statistics and service records as described within the contract along with any associated costs. Process requirements are detailed in the Service Description. There are no termination costs, data migration may be charged.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: Supported browsers:; • Internet Explorer 7; • Internet Explorer 8; • Internet Explorer 9; • Internet Explorer 10+; • Microsoft Edge; • Firefox; • Chrome; • Safari 9+; • Opera
• Web interface accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 A
• Web interface accessibility testing: Supports all assistive technologies supported by the base browser
• API: No
• Command line interface: No

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type: Automatic
• Independence of resources: Each customer has guaranteed resources which are assigned and allocated when the agreement is set up
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • API
  • Email

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • HTTP request and response status
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
• 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: Conforms to BS7858:2019
• Government security clearance: Up to Security Clearance (SC)

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: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
  • Hardware containing data is completely destroyed
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Backup and recovery

• Backup and recovery: Yes
• What’s backed up:
  • Logs retained to up to 365 days, defined by client
  • Core service fully resilient across 2 UK datacentres
  • Snapshot recovery for immediate data restoration
  • Backup data copied to second datacentre
• Backup controls: Customer IT and administrative staff can request logs for individual analysis on request
• Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
• Scheduling backups: Supplier controls the whole backup schedule
• Backup recovery: Users contact the support team

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
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
• Other protection between networks: Disclosed on request to prospective buyers
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Disclosed on request.

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Fordway provide a standard SLA, dependent on the service resilience purchased, with availability up to 99.95% measured annually; 99.9% any quarter. Fordway recompense users with a credit of 2.5% of the monthly service contract value for each working hour the service has not met the SLA, up to a maximum of 20% of the monthly service charge.
• Approach to resilience: This service is fully resilient with all core processing hosted across multiple private and public cloud instances in separate availability zones
• Outage reporting: The service operates under Fordway's standard SLA appropriate to the specified service resilience level. Any service outages will be reported as per the SLA, which will be tailored to the customer's requirements. SLA performance and outage are reported into the Customer dashboard, email alerts can be configured where requested or required by the client

Identity and authentication

• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google apps)
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: By customer request. Customers gain access to manage services through the Customer Portal, management interfaces are not normally exposes to clients. There are no restrictions on support channels.
• 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)
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Devices users manage the service through:
  • Dedicated device on a segregated network (providers own provision)
  • Dedicated device on a government network (for example PSN)
  • Dedicated device over multiple services or networks
  • Any device but through a bastion host (a bastion host is a server that provides access to a private network from an external network such as the internet)
  • Directly from any device which may also be used for normal business (for example web browsing or viewing external email)

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users receive audit information on a regular basis
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users receive audit information on a regular basis
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 14/03/2022 (recertification) original certification March 2008
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: ISO27001/27017/27018 Scope of certification available on request
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • List N (Nuclear Industry)
  • PSN Code of Connection and Compliance
  • PAS555
  • NHS IGSoC
  • ISO27017
  • ISO27018

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: All security management and reporting is defined by and run to Fordway's ISO27001, ISO27017 & ISO27018 procedures, which are externally audited for compliance.

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: Fordway change and configuration process aligns with ITIL v3.0 and ISO27001 and ISO20000.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Fordway's risk management aligns with ISO27001.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: Fordway's security incident and event monitoring conforms to ISO27001 and DPA requirements. Any incident will be assessed for risk and prioritised accordingly.
• 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: Fordway's incident management process complies to ISO27001:2013 and aligns to ITIL best practice and ISO20000. Incident management and reporting is defined within Fordway's standard SLA and tailored to customer requirements.

Secure development

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

Separation between users

• Virtualisation technology used to keep applications and users sharing the same infrastructure apart: Yes
• Who implements virtualisation: Third-party
• Third-party virtualisation provider: Azure
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: A defined client monitoring security domain ('bubble') or number of domains, as appropriate, is created for each client within their Azure subscription, allowing client-specific security policies to be set up. The security domains can span multiple datacentres. Each client's monitoring and SIEM instances are then configured in the security domain.

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: Both our providers facilities are registered on the EU Datacentres European Energy Efficiency Platform (E3P), link here: https://e3p.jrc.ec.europa.eu/communities/data-centres-code-conduct.

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  Fighting climate change

  Fighting climate change

  Using Cloud offers considerable efficiency and consumption savings compared to running in house, on premises and hosted environments

Pricing

• Price: £15 to £45 a device a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: No

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