Towers Associates

Operational Management Tool - Self Service

Our operational management and automation tool is a self-service platform for developers, application owners and IT administrators that relieves the pains and delays of infrastructure management so they can spend more time on adding business value. Enabling you to build any application quickly with code repositories, performance dashboards and environments.

Features

  • A single interface to manage your hybrid-cloud environment
  • Self-service platform to get everything they need with ease
  • Standardisation and consistency on development with best practices
  • Automatically create monitoring dashboards for your applications
  • Management and visibility of overall IT spend / consumption
  • Enterprise Cloud Management Workflows
  • Central view on activities within a
  • SSO Authentication Integration
  • Support for teams and RBAC
  • Multi-cloud support / Cloud agnostic

Benefits

  • Reducing complexity to manage your hybrid-cloud
  • Catalog of services available for self-service provision
  • Audit trail of activities within your environment
  • Best practice enforced by default
  • Standardisation with the flexibility of integration options
  • Security enforced throughout the application lifecycle
  • Provision application resources without DevOps resources
  • Developers self-serve so they focus on business value
  • Automate up to 90% of your cloud admin tasks
  • Comprehensive billing capability

Pricing

£30 to £75 a virtual machine a year

  • Education pricing available
  • Free trial available

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 dfryer@towersassociates.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

3 9 3 0 8 7 7 7 0 7 7 2 4 1 4

Contact

Towers Associates Daniel Fryer
Telephone: +44 7771 802194
Email: dfryer@towersassociates.co.uk

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
What software services is the service an extension to
CMDB, VMware vCenter, Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Infrastructure Management and Monitoring Tools, TransitionManager
Cloud deployment model
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Community cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
Service constraints
N/A
System requirements
A virtual host (Windows or Linux)

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
4 hours, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, extended hours available
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
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
Yes, at an extra cost
Web chat support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support accessibility standard
None or don’t know
How the web chat support is accessible
Via web interface link
Web chat accessibility testing
None
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Standard
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, 4 hour response

Enhanced support can be requested, priced on request
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
Online training and User Documentation
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
There is an export function for data extraction
End-of-contract process
Data is exported and provided to the customer in the form of .csv file. Application is removed and virtual host is decommissioned.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
Application to install
Yes
Compatible operating systems
Windows
Designed for use on mobile devices
No
Service interface
Yes
User support accessibility
None or don’t know
Description of service interface
All services are accessible via an api
Accessibility standards
None or don’t know
Description of accessibility
Service can be accessed via a web browser or console, RBAC account management is used.
Accessibility testing
None
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
All services are accessible via api
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
PDF
API sandbox or test environment
No
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
Custom self service catalogue, customisation via scripts, custom reports, custom endpoints, additional custom features can be developed upon request using development credits

Scaling

Independence of resources
During on-boarding we rightsize the host and monitor performance to ensure no degradation of service

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
Full audit-able logs for all services, actions and user interactions on the platform
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

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
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
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
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • 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
A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Export to csv file
Data export formats
CSV
Data import formats
CSV

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)
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
For on-premise installations availability is managed in-house
for SaaS based delivery we offer 99.99+%

Service credits
Approach to resilience
Available on request
Outage reporting
Email alerts

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
RBAC used to restrict access
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 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
User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users have access to real-time 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
No
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
ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes
Major security events are escalated to the management board of the company via the information security officer, the information security managers role is to ensure that all information security processes are followed and adhered to

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
The components and elements of our service are controlled by a strict change control process where all changes are reviewed for risk, complexity and compliance. Changes are scheduled within agreed change management windows.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
Annual vulnerability assessment carried out by accredited third party, close alignment with NCSC guidance, patches are deployed within 28 days of disclosure
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
Active protection monitoring provided by a third party cloud hosting provider, response handled via security incident management process and initial response within 24 hours
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Any significant incident is assigned an incident manager through to resolution, users can report incidents via ticket system and once a major incident is declared regular reports will be provided via the incident manager

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
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

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Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 recovery

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Tackling economic inequality

Tackling economic inequality

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Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

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Wellbeing

Wellbeing

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Pricing

Price
£30 to £75 a virtual machine a year
Discount for educational organisations
Yes
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
Software plus basic wrap inc 30 day trial

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 dfryer@towersassociates.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.