UKCloud for Microsoft Azure Elevated OFFICIAL
Our Azure based public cloud is designed for the UK Public Sector, and is compliant with GDPR and suitable for Azure OFFICIAL workloads, based in UK Crown hosting datacentres ensures Azure data sovereignty. Our Azure service is on-demand, flexible, billed by the hour, and with full support free of charge.
Features
- Range of service levels, Azure VM sizes and licencing options
- Build and configure VMs via Azure selfservice portal & API
- On demand. Billed by the hour for Azure resources used
- Azure Platform spans two UK datacentres separated by over 100km.
- 24/7 Azure service desk included standard with SLA response times
- Azure connected to internet, PSN, N3/HSCN, Janet via UKCloud
- Based on Microsoft AzureStack, an extension of Microsoft Azure
- UK hosted by SC and NPPV cleared personnel. Azure alternative
- The Azure service is aligned with NCSC Cloud Security Principles
- Azure technology available from a trusted UK sovereign provider
Benefits
- Configure the Azure solution that is right for your application
- Get the Azure resources you need, when you need them
- Enabling cost savings by controlling Azure VM power states
- Architect Azure solutions confident that applications and services remain available
- Full 24/7 Azure support free of charge
- Choose the right network to connect your Azure solution to
- Use Azure technologies to de-risk your cloud transition and management
- Have confidence in who supports your Azure VMs and data
- Azure on a cloud that aligns with NCSC best practice
- Use Azure without the risk of data leaving the UK
Pricing
£0.04 a virtual machine an hour
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 13
Service ID
4 7 4 5 4 5 9 2 2 9 3 3 1 6 7
Contact
Clarity Tech Ltd
Faiz Ahmad
Telephone: 02030062813
Email: faiz@claritytech.org
Service scope
- Service constraints
- Based on setup
- System requirements
- Based on customer requirements
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
- Tickets are responded to on a priority basis. We aim to respond to ALL initial questions within 15 minutes during normal business hours and High Severity tickets will be answered 24/7
- 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
- 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
- Slack is accessible via any web browser that supports HTML5 and is also accessible programmatically via its API. Alternatively, Slack can be used via its own desktop client.
- Web chat accessibility testing
- None
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
- UKCloud's standard support includes Customer Success Managers, Technical Account Managers, Support Engineers and a 24/7 Network Operations Centre. We aim to respond to ALL incidents and requests within 15 minutes 24/7, with a priority on resolving P1 incidents.
- Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
- All new customers are assigned a Customer Success Manager that will provide proactive support and advise for the first 90 days. This also includes the assistance from devops and cloud architects to ensure the right solution is provisioned and maximised for the workloads, along with a range of user guides.
- Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
-
- HTML
- ODF
- Other
- Other documentation formats
-
- Video
- Audio
- Webinars/Webex
- Presentations
- End-of-contract data extraction
- The customer has complete autonomy of how data is stored and managed within their virtual environment. Data can be extracted either from within the VM (for example, copying data over virtual networks), or the entire VM (for example, exporting as a VMDK or OVF).
- End-of-contract process
- We will return all your data and materials which cannot be deleted or exported by you, and securely destroy all copies of your data on your written instruction. We will return any pre-paid sums for services not delivered to you. We will not penalise you for terminating your contract with us unless specifically stated in the Service Definition. We will also return all of your confidential information, unless there is a legal requirement that we keep it.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Using the web interface
- We provide a control panel allowing users to provision, manage and decommission various aspects of this service. It also allows users to interface with the UKCloud service management system including raising tickets and requests. The web interface also provides access to a comprehensive set of documentation and videos. Launch, manage and delete virtual network, compute and storage resources. Display network topology. Manage images including creation and recover of backups. Control access and security including key pairs, API access and floating IPs. Manage load balancers.
- Web interface accessibility standard
- None or don’t know
- How the web interface is accessible
- The web interface is accessible using the most common web browsers and is delivered over various public and private networks including the internet, PSN, N3/HSCN and Janet. The web interface is protected by standards-based encryption, two-factor authentication and optionally IP address restrictions. The web interface is entirely HTML5 and does not require any auxilary plug-ins, therefore the web interface is accessible by any modern day desktop or mobile internet browser able to support secure HTTPS connections.
- Web interface accessibility testing
- None
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
- You can use API calls to create, manage and monitor Service Requests and view information about the components of your environment. We provide native access to underlying APIs such as Microsoft Azure Stack. These are compatible with opensource tooling such as Terraform and Microsoft tooling such as Visual Studio.
- API automation tools
-
- Ansible
- Chef
- SaltStack
- Terraform
- Puppet
- Other
- Other API automation tools
-
- Jenkins
- Docker
- Azure Resource Manager
- API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
-
- Open API (also known as Swagger)
- HTML
- ODF
- Other
- Command line interface
- Yes
- Command line interface compatibility
-
- Linux or Unix
- Windows
- MacOS
- Using the command line interface
- Customers can fully manage their virtual infrastructure resources including compute, storage and networking, including management of virtual images, programmatically or manually via the CLI
Scaling
- Scaling available
- Yes
- Scaling type
-
- Automatic
- Manual
- Independence of resources
- In order to guarantee that users are not affected by the demands from other users, we use reource reservations and shares such as internet bandwidth shaping. In addition, the capacity planning team ensure that usage in terms of all resources are constantly monitored and increased accordinglty relating to user demand.
- Usage notifications
- No
Analytics
- Infrastructure or application metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
-
- CPU
- Disk
- Memory
- Network
- Number of active instances
- Other
- Other metrics
-
- IP Management
- User quotas
- Reporting types
-
- API access
- Real-time dashboards
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Reseller providing extra support
- Organisation whose services are being resold
- UKCloud
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
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- 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 every 6 months
- Penetration testing approach
- ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
- Protecting data at rest
-
- Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
- Other
- Other data at rest protection approach
- Customers are encouraged to protect their own data using encryption technologies where only they have the decryption key. In this way, our customers are assured that their data can never be accessed by a third party.
- 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
- 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
- Bonded fibre optic connections
- Other
- Other protection between networks
-
We offer the choice of connecting:
• Via the internet using additional encryption such as TLS 1.2
• IPSec VPN tunnels
• Via private networks such as leased lines or MPLS
• Via public sector networks such as PSN, N3, Janet - Data protection within supplier network
-
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Other
- Other protection within supplier network
- We use dedicated CAS-T circuits between each of our sites to ensure the protection of customer data in-flight. We additionally encrypt this data within our Elevated OFFICIAL platform. All data flows are also subject to our protective monitoring service.
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
- 99.90% for a single VM deployed as a single instance, or 99.95% for a single VM with two instances deployed
- Approach to resilience
- Our service is deployed across a number of sites, regions and zones. Each zone is designed to eliminate single points of failure (such as power, network and hardware). Customers are encouraged to ensure their solution spans multiple sites, regions or zones to ensure service continuity should a failure occur.
- Outage reporting
- All outages will be reported via the Service Status page and the notifications service within the UKCloud Portal. Outages are identified as Planned maintenance, Emergency maintenance, and platform issues. In addition, the designated Technical Account Manager will proactively contact customers as appropriate.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Limited access network (for example PSN)
- Other
- Other user authentication
- For online systems (e.g. Customer Portal & API interfaces), all users are required to have a unique username, password and memorable word combination. Customers may also use 2FA authentication tokens.
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- Customers have the option to raise a support request via telephone or email. UKCloud will always authenticate the identity of the user by validating known phone numbers and asking them for specific characters within their pre-agreed memorable word. The management interfaces are only available on the UKCloud network.
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
- 2-factor authentication
- 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 contact the support team to get audit information
- How long user audit data is stored for
- Between 1 month and 6 months
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get audit information
- How long supplier audit data is stored for
- Between 1 month and 6 months
- How long system logs are stored for
- Between 1 month and 6 months
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- Yes
- Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
- Lloyds Register (LR)
- ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
- 8th May 2012
- What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
- Nothing
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- Yes
- CSA STAR accreditation date
- 28th October 2016
- CSA STAR certification level
- Level 1: CSA STAR Self-Assessment
- What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover
- Level 1: CSA STAR Self-Assessment
- PCI certification
- No
- Cyber essentials
- Yes
- Cyber essentials plus
- Yes
- Other security certifications
- Yes
- Any other security certifications
-
- ISO27018
- Cyber Essentials
- Cyber Essentials Plus
- ISO9001
- ISO20000
- ISO27017
- CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers Europe) Code of Conduct Certification
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
- CSA STAR, ISO27001, ISO27017, ISO27018 and ISO20000
- Information security policies and processes
- UKCloud has a number of inter-connected governance frameworks in place which control both how the Company operates and the manner in which it delivers cloud services to its customers. These have been independently assessed and certified against ISO20000, ISO27001, ISO27017 and ISO27018 by LRQA, a UKAS accredited audit body. The Company is governed by an integrated suite of information security policies. Under the top level Information Security Policy itself are second-level documents with specific focus on Acceptable Use, Antivirus Protection, Asset Management, Business Continuity Management, Data Protection, Password Management, Personnel Management, Supply Chain Management and many others.
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
- UKCloud has documented configuration and change management policies and processes, which have been implemented, maintained and assessed in accordance with the guidance from ITIL v.3 and the current ISO20000 standard. Formal configuration management activities, including record management and asset reporting, are monitored and validated constantly, and any identified discrepancies promptly escalated for investigation. A robust, established process for the formal submission of change requests is mandated prior to review and approval of the daily Change Advisory Board, which is attended by a quorum of operational and technical management personnel.
- Vulnerability management type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Vulnerability management approach
- UKCloud has a documented vulnerability management policy and process, which have been implemented, maintained and assessed in accordance with the guidance from ITIL v.3 and the current ISO20000 and ISO27001 standards. Where technically possible, real-time updates and status reports are identified and sourced from credible vendor sources, which cover a significant proportion of UKCloud’s asset population. For other systems and software, assigned personnel have responsibility for regularly reviewing technical forums and specialist groups to promptly identify and evaluate any emerging patches or updates which require our attention.
- Protective monitoring type
- Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Protective monitoring approach
- Following best practice from the National Cyber Security Centre, UKCloud protects both its Assured and Elevated platforms with 24x7 enhanced protective monitoring services, vulnerability scanning and assessment. Our approach to protective monitoring at minimum meets the Protective Monitoring Controls (PMC 1-12) outlined in NCSC document GPG13 (Protective Monitoring for HMG ICT Systems). It includes checks against systems events (SIEM) and network traffic analysis, including time sources, cross-boundary traffic, suspicious activities at a boundary, network connections and status of backups. Any alerts generated are logged and investigated 24x7.
- 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
- UKCloud has a documented incident management policy and process, which have been implemented, maintained and assessed in accordance with the guidance from ITIL v.3 and the current ISO20000 and ISO27001 standards. This activity is responsible for the progression of alerts generated by automated monitoring systems, issues identified by UKCloud personnel, and incidents identified and reported to UKCloud by its customers and partners. All incidents are promptly reported into a central ticketing system, which ensures that each is promptly assigned to an appropriate resource, and its progress tracked (and escalated, as required) to resolution.
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
- Other
- Other virtualisation technology used
-
We use Microsoft Azure Stack provided by Microsoft as an extension to their Azure public cloud.
Using Microsoft - How shared infrastructure is kept separate
- At the compute/storage layer, consumers are separated via robust hypervisor controls based on Microsoft Azure Stack technology. This solution is regularly tested via regular independent IT Security Health Checks conducted by a CHECK service provider.
Energy efficiency
- Energy-efficient datacentres
- Yes
- Description of energy efficient datacentres
- UKCloud’s services are CarbonNeutral® cloud services. We achieved this certification by working with Natural Capital Partners to measure and reduce our CO2 emissions across all sources used to deliver our cloud services to our customers. These include direct emissions from all owned or leased stationary sources that use fossil fuels and/or emit fugitive emissions, and emissions from the generation of purchased electricity and steam (including transmission and distribution losses) to power our servers. For our cloud services to achieve CarbonNeutral® status, an independent assessment of the CO2 emissions produced from direct and indirect sources required to deliver them was carried out, followed by an offset-inclusive emissions reduction programme. This means that for every tonne of greenhouse gas emissions we produce in delivering cloud services, we buy a verified carbon offset which guarantees that an equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emissions is reduced from the atmosphere through a renewable energy or clean technology project.
Social Value
- Fighting climate change
-
Fighting climate change
As a part of our Social Value (SV) and Corporate Social Responsibility policy, we have incorporated Social Value development into our company's business model, which incorporates our long term and ongoing commitment to doing better by individuals, communities, and the planet. It will have a positive impact on Social Value like Justice, Freedom, Respect, Community, and Responsibility especially for young people. We are determined to deliver value
which results in benefits above and beyond the value derived from our exceptional service delivery.
Environmental Initiatives
Our Commitments:
• Reducing energy and fuel consumption
• Incorporating sustainability considerations into our supply chain
• Saving energy e.g., using energy efficient lighting and equipment
As a part of our Environmental Policy and Procedure, we have adapted and encouraged remote and flexible working environments, and have also adopted tools like MS Team, Zoom and Basecamp to reduce face to face meetings. This has resulted in carbon footprint reduction, which is good for both the company and society. We use energy saving bulbs, and hybrid transport, and as a result are efficient in energy usage.
We are committed to digital transformation, and have fully digitised our business.
Some of our sustainability targets include:
• Moving more services and data into the cloud to improve cost efficiency. We have achieved 90%, and target is 100% by March 2023
• Establishing guidelines for monitoring environmental compliance.
We are also working towards environmental accreditations ISO14001. - Covid-19 recovery
-
Covid-19 recovery
As a part of our Social Value (SV) and Corporate Social Responsibility policy, we have incorporated Social Value development into our company's business model, which incorporates our long term and ongoing commitment to doing better by individuals, communities, and the planet. We are determined to deliver value which results in benefits above and beyond the value derived from our exceptional service delivery.
Social Initiatives
Our Commitments:
• COVID-19 Recovery
• Diversity and Equality
• Helping local charities/community
• Health and well-being-outcome=increased wellbeing
We support the COVID-19 recovery effort, and have adapted best practices of remote working and sustainable travel solutions. It includes use of MS Team and other technologies to achieve the desired outcome. We also engage and collaborate with businesses to manage and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, including new and flexible ways of working to deliver value added services.
We are committed to Equality and Diversity, and encourage greater diversity within the Tech sector e.g., we will offer work experience to at least one woman in 2022/23 for three months. We will also be signing up to the Disability Confident employer scheme. Clarity Tech has links and donate regularly to Charities, and will continue to donate this year to “Royal Marsden Cancer Charity” and “Humanity First”.
We always promote equality, diversity and inclusion, and are working towards providing work experience to young people with previous convictions. We have also adopted a flexible and digital working environment, and as a result looked after employees’ health, well-being and facilitate a work-life balance. For example, adopting this approach in our contracts has helped us in meeting our goal of improving Health and well-being and a result increased company performance, increased job satisfaction, an improved work/life balance and an increase in staff morale & motivation which resulted in positive social impact. - Tackling economic inequality
-
Tackling economic inequality
As a part of our Social Value (SV) and Corporate Social Responsibility policy, we have incorporated Social Value development into our company's business model, which incorporates our long term and ongoing commitment to doing better by individuals, communities, and the planet. We are determined to deliver value which results in benefits above and beyond the value derived from our exceptional service delivery.
Social Initiatives
Our Commitments:
• COVID-19 Recovery
• Diversity and Equality
• Helping local charities/community
• Health and well-being-outcome=increased wellbeing
We support the COVID-19 recovery effort, and have adapted best practices of remote working and sustainable travel solutions. It includes use of MS Team and other technologies to achieve the desired outcome. We also engage and collaborate with businesses to manage and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, including new and flexible ways of working to deliver value added services.
We are committed to Equality and Diversity, and encourage greater diversity within the Tech sector e.g., we will offer work experience to at least one woman in 2022/23 for three months. We will also be signing up to the Disability Confident employer scheme. Clarity Tech has links and donate regularly to Charities, and will continue to donate this year to “Royal Marsden Cancer Charity” and “Humanity First”.
We always promote equality, diversity and inclusion, and are working towards providing work experience to young people with previous convictions. We have also adopted a flexible and digital working environment, and as a result looked after employees’ health, well-being and facilitate a work-life balance. For example, adopting this approach in our contracts has helped us in meeting our goal of improving Health and well-being and a result increased company performance, increased job satisfaction, an improved work/life balance and an increase in staff morale & motivation which resulted in positive social impact. - Equal opportunity
-
Equal opportunity
As a part of our Social Value (SV) and Corporate Social Responsibility policy, we have incorporated Social Value development into our company's business model, which incorporates our long term and ongoing commitment to doing better by individuals, communities, and the planet. We are determined to deliver value which results in benefits above and beyond the value derived from our exceptional service delivery.
Social Initiatives
Our Commitments:
• COVID-19 Recovery
• Diversity and Equality
• Helping local charities/community
• Health and well-being-outcome=increased wellbeing
We support the COVID-19 recovery effort, and have adapted best practices of remote working and sustainable travel solutions. It includes use of MS Team and other technologies to achieve the desired outcome. We also engage and collaborate with businesses to manage and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, including new and flexible ways of working to deliver value added services.
We are committed to Equality and Diversity, and encourage greater diversity within the Tech sector e.g., we will offer work experience to at least one woman in 2022/23 for three months. We will also be signing up to the Disability Confident employer scheme. Clarity Tech has links and donate regularly to Charities, and will continue to donate this year to “Royal Marsden Cancer Charity” and “Humanity First”.
We always promote equality, diversity and inclusion, and are working towards providing work experience to young people with previous convictions. We have also adopted a flexible and digital working environment, and as a result looked after employees’ health, well-being and facilitate a work-life balance. For example, adopting this approach in our contracts has helped us in meeting our goal of improving Health and well-being and a result increased company performance, increased job satisfaction, an improved work/life balance and an increase in staff morale & motivation which resulted in positive social impact. - Wellbeing
-
Wellbeing
As a part of our Social Value (SV) and Corporate Social Responsibility policy, we have incorporated Social Value development into our company's business model, which incorporates our long term and ongoing commitment to doing better by individuals, communities, and the planet. We are determined to deliver value which results in benefits above and beyond the value derived from our exceptional service delivery.
Social Initiatives
Our Commitments:
• COVID-19 Recovery
• Diversity and Equality
• Helping local charities/community
• Health and well-being-outcome=increased wellbeing
We support the COVID-19 recovery effort, and have adapted best practices of remote working and sustainable travel solutions. It includes use of MS Team and other technologies to achieve the desired outcome. We also engage and collaborate with businesses to manage and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, including new and flexible ways of working to deliver value added services.
We are committed to Equality and Diversity, and encourage greater diversity within the Tech sector e.g., we will offer work experience to at least one woman in 2022/23 for three months. We will also be signing up to the Disability Confident employer scheme. Clarity Tech has links and donate regularly to Charities, and will continue to donate this year to “Royal Marsden Cancer Charity” and “Humanity First”.
We always promote equality, diversity and inclusion, and are working towards providing work experience to young people with previous convictions. We have also adopted a flexible and digital working environment, and as a result looked after employees’ health, well-being and facilitate a work-life balance. For example, adopting this approach in our contracts has helped us in meeting our goal of improving Health and well-being and a result increased company performance, increased job satisfaction, an improved work/life balance and an increase in staff morale & motivation which resulted in positive social impact.
Pricing
- Price
- £0.04 a virtual machine an hour
- Discount for educational organisations
- No
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- Free trials are available to both new and existing customers for products that haven't previously purchased or trialled. Free trials are excluded from any SLA credits and are limited to 30 days’ based on a fair usage policy.
- Link to free trial
- https://ukcloud.com/free-trials/