The Access Group

Access Cloud PC

Access Managed Services (AMS) Cloud PC integrated with MS365 provides a secure, ringfenced, dedicated & persistent virtual desktop environment designed for productivity and growth. For UK firms who are looking for their IT estate to scale in a secure reliable fashion.

Features

• User centric Virtual Desktop environment
• Citrix thin client and virtual machine provision
• Centralised storage
• Automated application distribution
• VDI Performance monitoring (Premium addition)
• MS365 integration

Benefits

• Simple deployment and support via a centralised service
• Accessible remotely and within the office enabling remote productivity
• Less user issues through standardised operating system across
• Data integrity through centralised storage and maintenance
• Cost effective IT maintenance and support through single image updates
• Comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity functionality

£80.00 a user a month

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

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

501966254138081

Contact

Access UK
01206322575
tendernotifications@theaccessgroup.com

Service scope

• Service constraints: No specific constraints
• System requirements:
  • Internet Connectivity
  • End point device

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: This is dependent on Success Plan chosen initial response times are; P1 - up to 1 hr P2 - up to 2 hrs P3 - up to 4 hrs P4 - up to 1 Business Day.
• 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: 9 to 5 (UK time), 7 days a week
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: We provide 3 main support plans as detailed below. The Essential Plan The online service The Essential Plan is available to all Access customers as part of your license fee and provides you with easy-to-access online support for all your queries, facilitated via our Customer Success portal. The Standard Plan Get answers faster As a Standard Plan customer you benefit from faster response times and can access our support teams via telephone and live chat, as well as through our Customer Success portal. To help your team be more productive, you are provided with continued access to our e-learning content as well as a programme of Success webinars, designed to keep you up to date with new features and share best-practice advice and guidance. The Premier Plan Boost productivity with direct access to the experts and achieve a higher return on investment Our Premier Plan enables your team to achieve more and improve productivity through an ongoing relationship with your own designated Customer Success Manager. Your CSM will get to understand how you’re using the technology and will advise you on how to get more from it.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Following contract sign off we will work with you and your needs to determine the best implementation.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Our exit process is; The Renewals team receive the notification and undertake discussions with the client, the account manager and any other stakeholders. Once termination is confirmed, the “termination data requirements document” is sent to the client and a record created on the Offboarding register in line with internal processes. The status is set to “waiting customer”. On receipt of the offboarding document, Access Offboarding Review team will review the response, respond to any queries, annotate the record to reflect the customer requirements, upload the document and set the record to “not started” The Service Delivery team will pick up the ticket, arrange the return of data, decommission the system then they or hosting delete the data (production and backup unless “beyond access”(in which case it will be overwritten). Closure of the ticket triggers a confirmation to the customer that their data is deleted.
• End-of-contract process: Our exit process is; The Renewals team receive the notification and undertake discussions with the client, the account manager and any other stakeholders. Once termination is confirmed, the “termination data requirements document” is sent to the client and a record created on the Offboarding register in line with internal processes. The status is set to “waiting customer”. Note: In the event that a Customer does not return the document, they will be contacted again twice prior to termination and data will be deleted within 30 days from contract end as Access has no legal basis for processing from that point

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: Gives access to applications and window desktops
• Web interface accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web interface is accessible: Users can group favourite desktops or applications for ease of use
• Web interface accessibility testing: None
• API: No
• Command line interface: No

Scaling

• Scaling available: No
• Independence of resources: Uncontended resources
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • Email
  • Other
• Other usage reporting: Account management meetings

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • Memory
  • Number of active instances
• Reporting types:
  • 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 Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

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 once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• 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: Yes
• Backup controls: Users can control their Microsoft 365 backups
• Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
• Scheduling backups: Users contact the support team to schedule backups
• Backup recovery:
  • Users can recover backups themselves, for example through a web interface
  • Users contact the support team

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
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: We will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the Hosted Platform available 99.5% except for unavailability during emergency or routine maintenance.
• Approach to resilience: Available upon request
• Outage reporting: Users can subscribe to email alerts giving updates on scheduled maintenance and outages. An online portal is also available to clients.

Identity and authentication

• User 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
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Details available upon request.
• 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:
  • Dedicated device on a segregated network (providers own provision)
  • 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: 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: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 01/09/2014
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Nothing is excluded from the standard
• 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: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: All controls included within Annex A of the ISO27001:2013 standard. Statement Of Applicability (SOA) available on request.

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: All change management is undertaken in line with ISO27001:2013 using JIRA for audit purposes.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Patched and audited by our patch management system. All non-critical OS patches are applied within one calendar month of release, first into pre-production and then into production, as part of the scheduled maintenance window. AV Updates - Signatures are updated hourly. / Rules are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Logs are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Access staff responsible for the maintenance of our hosting services subscribe to industry newsletters, belong to various security forums and we additionally receive notifications from our vendors.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We have traffic monitoring and content based alerting which alerts on changes to the site and/or traffic flows implemented at infrastructure and application level. We proactively monitor third party suppliers (hardware, OS, application/web and database server software) vulnerability reporting and security fix availability. Any vulnerabilities found and fixes provided by third party suppliers are patched by our infrastructure team in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Any penetration test findings are fixed by Development in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Our infrastructure response is within 1 hour in the SLA period 8am-8pm Monday – Friday.
• 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: We operate a robust incident management process in line with ISO27001:2013 Staff are encouraged to report all incidents using a pre-defined process using a form available on our Company Collaborate site Incident reports will be provided following forensics and closure.

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: VMware
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: Vcloud director and NSX security

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: Telehouse N2 is both ISO4001:2015 and ISO50001:2001 certified and has a robust and comprehensive Environmental and Energy Management Process including: The implementation of and Energy Management System certified to ISO50001 Identification of all significant areas of energy use (SAEU) Setting targets for energy efficiency Training of energy efficiency with staff members. Additionally the facility is cooled by the world's first multi-story indirect adiabatic cooling system to BREEAM Excellent Standard and as such is rated as one of the most energy efficient DC locations in the world.

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Access UK Limited is a Software author and provide associated services, including Hosting, Payroll Bureau and Payment services. We recognise that although we do not undertake manufacturing, our day to day operations will have impact on the environment at global, national, and local level. We are committed to the care of the environment and the prevention of pollution. •Access ensures that all our operations are carried out in with the minimum adverse effect on the environment but implementing many available resources and approved processes •We protect the environment by striving to prevent and minimise our contribution to pollution of land, air, and water •We keep wastage to a minimum and maximise the efficient use of materials and resources, and manage disposal of all waste in a responsible manner •We use energy, water, and natural resources wisely and prevent pollution by minimising waste, recycling whenever possible and properly disposing of waste that cannot be recycled. •Our management processes are developed to ensure that environmental factors are considered during planning and implementation •We raise employee awareness and encourage best practices for sustainability at work

  Equal opportunity

  We want everyone to feel at home at Access, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual; after all, if we were all the same it would be a pretty dull place. We love the fact that we’re all different. Having more diverse perspectives at work improves how we run our business, helps us support our customers, and when you think about it, it's just more fun. For us, this all starts with helping everyone feel part of the family and being at their best every day, making Access a place where everyone can love what they do and do what they love. We all have regular check-ins with our leaders, take part in monthly employee surveys, have lots of chances to share our views and ask for help, and with our own learning system, 'Access Shine', we really can make things even better each and every day. At Access we'll always hire the best candidate but we're continually looking for creative ways to increase the mix of diverse candidates into our recruitment process. On the basis that you ‘have to see it, to be it’, one thing we're doing is sharing more stories to celebrate the wonderful diverse range of talent we have at Access. It is important for us that our employees understand and reflect the customers and communities we support, and we want everyone to feel at home here, knowing that they are valued for what they do, not who they are. We want people to feel that they truly belong here regardless of their age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them individual.

  Wellbeing

  Access places specific emphasis on the health and wellbeing of its staff and provides a “Well-being” hub in workspace that provides support for Mental Health, Finances, Social, Physical, Emotional and purpose. Assistance from Health Assured is available for all staff and there are training resources for “working in the new normal” and “Mental health and wellbeing” . Access also has “well-being” champions throughout the organisation. This is supported by monthly employee “check in” surveys and offers of flexible working for staff to meet caring commitments.

Pricing

• Price: £80.00 a user a month
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

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