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Six Degrees Technology Group Limited

Windows 365 Managed Service

Our Windows 365 (“W365”) Managed Service provides you management services for your Windows 365 Enterprise Cloud PCs which run in Microsoft 365. Please see the attached Service Description for more details.

Features

  • W365 infrastructure setup and configuration to Windows OS level.
  • Windows OS quality updates.
  • Managed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Service.
  • Break/Fix Support - investigating/resolving server-side problems with your W365 platform.
  • Change management support.

Benefits

  • Enable an effective Windows 365 solution for your users.
  • Access to specialist support for maintenance or guidance.
  • Delivered in-line with best practices.
  • Azure Expert MSP with awarded five Microsoft Solutions Partner designations

Pricing

£34.90 to £104.80 a unit a month

  • Education pricing 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 Publicsector.sales@6dg.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

4 2 9 9 5 6 5 1 6 6 5 0 2 2 0

Contact

Six Degrees Technology Group Limited Six Degrees' Public Sector team
Telephone: 08000128060
Email: Publicsector.sales@6dg.co.uk

Service scope

Service constraints
Please see attached Service Description for dependencies on this service.
System requirements
Please see Service Description for requirements to utilise this service.

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Dependant on incident/request and priority level - please see attached Service Description for details.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
WCAG 2.1 A
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Please see attached Service Description for support levels.
Support available to third parties
No

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
Please see a list of standard Service Implementation activities within the attached Service Description.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
  • Other
Other documentation formats
Online videos and interactive learning portals
End-of-contract data extraction
Customer are able to remove their data at any time through the same means they uploaded. Either over their network (internet or express route) or via the Azure Import/Export services. Also see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter/privacy
End-of-contract process
Please see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter/privacy/you-own-your-data. In our Online Services Terms, Microsoft contractually commits to specific processes when a customer leaves a cloud service or the subscription expires. This includes deleting customer data from systems under our control. If you terminate a cloud subscription or it expires (except for free trials), Microsoft will store your customer data in a limited-function account for 90 days (the “retention period”) to give you time to extract the data or renew your subscription. During this period, Microsoft provides multiple notices, so you will be amply forewarned of the upcoming deletion of data. After this 90-day retention period, Microsoft will disable the account and delete the customer data, including any cached or backup copies. For in-scope services, that deletion will occur within 90 days after the end of the retention period. (In-scope services are defined in the Data Processing Terms section of our Online Services Terms.) See http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/Downloader.aspx?DocumentId=13655

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Using the web interface
W365 can be accessed through supported modern web browsers.
Web interface accessibility standard
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Web interface accessibility testing
See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/
API
No
Command line interface
No

Scaling

Scaling available
Yes
Scaling type
  • Automatic
  • Manual
Independence of resources
W365 represents a hyper-scale public cloud service.
Usage notifications
No

Analytics

Infrastructure or application metrics
No

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 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
No
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 CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
  • Other
Other data at rest protection approach
See http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/D/D/0DD8FB12-6343-4A50-80B2-545F2951D7AE/MicrosoftAzureDataProtection_Aug2014.pdf , and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/storage-service-encryption
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
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
No

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, Azure uses industry-standard secure transport protocols, such as TLS/SSL, between user devices and Microsoft datacentres. You can enable encryption for traffic between your own virtual machines (VMs) and your users. With Azure Virtual Networks, you can use the industry-standard IPsec protocol to encrypt traffic between your corporate VPN gateway and Azure as well as between the VMs located on your Virtual Network.
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Other
Other protection within supplier network
ACL Based Network Security Groups are also used. See https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/network-security-groups/

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
See Microsoft's Online Service Terms at http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/Downloader.aspx?DocumentId=13655
Approach to resilience
Please see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/global-datacenters and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/
Outage reporting
Please see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/ and https://portal.azure.com/#blade/HubsExtension/ServicesHealthBlade

Identity and authentication

User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
Other user authentication
Azure Active Directory is Microsoft’s multi-tenant cloud based directory and identity management service. Azure-AD provides an affordable, easy to use solution to give employees and business partners single sign-on (SSO) access to thousands of cloud SaaS Applications like Office365, Salesforce.com, DropBox, and Concur. For application developers, Azure-AD lets you focus on building your application by making it fast and simple to integrate with a world class identity management solution used by millions of organizations. Azure-AD also includes a full suite of identity management capabilities including multi-factor authentication, device registration, self-service password management, self-service group management, privileged account management.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-whatis
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Azure-AD can designate separate administrators to serve different functions. These administrators will have access to features in the Azure portal and, depending on their role, will be able to create or edit users, assign administrative roles to others, reset user passwords, manage user-licenses, and manage domains, among other things. A user who is assigned an admin role will have the same permissions across all of the cloud services that your organization has subscribed to, regardless of whether you assign the role in the Office365 portal, or in the Azure classic-portal, or by using the Azure-AD module for Windows PowerShell.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-assign-admin-roles
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
Description of management access authentication
See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/role-based-access-control/manage-access-to-azure-resources
Devices users manage the service through
Dedicated device on a segregated network (providers own provision)

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 receive audit information on a regular basis
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
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
LRQA
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
03/10/2022
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
This relates to Six Degrees' own security accreditations, for our platforms and service. Microsoft have their own set of accreditations.
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
Yes
Who accredited the PCI DSS certification
IT Governance
PCI DSS accreditation date
08/11/2023
What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover
Only the physical and environmental security at the data centres we use in our operations were included in this assessment. The relates to the provision of the secure physical environment for the Colocation Services that Six Degrees provides to its clients. All other services provided by Six Degrees, internal systems supporting business operations or for other clients are specifically excluded from this assessment.

This relates to Six Degrees' own security accreditations, for our platforms and service. Microsoft have their own set of accreditations.
Cyber essentials
Yes
Cyber essentials plus
Yes
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
  • ISO 9001
  • ISO 22301
  • PSN Compliance Certified
  • SOC 1 Type 2
  • SOC 2 Type 2

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
  • CSA CCM version 3.0
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • Other
Other security governance standards
FACT, FedRamp, NIST 800-171, EU Model Clauses, Cyber Essentials Plus
Information security policies and processes
An Information Security Management Program has been established to enable Microsoft Azure to maintain and improve its management system for information security. Through establishment of the ISMS, Azure plans for and manages protection of its assets to acceptable security levels based on defined risk management processes. In addition, Azure monitors the ISMS and the effectiveness of controls in maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of assets to continuously improve information security.

The ISMS framework encompasses industry best-practices for information security and privacy. The ISMS has been documented and communicated in a customer-facing Information Security Policy, which can be made available upon request (customers and prospective customers must have a signed NDA or equivalent in place to receive a copy).

Microsoft Azure performs annual ISMS reviews, the results of which are reviewed by management. This involves monitoring ongoing effectiveness and improvement of the ISMS control environment by reviewing security issues, audit results, and monitoring status, and by planning and tracking necessary corrective actions.
Also see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/Compliance/ISO-IEC-27001 and The Microsoft Cloud Security Policy is available via the Service Trust Platform aka.ms/stp

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
Azure has developed 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 established regulatory guidelines including ISO 27001, SOC 1 / SOC 2, NIST 800-53, and others.

Microsoft also uses Operational Security Assurance (OSA), a framework that incorporates the knowledge gained through a variety of capabilities that are unique to Microsoft including the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL), the Microsoft Security Response Center program, and deep awareness of the cybersecurity threat landscape.
Please see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/SDL/OperationalSecurityAssurance and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sdl
Vulnerability management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Vulnerability management approach
When providing the Antimalware solution for Virtual Machines, Azure is responsible for ensuring the service is highly available, definitions are updated regularly, that configuration through the Azure Management Portal is effective and that the software detects and protects against known types of malicious software. MCIO-managed hosts in the scope boundary are scanned to validate anti-virus clients are installed and current signature-definition files exist.

Vulnerability scans are performed on a quarterly basis at a minimum. Microsoft Azure contracts with independent assessors to perform penetration testing of the Microsoft Azure boundary.
Protective monitoring type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach
Microsoft Azure employs sophisticated software-defined service instrumentation and monitoring that integrates at the component or server level, the datacentre edge, our network backbone, Internet exchange sites, and at the real or simulated user level, providing visibility when a service disruption is occurring and pinpointing its cause.

Proactive monitoring continuously measures the performance of key subsystems of the Microsoft Azure services platform against the established boundaries for acceptable service performance and availability. When a threshold is reached or an irregular event occurs, the monitoring system generates warnings so that operations staff can address the threshold or event.
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
Microsoft has developed robust processes to facilitate a coordinated response to incidents.
• Identification – System and security alerts may be harvested, correlated, and analysed.
• Containment – The escalation team evaluates the scope and impact of an incident.
• Eradication – The escalation team eradicates any damage caused by the security breach, identifies root cause for why the security issue occurred.
• Recovery – During recovery, software or configuration updates are applied to the system and services are returned to a full working capacity.
• Lessons Learned – Each security incident is analysed to protect against future reoccurrence.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Separation between users

Virtualisation technology used to keep applications and users sharing the same infrastructure apart
Yes
Who implements virtualisation
Supplier
Virtualisation technologies used
Hyper-V
How shared infrastructure is kept separate
Please see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/TrustCenter/Security/default.aspx

Energy efficiency

Energy-efficient datacentres
Yes
Description of energy efficient datacentres
Please see https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/environment/energy

Social Value

Social Value

Social Value

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

Fighting climate change

We have an established environmental committee that is specifically focussed on ensuring that we apply an approach of continuous improvement in relation to environmental compliance and good practice. As part of our environmental commitments, we are aligned to ISO 14001(Environmental Management) and have a published Carbon Reduction Plan on our website, which was measured and recorded in accordance with GHG Protocols and Procurement Policy Note 06/21.

We will be reviewing our footprint on an annual basis and carrying out actions identified to reduce our footprint. We are committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050 at the latest. During this time, targets will be set for the remaining period to ensure Net Zero will be achieved by our target date. We are aiming to reduce our absolute carbon emissions by at least 90% from our baseline year or achieve (and maintain) a carbon intensity metric of <1 tonne CO2e per employee, whichever comes soonest. This is in line with science-based Net Zero targets.

Our largest environmental burden is the use of power in our datacentres. We use technology designed specifically to manage power consumption. We are very proud to have switched our data centres fully to use green and renewable energy.

Our focus on environmental performance as a supplier under this framework will benefit you as you strive to achieve your own Net Zero targets.

As a leading Microsoft partner, we can work with Microsoft to help you understand the carbon footprint for your existing estates, and how a transition to hybrid/public cloud could help reduce it. As part of any agreement under this framework we can also engage with your local communities to promote environmental awareness or engage in projects that benefit the environment.

Tackling economic inequality

Six Degrees supports this theme in several ways. Firstly, by working with local communities to provide mentoring and job opportunities. We take pride in employing local people and offering new opportunities as they arise. We do this through our internal Talent Acquisition (TA) team, who are actively building richer and deeper contacts within the local community to raise aspirations of people from all backgrounds.

We seek to encourage local people to work within the technology sector by removing barriers to entry, for example through behavioural interviewing with objective behaviours that actively seek to remove bias (unconscious or otherwise) in recruitment and individual development discussions. Our TA team partner with local universities, schools and colleges to support careers fairs and our subject matter experts provide talks on IT or cyber security to local students.

We are also very passionate about our ‘Women in Tech’ group, which seeks to encourage women into IT through all sorts of activity, such as webinars, school visits and other events. We are continuously planning new events and initiatives under this scheme, which we could then offer to buyers and their community as part of engagements on this framework.

Secondly, we will tackle economic inequality and the digital skills gap through creation of new skills & jobs in the high-growth cyber security sector. Our cyber apprenticeship programme, sponsored by our People Business Partner & Cyber Consultancy Director, provide skills and accreditations that enable our people to progress in cyber security or transition into that space.

We also run in-person events, known as ‘Cyber University’, as an education scheme for our Buyers based on our extensive knowledge and experience in Cyber Security. Cyber University provides an open forum for customers to create new skills in Cyber Strategy, best practice approaches and the latest in Cyber Security.

Equal opportunity

We recognise that people are more likely to be engaged and productive if they are rewarded fairly and offered flexibility to help achieve a positive work life balance. We therefore pay at the Real Living Wage in all of our roles, and remain committed to our ongoing pay review process to ensure all our employees are fairly rewarded. Six Degrees also has a continuous focus on closing the gender pay gap in our company, with our latest report available on our website.

We recognise that females are underrepresented in education, training and employment related to STEM. To combat this, we have introduced several strategies to bring new females into the organisation. These include our engagement with schools, colleges, and universities to raise the aspirations of females toward tech. Our goal of ensuring every recruitment shortlist contains as least one female, and our offer of a guaranteed interview for every shortlisted female.

We have collaborated with the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (ENEI), achieving a bronze TIDE Award in our first two years of collaboration. Through our continued devotion to improving, we were awarded a silver status in 2023. Through this partnership we have focused our work around seven critical areas of inclusion – our workforce, our strategy and plan, leadership and accountability, recruitment and attraction, training and development, employment practices, and communication.

We have zero tolerance to slavery in any form, but by no means limited to, bonded labour, debt bondage, serfdom, forced labour, child slavery, marital slavery, sexual slavery and/or human trafficking. We expect all those in our supply chains to comply with our values and the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which is governed by our Supplier Management and Sustainable Procurement Policy.

Wellbeing

Supporting our workforce’s health and wellbeing is crucial to Six Degrees. We have established an employee network, known as the 360 Degrees Group, which is made up of people who are passionate about making a difference from across all different business units, with an Executive-level sponsor and SLT-level sponsors for each sub-group or initiative. The initiatives include:

- Including Everyone, Everywhere: Our forum which focuses on diversity and inclusion: it’s about creating a Six Degrees where everyone feels able to bring their truest self to work.

- Healthy Minds, Healthy Lives: Our forum for mental health and general wellbeing. A healthy mind and body is at the core of being happy and productive at work and at home.

- For The Benefit of Others: There’s something that touches, motivates or inspires all of us; this is a forum which focuses on charity fundraising, on making a positive mark on the communities which Six Degrees touches, and on making this a greener place to work.

We operate a well-being calendar led by Healthy Minds, Healthy Lives and also have certified Mental Health First Aiders across the business, demonstrating our commitment to providing our workforce with wellbeing support.

We have a significant focus on building awareness and promoting dialogue around health and wellbeing: our Women in Tech committee talks about female health, and for June (Men’s Health Awareness Month) they will be promoting awareness of men’s health, for example testicular and prostate cancers.

Under the 3rd initiative we actively encourage community engagement through numerous social value activities. These include collaborative and individual fundraising projects for our partnership with Macmillan as well as promoting events within communities. In 2019 we sponsored the Women in IT awards and have also sponsored a Tough Mudder charity event.

Pricing

Price
£34.90 to £104.80 a unit a month
Discount for educational organisations
Yes
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 Publicsector.sales@6dg.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.