Softcat Limited

Azure Native Qumulo (ANQ) Scalable File Service

Azure Native Qumulo (ANQ) is an enterprise-grade, exabyte-scale, fully managed storage service co-developed with Microsoft to support enterprise file workloads in the cloud at comparable or even lower cost than on-premises storage.

Features

• Data services – real-time analytics, quotas, snapshots, replication
• Multi-protocol support - SMBv2.1, SMBv3, NFS3, NFSv4.1, S3, REST
• Integration with Azure services, AVD, Active Directory / LDAP, SAM
• Security: snapshot locking, data encryption, standards FIPS, HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2
• API library - fully automated storage management and automation
• Global Name Space: connect multiple instances to single data plane
• Nexus - single pane of glass management
• Replication: Easily move data in and out of the cloud
• Scalability - Petabytes and Exabytes in single namespace
• PAYG - No filesystem or API transaction fees

Benefits

• Seamless onboarding: ANQ is a natively integrated service on Azure
• Deployment: Deploy quickly from the Azure portal interface
• Multi-protocol support: ANQ supports all standard file system protocols
• Scale: ANQ can scale to exabytes of storage capacity
• Unified Billing: Single bill for resources consumed
• Performance: Deliver performance of a production primary tier on-demand
• Elastic Scaling: Consume capacity and performance independently of each other
• Private Access: ANQ directly connected to your own virtual network
• Global Namespace: All ANQ workloads can point to single namespace
• Data retrieval: Upto 5TB data retrieval per month no additional-cost

£0.01 a gigabyte a month

• Education pricing available
• Free trial 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 psitq@softcat.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

287400751468557

Contact

Charles Harrison
01628 403403
psitq@softcat.com

Service scope

• Service constraints: There are no specific constraints or maintenance arrangements. The Azure service has 12 9’s of data durability.
• System requirements: N/A

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: The response time is based on the severity level:; Severity 0 - Outage, data loss or corruption. (30 minutes. 24/7); Severity 1 - High business impact, but the file system is still functional. (1 hour. 24/5) ; Severity 2 - Bad bug, but a workaround is available. (2 hour. 24/5); Severity 3 - Poor user experience or annoyance. (6 hours. 24/5); Severity 4 - Cosmetic, other. (6 hours. 24/5)
• 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: Qumulo uses Slack Connect to share Slack channels between our workspace and yours, to enable you and your team to have live access to our Customer Success team for any Qumulo needs. The Qumulo Care team monitors the qumulocare Slack channel Monday-to-Friday, 24×5. If you are currently a Qumulo customer, the fastest way to reach us is by using your dedicated Slack channel.
• Web chat accessibility testing: Web chat uses Slack, who have done assistive techlogy development and continue to do so. It is not something we do indepenantly but rely on the software provider
• Onsite support: No
• Support levels: https://qumulo.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/SaaS-Subscription-Service-Level-Agreement.pdf
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Onsite training, Remote training and full documentation along with a slack channel support
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Data is availible after contract end. If this changes, then the process would be to copy the data out of the service before the end of contract
• End-of-contract process: Available on request

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: User can setup, make changes through the web interface.
• Web interface accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AAA
• Web interface accessibility testing: Automated testing through Axe
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Users access the API via a REST (8000) interface. There is a python library availible and automation application can leverage this library for all command line tools adminstation. There are no limitation in the admin from the API
• API automation tools:
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • OpenStack
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
  • Other
• Other API automation tools: Any
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: Other
• Command line interface: Yes
• Command line interface compatibility:
  • Linux or Unix
  • Windows
  • MacOS
• Using the command line interface: The qq CLI works with Python 3.8 to 3.11. on Linux, macOS and Windows ; ; All admin tasks can be completed through the CLI

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type: Automatic
• Independence of resources: Autoscaling
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • Email
  • Other
• Other usage reporting: Instant Messaging

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • Disk
  • Number of active instances
  • Other
• Other metrics:
  • Filesystem
  • IOPS
  • Throughput
  • File Auditing
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller (no extras)
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Qumulo

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Staff screening not performed
• 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: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: At least 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
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: A third-party destruction service

Backup and recovery

• Backup and recovery: Yes
• What’s backed up: Files via snapshot
• Backup controls: Via a snapshot policy.
• Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
• Scheduling backups: Users schedule backups through a web interface
• Backup recovery: Users can recover backups themselves, for example through a web interface

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: Other
• Other protection between networks: Dependant on the client (customers) operating system
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Azure uses industry-standard transport protocols like TLS/SSL to encrypt data during transmission, Qumulo users data at rest encryption

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Service-Level-Agreements-SLA-for-Online-Services?lang=1
• Approach to resilience: A physically separate location (like a datacenter) within an Azure Region that provides redundancy and reliability that protects you from a disaster like a flood that might impact the whole datacenter.
• Outage reporting: https://azure.status.microsoft/en-us/status

Identity and authentication

• User authentication: Other
• Other user authentication: This is User dependant, Qumulo use role based access control
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Role based access control
• Access restriction testing frequency: Never
• Management access authentication: Other
• Description of management access authentication: Role based access control based on a users authentication schema
• 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
  • 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 have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• 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: No
• 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: Please see our trust center at trust.qumulo.com
• Information security policies and processes: Please see our trust center at trust.qumulo.com

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Formal change management processes are in place for IT systems and Engineering/source control. Development environments are separated into dev, test, staging and production. Code reviews and unit tests are completed prior to code check-in. Certification testing is conducted prior to release. Changes to production customer environments require a ticket with non-implementor review and approval.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: We have a team that monitors industry and vendor vulnerability notification lists and quickly deploys patches to mitigate potential threats.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Our protective monitoring processes include proactive external and internal monitoring and protection, as well as relevant aspects of control environment, risk assessment, and information and communication.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Qumulo has established procedures for reporting and managing security incidents and a formal incident response plan in place.

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: No

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: The new Microsoft data center in Ireland already consumes approximately 50 percent less energy than a traditional data center of similar size and level of activity. Besides the EU Code of Conduct for Green Data Centers, this is possible due to a range of innovations, one being the use of outside air to cool the data center at almost zero cost. This provides dramatic environmental savings as artificial cooling normally consumes approximately 38 percent of the facility’s electricity consumption and 18 million liters of water per month. In addition, the latest generation of servers and 24/7 monitoring will help to create further energy savings.

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Softcat are dedicated to reducing our environmental impact and actively promoting sustainability. Our commitment to sustainability is a core aspect of our business strategy, driving us to innovate and lead in the creation of a more sustainable future for our company and the communities we serve. This commitment is embedded in our policies, operating procedures, and training programs.; ; We are proud to be the first FTSE 250 company to be awarded 5-star status in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. ; ; We aim to achieve a Carbon Net-Zero Value Circle by 2040 by prioritising renewable energy, reducing natural resource use, minimising waste, and safeguarding biodiversity in compliance with environmental legislation.; ; At Softcat, we have taken significant steps towards securing renewable energy across our organisation, reducing our scope 1 & 2 emissions. We had the target of using 100% Renewable Energy across all our locations by 2024. We successfully delivered against this target ~2 years early.; ; In May 2023 we took delivery of 15 electric vehicles, replacing all existing fossil-fuelled company cars used by employees for business means. The implementation of the EV pool fleet will see a saving of over 80 tons of CO2e per year. A huge impact on our Net Zero targets.

  Tackling economic inequality

  As a value-add reseller, Softcat outsources the products, services, and solutions through our extensive network of partners, to best suit the needs of our broad client base. We always consider and promote SMEs and local providers where appropriate, particularly for the products and services we offer via the G Cloud framework.; ; We remain dedicated to improving employability and educational awareness across schools, colleges, and universities to help break down the barriers to joining technology organisations.; ; We work collaboratively with many schools that are close in proximity to our offices, to ensure we are actively supporting the community as well as schools from lower socio-economic backgrounds. ; ; We visit the schools to talk about the IT sector and the roles in our organisation, as well as promoting work-experience opportunities during the summer. In particular, we actively encourage students from diverse backgrounds to engage in work experience to appreciate the roles available in our sector.; ; For ambitious school and college leavers, a Softcat Apprenticeship is a great first step into the world of work, with 94% of our apprentices offered a permanent position at Softcat post apprenticeships, which goes to show the amazing opportunity available with us.; ; We were ranked 1st in IT & Consultancy, and 10th overall in by RateMyApprenticeship.com - Best 100 Apprenticeship Employers 2023-2024 list.; ; Softcat now also offer 12 month paid internships to University students looking to complete a year in industry as part of their undergraduate studies.

  Equal opportunity

  Our approach to diversity and inclusion is introduced first during our induction training, as part of our Softcat values, outlining responsibility to uphold our principles. This message is reinforced by our process and policies, networks, Allyship Training and Inclusion Awareness campaigns.; ; Softcat supports diversity and inclusion through various networks including:; - Supporting Women in Business (SWIB); - The Ethnic and Cultural Network; - The Pride Network; - The Family Network; - The Empowering Disability and Neurodiversity Network (EDN); - The Faith at Work Network; - Armed Forces & Veterans Network; These networks aim to create a supportive and inclusive work environment for all employees, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, or family commitments.; ; Our allyship programme, Stronger Together, is a mixture of event and workshop-based training available to all staff. Programme topics include, bias, power, privilege, and being a greater ally. ; ; Inclusion Awareness campaigns include race, disability, sexual orientation, gender, faith, and caring responsibilities. These sessions highlight and celebrate minority groups, through panel sessions, Q&A sessions and training, providing an opportunity to discuss and understand ways to be more inclusive. ; ; Our efforts to improve diversity and inclusion have been incredibly successful. Since 2020, the number of female employees below management level has increased to 35%, and the number of ethnic minority employees rose to 17%.

  Wellbeing

  At Softcat, all employees are provided with access to our multidimensional wellbeing programme which includes flexible work arrangements, free nutritious breakfast, mental health support, employee benefits scheme, health and wellbeing week activities, and online workshops.; ; Giving back to the community is an innate part of who we are as a company. All Softcat employees are therefore given two volunteer days per year to support a charitable or community cause. ; ; Each of our 10 regional offices also support local charities through fundraising, donations and events. For example, our Manchester office has raised over £30,000 for the WeLoveMCR charity. This funding has supported young, disadvantaged Manchester citizens in gaining qualifications to broaden their work opportunities and supporting local groups in delivering indispensable services that enable community cohesion.

Pricing

• Price: £0.01 a gigabyte a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Yes. Free trial available, and is deployed directly from the Azure Portal.; After 7 days, metering/charging will begin.; To enquire about longer free trials, or to increase default performance limits, please email azure@qumulo.com.
• Link to free trial: https://qumulo.com/get-started/free-trial/

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