Arrow Business Communications Limited

ARO Cloud Access Network Service

ARO Access Network Services offers a tailored solution specifically designed to meet the connectivity needs of public sector organisations, local authorities, and the National Health Service (NHS).

These services are provided utilising our own tier 3 equivalent data centre, with 24-7 UK based operations centre facility.

Features

• Fortinet SD-WAN: ARO Access-Network Services harnesses the power of Fortinet-SDWAN
• LAN Management:
• Public Cloud Connectivity
• AWS Direct Connect
• Asure Express Route
• The Digital Diagnostics Network (DDN) connection

Benefits

• Optimised Network Performance: Fortinet SD-WAN enhances network performance
• Cost Savings:
• Enhanced Security:
• Scalability and Flexibility:

£189 to £1,717 a unit 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 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

740124739206853

Contact

John Loftus
07545 929225
gcloud@aro.tech

Service scope

• Service constraints: None
• System requirements: As a cloud based service there are no system requirements

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Priority 1 Issue — 1 elapsed hour;; Priority 2 Issue — 2 elapsed hours;; Priority 3 Issue — 8 elapsed hours;; ; Outside Business hours:; ; Priority 1 Issue — 2 elapsed hours;; Priority 2 Issue — 4 elapsed hours;; Priority 3 Issue — 12 elapsed hours
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AAA
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: We provide two levels of support, Standard and Premium: Standard business hours are 8 - 6pm, Monday-Friday. Standard support guarantees a response within 4 working hours to a fault properly reported to Arrow’s support team. The contract also includes 1 dial in per calendar month for any non-fault related moves, adds and changes with a maximum time of 15 minutes. Outside these parameters moves and changes will become chargeable as follows; Remote dial in, £50 for up to 15 minutes or £90 per hour. Onsite call outs, £95 for the first 30 minutes and £27 for every 15 minutes thereafter. Premium support provides a maintenance service 24/7/365. The maximum response time for a Standard Fault will be 8 operational hours and the maximum response time to a System Crash will be 4 operational hours. The contract includes up to 10 dials-in per month with a maximum total time limit of 2 hours. Outside these parameters moves and changes will become chargeable as follows; Remote dial in, £50 for up to 15 minutes or £90 per hour. Onsite call outs, £95 for the first 30 minutes and £27 for every 15 minutes thereafter. Premium support is an additional £5.00 per user.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: An Account Manager and pre-sales consultant will work with you to identify the correct service specification and configuration. If required we will attend site to conduct site surveys, demonstrations and audits. Once our proposal has been accepted and our Cloud Telephony service contract signed, the project is added to our internal task system. Each new customer project is allocated to a Prince 2 qualified Project Manager who assumes overall responsibility for the project. The Project Manager will communicate with the customer by phone, e-mail, video or in person. A Project Initiation Document is issued once we have gathered all required information. A meeting to discuss all aspects of the phone service configuration is held with; the customer. The service configuration agreement is written up and issued to the customer. The Project Manager will liaise with the Cloud IP Engineering team to; manage the necessary technical resources. The PM will also manage the process of porting numbers in to the Arrow network. The assigned Cloud IP Engineer will configure the service and attend; site to carry out the deployment. Where the customer specifies on-site training, a qualified trainer will attend site to provide the necessary instruction.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Arrow's cloud platform allows easy migration between environments and Arrow commits to providing the same level of support and management to assist the client in the off-boarding process at contract end.
• End-of-contract process: There is a decommissioning / migration charge, which is determined at contract start, depending on client requirements.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: Users must be pre-registered before they can access our 2FA protected web portal.; ; Users can restart and shutdown virtual servers.; Users can provision new services (subject to contract)
• Web interface accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Web interface accessibility testing: N/A
• API: No
• Command line interface: No

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type: Manual
• Independence of resources: Capacity management planning is controlled under our Information security management system (ISMS) The purpose of our capacity management process is to ensure the continuous availability of services through capacity planning, monitoring and management. This ensures that the required capacity for any given system is always available and that upgrades and improvements to the clients systems can be implemented to ensure that adequate capacity exists and resource requirements are planned for and controlled.
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • Email
  • Other
• Other usage reporting: We notify users through their account on our CRM Platform

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
• Reporting types:
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: None

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: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Supplier-defined controls
• Penetration testing frequency: Less than once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest: Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: No
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

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

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Service Availability; ; Arrow undertakes to provide Service Availability of 99.9% of the available time in; ; each month. Failure to meet this level will result in a Service Credit offered to the; ; Qualifying Customer.; ; Service Availability Credit; ; 100% of the Monthly Recurring Charges billed for the Arrow Cloud Video service; ; provided to the relevant customer for the relevant month.; ; Response Time; ; Arrow offers two levels of support service cover: standard and total care. During; ; Arrow’s Normal Working Hours on Business Days, standard service level cover; ; guarantees a response within 8 working hours to a fault properly reported to Arrow’s; ; technical helpdesk. During Arrow’s Normal Working Hours on Business Days, total; ; care service level cover guarantees a response within 4 hours to a fault properly reported; ; to Arrow’s technical helpdesk.; ; Failure to meet the relevant response time subject to eligibility will as described below,; ; result in a Service Credit of 50% of the relevant billed Monthly Recurring Charges for the; ; month in which the failure occurred.
• Approach to resilience: We operate the service from a fault tolerant virtual platform with real-time replication between virtual hosts.
• Outage reporting: We have a process to communicate with customers in the event of a major service outage and provide a Reason for Outage report. This is based through emails from the support team. Once an outage is noted then regular hourly emails are sent detailing progress to resolution.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication:
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Administrative and management networks are physically separate from other staff networks, within our secure NOC. Technical Staff access is strictly controlled.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication: Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
• 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)

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: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: No audit information available
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: DNV Business Assurance UK Limited
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 01 December 2023
• 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: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All components are recorded on a asset register and asset tagged where necessary. Should changes be needed a formal request is submitted to the change management board and risks would be assessed against the current safeguards in place against that component. Based on this assessment that change management board would recommend the correct and safest course of action.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Potential threats are identified through risk assessments. Our response to identified threats is measured on severity and impact. This also defines the level to which the issue is escalated. Regular software patches to our service are released by the manufacturer . We implement these patches onto our platform in a timely manner.
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• 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: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• 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: Supplier-defined process

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: Customer environments are logically segregated, preventing users and customers from accessing unassigned resources. Customers maintain full control over their data access. Services which provide virtualized operational environments to customers, ensure that customers are segregated and prevent cross-tenant privilege escalation and information disclosure via hypervisors and instance isolation.

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: Arrow is a participant in the European Code of Conduct for Data Centres (EUCoC) which aims to reduce energy consumption & carbon emissions in a cost-effective manner without hampering the mission critical function of systems or data centres. EUCoC has been created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centres and the need to reduce the related environmental, economic and energy supply security impacts. Arrow is an ethical and environmental conscious organisation that has adopted the best practices of the code and become an official participant. The EUCOC ensures that Arrow operational procedures regarding the management of a data centre are appropriate and the energy saving initiatives the company adopts meet the objectives of the European Union. All of Arrows Colocation client s have a clause in their contract requesting that, if possible, that they will utilise power off and auto restart on all equipment installed in Arrow data centre

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  Wellbeing

  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: £189 to £1,717 a unit 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 gcloud@aro.tech. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.