Arrow Business Communications Limited

Microsoft Cloud Solutions Provider

ARO are a Tier-1 Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) allowing your organisation to benefit from license consultancy, procurement of services such as M365 licenses, Microsoft software licenses and Azure subscriptions as well as support, underpinning these services by leveraging Microsoft Premier Support.

Access to procure licenses and services via self-service capability.

Features

• Self-Service License Provisioning
• Support & guidance on license purchasing
• Access to Microsoft Premier Support for cloud services
• Multiple Azure Subscription capabilities
• Perpetual and subscription licenses
• Flexible, pay-as-you-go license models
• Invoiced pricing for Azure in arrears via Direct Debit
• Public sector, not for profit and commercial licensing

Benefits

• Licensing experts who are highly knowledgeable on Microsoft Licensing scenarios
• Self-Manage access to services
• Consumption based services
• One partner for management, billing and support

£3.50 a licence a month

• Education pricing 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 gcloud@aro.tech. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

722731524582237

Contact

John Loftus
07545 929225
gcloud@aro.tech

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: All Microsoft Services.
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: None
• System requirements: None

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Our standard response time is four working hours Monday-Friday 9-5.30pm. We can supply bespoke SLA agreements.
• 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: No
• Onsite support: No
• Support levels: We provide one level of support, Standard. Standard business hours and Monday to Friday 08:00-18:00. Standard support guarentees a response within 4 hours to a fault properly reported to the Arrow Support Desk.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: An account manager will manage the onboarding and offboarding of licenses as part of the initial transaction. There is also a serf-service portal for customers to manage their own licenses post initial deployment.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: The customer will have options to either extend the contract or move their licenses to another provider. Should the customer wish to cancel services, the customer will be required to manually extract their data from services.
• End-of-contract process: The licenses/services will cease to operate and will get suspended. The customer will be required to either renew their licenses/service or move their procurement to another partner or have access revoked.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: No
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Microsoft provide APIs.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: HTML
• API sandbox or test environment: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Microsoft provide SLAs and availability metrics to manage the services.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: A number of metrics are provided, all dependant on what services are procured.
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra 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
  • 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 CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
• Data sanitisation process: No
• Equipment disposal approach: A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Customers will be expected to export their data manually from each of their services whilst licenses are active. Post license/service expiration, customers will need to extend their subscriptions to continue accessing the data to be able to extract it.
• Data export formats: Other
• Other data export formats: Various dependant on services purchased
• Data import formats: Other
• Other data import formats: Various dependant on services procured

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: Microsoft SLAs can be found here:; Online Services: https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Service-Level-Agreements-SLA-for-Online-Services; Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/support/legal/sla/
• Approach to resilience: Everything is built on top of the resilient foundation, which is a requirement for any; application to achieve resiliency. To achieve resilience—the application on top has to; take advantage of the resilient services built on the foundation.; The three pillars of the Azure resilient foundation are:; • Design: How Microsoft designs its global fiber network, evolving datacenters, and; storage protections built into the Azure platform.; • Operate: How Microsoft rolls out releases into the environment, performs; maintenance (planned and unplanned), and uses machine learning to predict; failures and protect customer workloads.; • Observe: How customers can observe what’s happening in their environment(s),; inform people and systems to make informed decisions before/during issues,; and determine their own availability requirements.
• Outage reporting: The service outage reports are presented via:; - Publish Dashboard; - API; - Email Alerts

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• 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: All accounts are named account with the appropriate account security protections in place, confirming to ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials standards.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • 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: Between 6 months and 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: No audit information available
• 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: 01 December 2023
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 07/11/2019
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: This certificate is valid for the following scope:; ; Provision of IT and Telecommunications Services (AV and Video Conferencing, Business Mobile, Cloud Telephony, Contact Centre, Cyber Security, Data Centre Services, Data services, IT, Software Development, Mobile Data) in accordance with the Statement of Applicability, version 1.0, plus Code of Practice ISO 27017:2015 on information security controls for cloud services and Code of Practice ISO 27018:2019 for protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in public clouds.
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications: NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit. ODS Code: 8J121

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: The Chief Executive Officer, along with the board, in partnership with the Head of IT is responsible for the approval of all of the IT policies and ensuring that they are discharged to the relevant managers. Arrow's Information Security Policy outlines our approach to information security as well as being a method to establish a set of tools to outline the responsibilities necessary to safeguard the security of the Company’s information systems with supporting policies, codes of practice, procedures and guidelines. The policy applies to all employees - current and new - of the Company as well as all other authorised users. The policy relates to the use of all Company-owned information system assets, to all privately owned systems when connected directly or indirectly to the Company’s network and to all Company-owned and or licensed software/data. Authorised members of the IT Department will from time to time monitor the information systems under their control to ensure compliance. This is supported by training during the Induction process for new employees and updates to existing staff as appropriate.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: NA
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: Microsoft operate a Security Operations Centre which provide ongoing vulnerability management and regular communications to threats as part of their offering to customers.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Arrow's Data Protection Policy details the extensive controls, measures and methods used to protect personal data, uphold the rights of data subjects, mitigate risks, minimise breaches and comply with the data protection laws and associated laws and codes of conduct. We also carry out regular audits and compliance monitoring processes, to ensure that the measures and controls in place are adequate, effective and compliant at all times. All data breaches are reported immediately to the direct line manager and the reporting officer. Measures must be taken immediately to contain the breach and to stop any further risks or breaches.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Arrow’s Data Breach Policy states that all staff must report a data breach immediately to the direct line manager. ; ; The Supervisory Authority is to be notified within 72 hours of any breach where it is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals. ; ; A full investigation is conducted and recorded on the incident form, the outcome of which is communicated to all staff involved in the breach, in addition to upper management. A copy of the completed incident form is filed for audit and record purposes.

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

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  Wellbeing

  Wellbeing

  To help us drive wellbeing and engagement throughout Arrow, we have dedicated Wellness Champions at each of our key sites – these are voluntary roles and act as a central point of contact for advice and guidance around the mental health and wellbeing of our people. They also help to drive the promotion and organisation of various corporate social responsibility initiatives across Arrow further driving engagement. A dedicated Teams channel is used to communicate, share, and promote these activities. Each Champion has completed Mental Health First Aider training so that they are equipped with the necessary skills to fulfil this role. These courses run through MHFA England have also been attended by other members of the wider team. The engagement of our people is paramount at Arrow, and we track this closely, currently sitting at 89% this places us in the upper quartile of all benchmarked organisations. In addition to our 2 main annual surveys, we also track the wellbeing and resilience of our people as well as our eNPS score monthly to ensure we keep a close temperature check on how they are feeling. Our current eNPS score is 52% which places us in the top 25% of organisations in our industry.

Pricing

• Price: £3.50 a licence a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• 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 gcloud@aro.tech. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.