AFFINITY DIGITAL (TECHNOLOGY) LIMITED

Cloud Discovery

As software agnostic digital problem solvers with extensive accredited cloud hosting and open-source platform experience Our Cloud Discovery process demystifies and simplifies cloud hosting. We are ideally placed to support you. Establishing exactly how to harness and implement the security, power, scalability and cost-efficiency of cloud providers. Especially AWS.

Features

• Significant Discovery experience having worked directly with GDS
• We can and do build what we architect for clients
• Extensive AWS, Azure and GCP hosting and open-source platform experience
• Well proven and robust cloud hosting Discovery, using GDS best-practice
• multi-cloud projects for both the public and private sectors
• Mission-critical AWS designs in the Education and Central Government sectors
• Demonstrable savings in time/money through efficient architecture and pricing models
• Dedicated Discovery team co-habit with the development and support teams
• Benefits a full service agency brings to the Discovery process
• AWS solutions from £100's to £1,000's per month

Benefits

• Long-term relationships are key attested to by our multi-year contacts
• Affinity is agile by nature as well as process
• AWS, AZURE and GCP certified team
• Very simple costing model based on single blended man-day
• AWS AZURE and GCP strategic partners delivering 24/7/365 support
• Deliver/support AWS hosting for Cabinet Office. Education Scotland and UKRI
• Taken AWS architecture to its limit with huge dataset challenges
• Significant and expert experience with complex Migrations for Government
• Significant and expert experience with complex integrations for Government
• Flexible commercial models for Cloud Discovery and hosting.

£100 to £160 a unit an hour

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 sales@affinity-digital.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

767219933205949

Contact

Jonathan Duval
01872 321177
sales@affinity-digital.com

Planning

• Planning service: Yes
• How the planning service works: Affinity will use your historical data and aspirations for a new hosting service to architect the best solution possible across both hosting and monitoring services. Either in our AWS hosted environment or your existing account. We have a simple and well tried and tested Discovery process for AWS, that can include a full audit of current services. We are AWS experts and have experience across most of the major line-of-business solutions from SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Sharepoint, Oracle, Salesforce and SugerCRM to WordPress, Drupal and Umbraco, as well as a myriad of bespoke solutions. Our team is experienced in balancing the technical and functional requirements against the business and organisational needs. We pride ourselves on our collaborative approach with communication skills to suit all levels of digital competency and organisational hierarchy.
• Planning service works with specific services: Yes
• Hosting or software services the planning service works with:
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • GCP

Training

• Training service provided: Yes
• How the training service works: Affinity offers training only as part of a larger project this normally takes the form of train the trainer, BOT (Build Operate Transfer) and/or bespoke training package for solution created
• Training is tied to specific services: No

Setup and migration

• Setup or migration service available: Yes
• How the setup or migration service works: This is a dedicated setup and migration Discovery service and as software agnostic digital problem solvers with extensive accredited AWS cloud hosting and open-source platform experience coupled to our well proven Discovery process, we are ideally placed to support you. Establishing exactly how to harness and implement the Security, Power, scalability and cost-efficiency of this world class platform. Was
• Setup or migration service is for specific cloud services: Yes
• List of supported services:
  • AWS
  • Azure

Quality assurance and performance testing

• Quality assurance and performance testing service: Yes
• How the quality assurance and performance testing works: Affinity Digital provides quality engineering capabilities to deliver agile testing in the areas of automation, performance, system, technical and integration. We provide testing services that offer the flexibility you need for your organisation's requirements. To test the scalability of applications we use a combination of industry-standard, open source and in-house performance QA tools, frameworks and methodologies.; Our QA experts combine the right balance of functional testing, best practices and test approach flexibility to tailor an optimal test strategy for every client situation. With proficiency in approaches, methodology and process, we provide a comprehensive testing solution to our clients.

Security testing

• Security services: No

Ongoing support

• Ongoing support service: Yes
• Types of service supported:
  • Buyer hosting or software
  • Hosting or software provided by your organisation
  • Hosting or software provided by a third-party organisation
• How the support service works: After your Discovery service Affinity offers a flexible full service support model that covers the hosting (AWS appropriate) and platform. Our SLA covers admin support, service maintenance, enhancements and a comprehensive support logging tool set.; ; As well as the security and module updates, we can help with:; Efficiency reviews and fixes,; User testing,; Additional/improved functionality,; Administration theme installation,; Content modifications and scheduling,; Custom development.; ; With our AWS hosting you will have 24x7 access to customer service, documentation, whitepapers, and support forums, access to a full set of trusted advisor checks and access to personal health dashboard & health API and access to Cloud Support Engineers via email, chat & phone. ; Unlimited contact/unlimited cases and general guidance (IAM supported) interoperability & configuration guidance and troubleshooting.; ; Affinity provide the knowledge and experience of managing enterprise autoscale, multi-region cloud infrastructures conforming with the latest in security and application development principles. We can help optimise your existing infrastructure or help you to migrate your current solution to the cloud, our experienced engineers help organisations to streamline and improve existing solutions as part of a continual development cycle or simply provide suggestions for improvements specifically regarding security, performance, cost optimisation and fault tolerance.

Service scope

• Service constraints: On site support can be arranged but must be based on planned short term engagements and will be subject to a subsistance charge - £125 per day (subject to clients location)

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Response times are aligned to our Standard or customised SLA's Our standard P1 response time is 30 mins.; ; Standard Environment support is 24/7/365 and Application 8.30am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, unless otherwise agreed
• 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), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Support levels: We supply one comprehensive level of support for our clients. ; This is charged at £86 per hr. With a minimum support contract starting at 7.5 hrs per month.; We can supply a variety of add on services should they be required. eg. Extended hrs or UX design and development work packages.; We will supply a technical account manager as part of the on-boarding service. The technical account manager will also be available for consultation at any time during the lifetime of our agreement. Note: Their time will be charged for under the agreed SLA.

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: BSI (The British Standards Institution)
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 18/08/2018
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: 10.1.2; 11.1.5; 14.1.3; 15.1.1; 15.1.2; 18.1.5
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

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

  Fighting climate change

  Even as a small business in the IT service sector, we recognise the responsibility we have in considering our potential impact on climate change. Our carbon footprint has significantly reduced over the last 4 years. We have now adopted a fully remote workforce, removing the daily commute. When we have to travel, we consider the most environmentally-friendly way to travel, based on the number of people travelling and the destination. In our supplier evaluation procedure, we ask the right questions of our potential suppliers and make purchasing decisions based on a common culture and approach. We believe that the more times an organisation gets asked about its responsibility to climate change, the higher it will climb on their agenda. Decommissioned kit is safely donated to charitable and worthy causes or through green disposal and recycling schemes. But we know there is more we can do. Within our 5-year plan we are exploring what options we may have for carbon offsetting and for offering green employee perks and incentives, and also whether becoming B-Corp certified is right for Affinity.

  Tackling economic inequality

  The matter of economic inequality is particularly relevant to us as a Cornish company. Cornwall has high levels of deprivation and has a low-wage, seasonal economy. Wages are around 80 per cent of the national average (https://www.local.gov.uk/case-studies/responding-cost-living-challenges-cornwall-council). Affinity is helping to address the economic inequality of our region through the creation of skills-based, non-seasonal jobs in Cornwall: although our workforce is distributed across the UK, 73% of our PAYE staff base is employed from within the region. We are also supporting regional economic growth through the attraction of inward investment to the region from our national client base. Affinity strongly believes in paying a fair wage to all of our colleagues, at all levels, including any contract staff we may use from time to time. This commitment is reflected in our accreditation as a Living Wage Employer - https://www.livingwage.org.uk/accredited-living-wage-employers.

  Equal opportunity

  We consciously ensure that the needs of all individuals at Affinity are catered for, starting with their first engagement with us at the recruitment stage and then throughout their employment here. Being a fully remote workforce means that colleagues are able to work from home or any location that suits their needs. We offer complete choice and flexibility when providing equipment to enable them to do their best work, comfortably and safely, based on their individual needs. We support flexible working patterns, which allows people to fit their work around family, care, religious or health commitments or challenges. Above all, we recognise the benefits of diversity and inclusion. Our colleagues include several employees approaching and beyond the statutory age of retirement (current age range is 24-69), colleagues from multiple ethnic origins and religious groups, and a growing number of female colleagues - including c-suite executives - in an industry sector that has been traditionally male dominated. Of additional relevance is our Investors In People accreditation. By measuring ourselves against the values of the We Invest In People framework (https://www.investorsinpeople.com/accreditations/we-invest-in-people/), we can be confident in our provision of fair, equal and progressive opportunities for all staff and colleagues.

  Wellbeing

  Affinity is only as good as the people in it. We are firmly in the service sector and place significant value on our colleagues. This includes taking responsibility for supporting them in building healthy habits, for fostering a culture which supports their mental and physical wellbeing, and for providing an environment in which everyone can thrive. We are proud of our Investors In People accreditation. By building the values of the We Invest In People framework (https://www.investorsinpeople.com/accreditations/we-invest-in-people/) into our daily operations, and measuring ourselves against these values, we can be confident that employee connection, psychological safety and wellbeing are all a central part of our organisational culture. We have a qualified therapist, coach and counsellor on our team who works with our leadership team to support us in delivering positive leadership. He also works across the whole company to encourage strong, positive relationships, and a healthy and supportive culture, through regular staff training and events. And he is available to all staff, for times when they need one-to-one support in dealing with mental health and wellbeing. But we think there is more we can do. Within our annual plan, we are considering the introduction of new measures to bring wellbeing even higher up our agenda. This includes exploring: wellbeing incentives for our staff, rewarding them for healthy habits, incorporation of the Employee Wellbeing module within our BambooHR system (https://www.bamboohr.com/hr-software/employee-wellbeing) so that our support of staff mental and physical wellbeing is assessed as part of our HR processes, expanding on our existing We Invest In People accreditation, with the additional We Invest In Wellbeing accreditation (https://www.investorsinpeople.com/accreditations/we-invest-in-wellbeing/) the appointment and training of a mental health first aider.

Pricing

• Price: £100 to £160 a unit an hour
• Discount for educational organisations: 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 sales@affinity-digital.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.