VALCON GROUP UK LIMITED

Valcon's Informatica Master Data Management(MDM) Managed Service

Valcon's proven data delta approach to building a data platform is available as a managed service. We offer a standardised, technology-agnostic application and cloud reference architecture that can be applied to any customer objective or requirement, with the focus on delivering rapid business value.

Features

  • Standardised
  • Service Strategy and Design
  • Incident and Problem Management
  • 3rd Party Product/Supplier Management
  • Capacity and Availability Management
  • Change and Release Management
  • Application/Infrastructure Monitoring and Management
  • Product fixes, patches and upgrades
  • Service Management reporting and Planning
  • Informatica MDM Product/Service

Benefits

  • Rapid delivery of business value
  • Shared service evolution across customers
  • AWS ans Azure Hosted Models
  • DevOPS / ITIL Hybrid delivery model
  • Tailored incident portal with knowledge base integration
  • Best of breed tools for monitoring and alerts
  • Designated Service Lead
  • Cloud migration expertise
  • Rapid access to the wider Valcon services
  • Flexible and evolving Service Portfolio

Pricing

£500 a unit

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 stuart.mcdonald@valcon.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

2 3 7 9 7 3 1 9 6 9 9 9 7 5 5

Contact

VALCON GROUP UK LIMITED Stuart McDonald
Telephone: +44 (0)1795 415800
Email: stuart.mcdonald@valcon.com

Service scope

Service constraints
None
System requirements
Informatica Software Licences

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Responses are subject to the Service Level Agreement and the prioritisation matrix.
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
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Support is provided for the platform, data management tools and operational users (user support). A Technical Account Manager is provided.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
Training is provided onsite or online along with appropriate user documentation.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
This will need to agreed based on the service requirements.
End-of-contract process
At the end of contract, the data will be made available to the client at an agreed additional cost.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Using the web interface
Users are able to administer and configure the data management tools through the web-interface.
Web interface accessibility standard
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Web interface accessibility testing
We use the Atlassian product suite for the service interface. This is tested using a variety of screen readers and browsers.
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
All of our APIs are individual to our customers particular requirements.
API automation tools
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • OpenStack
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
Other
Command line interface
No

Scaling

Scaling available
Yes
Scaling type
Automatic
Independence of resources
All services are delivered using dedicated resources.
Usage notifications
Yes
Usage reporting
  • Email
  • Other

Analytics

Infrastructure or application metrics
Yes
Metrics types
  • HTTP request and response status
  • Number of active instances
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Conforms to BS7858:2019
Government security clearance
Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

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
Less than once a year
Penetration testing approach
‘IT Health Check’ performed by a Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
Protecting data at rest
Encryption of all physical media
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
A third-party destruction service

Backup and recovery

Backup and recovery
Yes
What’s backed up
Databases and Files
Backup controls
Backups are scheduled and not under the control of users.
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
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Other
Other protection between networks
Connectivity protection can be arranged to implement the required security level.
Data protection within supplier network
TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
We target 99.99% availability within service hours and 99.5% availability outside of service hours.
Approach to resilience
Available on request.
Outage reporting
Email alerts

Identity and authentication

User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Role based security restricts access in management interfaces and 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)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
Devices users manage the service through
  • 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 contact the support team to get audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
User-defined
How long system logs are stored for
User-defined

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
No
Security governance approach
ISO/IEC 27001 practices, working to accreditation.
Information security policies and processes
Valcon follows ITIL best practice, this document defines how ITIL is implemented in the Valcon process. The Service is defined at a level of detail to allow the high-level service objectives to be confirmed. Operating procedures which may evolve and change from time to time will be held separately as appendices or in the Runbook.

ITIL is a widely adopted approach for IT Service Management in many countries. It provides a practical framework for identifying, planning, delivering and supporting IT services to the business. (For more details see https://www.axelos.com/best-practice-solutions/itil )

ITIL is mapped in ISO 20000 Part 11. This recognizes the way that ITIL can be used to meet the requirements set out for ISO 20000 certification and the interdependent nature with ITIL. It’s the first such mapping that ISO (the International Organisation for Standardisation) has allowed to be part of their standards.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Changes are requested, authorised and recorded using a tracking tool. All changes to the service are tracked, with potential security impact being reviewed as a part of the authorisation stage.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
Threats are assessed based on alerts and review of relevant materials relating to the services, products and other components in-use for service delivery. Patches are deployed on a schedule determined by severity.
Protective monitoring type
Undisclosed
Protective monitoring approach
Compromises would be identified through review of abnormalities flagged in review of traffic/logs. The service in question will be checked and if necessary access suspended until integrity is assured. Monitoring is 24/7 with alerts.
Incident management type
Undisclosed
Incident management approach
Common events such as alerts for capacity or any form of loss of service are responded to according to a play-book approach. User report incidents in using email/web/telephone support channels. Incident reports are issued to affected users by email following any incident.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Supplier-defined process

Separation between users

Virtualisation technology used to keep applications and users sharing the same infrastructure apart
Yes
Who implements virtualisation
Supplier
Virtualisation technologies used
Red Hat Virtualisation
How shared infrastructure is kept separate
Virtual infrastructure is utilised, separate networks and machines are used to ensure that organisations are kept apart, no multi-tenant components are used.

Energy efficiency

Energy-efficient datacentres
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

"Valcon's Environmental Policy and Procedure is documented in the Employee Handbook. This document details the environmental policy that we employ to reduce any deleterious effect we may have on the environment.
- We conduct business in a manner which, as far as possible, has minimal adverse effects on the environment.
- We will maintain an awareness of all legislation, regulations and codes of practice on
environmental matters and take all reasonable actions to comply with them.
- We will, where viable and consistent with its clients and expectations, use materials and products from sustainable sources.
- We will maintain an open communication environment whereby all we can all actively participate in minimising adverse effects on the environment.

Valcon Group UK are a professional service organisation, with low carbon outputs, we encourage colleagues to minimise their footprint through the use of public transport. Valcon Group UK has recently renewed its CSR Strategy for the FY22 which includes its further commitment to Carbon Reduction.  We have engaged Carbon Managers Ltd to undertook a Carbon Footprint Report for the FY 2021 with a Decarbonisation Plan for FY 22+.

In addition, Valcon has signed up to the United Nations Global Compact."
Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 has affected everyone across our communities; it appears that the worst of the impact is over and the United Kingdom and global economies are opening up. To help local communities manage and recover from the impacts of COVID-19 Valcon have created employment and re-training opportunities. Valcon encourage our staff, suppliers and customers to support our communities where possible.

We have several initiatives and tools to support staff with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health support is available at all times to all of our staff and their families through our wellbeing provision, and where required we have programmes in place to tailor a gradual return to health and work following illness.

Valcon has had a flexible and remote/hybrid working philosophy in place before the Covid pandemic, and therefore our working practices have not had to adapt too much, but of course there are policies to support COVID-19 recovery to reduce demand on health and care services.
Tackling economic inequality

Tackling economic inequality

It is our policy to ensure equality of opportunity for all job applicants and to select people for employment on the basis of their individual skills, abilities, experience, knowledge and, where appropriate, qualifications and training. In line with the Equality Act 2010 we are committed to promoting equal opportunities and do not discriminate on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

We specifically have a Recruitment of ex-offenders policy; the aim of this policy is to state our approach towards employing people who have criminal convictions to ensure fair and equal treatment. Valcon undertakes not to discriminate unfairly against any job applicant who has declared a conviction or where a conviction has been identified through a criminal record check.
Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

Equal Opportunities Policy and Procedure - We are committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment, in line with the Equality Act 2010. You and any job applicants will receive equal treatment regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation (protected characteristics).

Recruiting, selecting and developing the right people is significantly important to the success of
Valcon. It is our policy to select people for employment, develop and promote people on the basis of their individual skills, abilities, experience, knowledge and, where appropriate, qualifications and training
and in so doing to ensure equality of opportunity for all job and career paths.
Wellbeing

Wellbeing

Valcon has a range of Wellbeing programmes in place and recognising the criticality and benefits of a healthy and supported workforce.  These programmes include a 24/7 Employee Assistance programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Professional speaker sessions on mental health awareness.   In the new model of home and hybrid working since 2020, various initiatives have been created to maintain and improve both mental and physical health when working remotely. This had included the setting up of desk yoga, mystery coffee meetups to allow colleagues to make sure they are taking break from the new working model and stay connected with each other. Additional Valcon invests in its people helping them to improve their skills and professional careers attaining the Investor In People level Silver.

Pricing

Price
£500 a unit
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
No

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 stuart.mcdonald@valcon.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.