Kainos Software Ltd

Azure Managed Cloud (Azure Managed Services)

Our flexible service allows clients to offload operational management to ISO20000 certified managed service. We manage networking, server operating systems, applications and end-to-end digital services. Available for Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others.
Providing UK Government with on-demand, scalable public cloud resources to migrate and deliver transformational solutions.

Features

• 24/7 monitoring/response- IaaS, PaaS, Kubernetes and serverless platforms.
• Support across networking, operating systems, applications and end-to-end services.
• Pay as you go support - per item, monthly.
• Cloud hosting, cost optimisation and management.
• Cloud design, continuous improvement and deployment services on demand.
• NCSC aligned approach and suitable for OFFICIAL/OFFICIAL SENSITIVE solutions.
• ISO 9001, ISO 20000 and ISO 27001 (ITIL) certified.
• UK based support centre with 24/7 Service Desk support.
• Application Development and Management, Service Management, Incident/Change Management.
• AWS Advanced Consulting and MS Gold Cloud Platform Partner.

Benefits

• Secure, accredited ITIL aligned managed service.
• Scalable, flexible service with commercial model tailored to you.
• Ability to draw on varied skills as required.
• Pay-As-You-Go charging model providing ease of cost management.
• Proactive cloud cost optimisation to drive down costs.
• Easily scale support up/down with cloud platform consumption.
• Rapid, repeatable deployment and operation driven by automation tooling.
• Enhanced access to cloud providers through extensive, award-winning partnerships.
• Securely managed cloud platform monitored 24x7.
• Tailored SLAs to meet your service requirements.

£0.01 a virtual machine an hour

• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

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

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

767972942216219

Contact

Gareth Black
028 9057 1100
presales@kainos.com

Service scope

• Service constraints: See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/ to determine applicable constraints based on buyers requirements
• System requirements: See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support response times: Our standard support response times range from 30 minutes to 5 days depending on the incident categorisation and prioritisation as defined in a tailored service level agreement (SLA) per service.
• 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: Yes, at an extra cost
• Web chat support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
• Web chat support accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web chat support is accessible: Web chat allows our support clients to chat directly to support engineers in private instant messaging groups sharing information on support activities over the internet. Clients and support engineers are able to share text, documents, voice, and video within the boundaries of information security protocols.
• Web chat accessibility testing: For many of our support clients, we configure private chat groups to allow the client real-time access to the support team.
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: For more information, visit https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/plans/ and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/unifiedsupport/overview; ; Kainos delivers expert support services that relieve organisations’ IT departments from the day-to-day demands of maintaining their cloud based applications. We have extensive experience of running and optimising a broad range of bespoke and off-the-shelf (COTS) business applications in a wide range of cloud environments. For many of our customers we support legacy applications and integration points, and we have specifically transitioned support from existing service providers or ESCROW to ourselves. We quickly resolve problems and performance issues, which raise user satisfaction levels.; Our ISO 20000 accredited support methodology is based on the rigor of ITIL and the flexibility of Agile principles and a Dev Ops culture. Services offered include incident investigation, service desk, change controls, service and supplier management, consultancy, hosting and cloud services, solution upgrades and training.; Our ISO 27001 accreditation allows us to support data marked as Official (previously IL0 to IL3) platforms for Government departments. Many cloud applications we support are securely administered via the Internet but we have a Code of Connection and associated Code of Practice to enable administration and support of environments with PSN Protected connectivity.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: See https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/ plus comprehensive online documentation for various solutions available across the platform. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/. We also offer free of charge remote best practice guidance from our Azure Engineers called FastTrack for Azure. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/programs/azure-fasttrack/#overview
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
  • Other
• Other documentation formats: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support
• End-of-contract data extraction: As a customer, you maintain ownership of your data—the content, personal and other data you provide for storing and hosting in Azure services. Microsoft will not store or process customer data outside the geography you specify, except for certain non-regional services. You are also in control of any additional geographies where you decide to deploy your solutions or replicate your data.; Azure has established internal records-retention requirements for back-end data. You are responsible for identifying your own record retention requirements. For records that are stored in Azure, you are responsible for extracting your data and retaining your content outside of Azure for a customer-specified retention period.; Azure allows you to export data and audit reports from the product. The exports are saved locally to retain the information for a customer-defined retention time period.; For more information on protection of customer data, visit: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/protection-customer-data
• End-of-contract process: Microsoft is governed by strict standards and follows specific processes for removing cloud customer data from systems under our control, overwriting storage resources before reuse, and purging or destroying decommissioned hardware. In our Online Service Terms, Microsoft contractually commits to specific processes when a customer leaves a cloud service or the subscription expires. This includes deleting customer data from systems under our control.; ; Please see Data Protection Addendum for full and up to date details about how Microsoft manages your data. https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Microsoft-Products-and-Services-Data-Protection-Addendum-DPA?lang=1

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: Azure provides several web interfaces that allow users to interact with the platform, manage resources, and build applications. These interfaces include, but are not limited to, the following:; - Azure Portal - provides a unified view of all your Azure resources; users can create, configure, and manage various services, virtual machines, databases, etc.; - Azure Cloud Shell: interactive, browser-based shell environment that allows users to manage Azure resources using either Bash or PowerShell; provides a command-line interface directly within the Azure Portal, eliminating the need to install any local tools
• Web interface accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web interface is accessible: Azure Portal supports all success criteria defined at WCAG 2.1 AA and WCAG 2.1 A. The WCAG 2.1 AA criteria include requirements such as ensuring that the color contrast of text is 4.5:1, navigation elements are consistent, headings are used in a logical order, captions are provided for live audio and video media, web forms have accurate labels, and content is available on both vertical and horizontal device orientation. Microsoft's accessibility conformance reports are accessible at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/conformance-reports
• Web interface accessibility testing: Microsoft has made significant efforts to ensure the accessibility of its web interfaces. They have developed and utilized various tools and practices for testing their web interfaces with assistive technology users.; One of the key tools Microsoft uses is Accessibility Insights. This is an open-source web extension that allows users to perform more than 50 automated and manual tests and easily document the detected issues. As of now, it catches up to 40 percent of accessibility bugs, and Microsoft plans to improve this percentage through more automated testing and the expanded use of AI. For more information, visit https://accessibilityinsights.io/docs/web/overview/
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Azure users can set up services and make changes via Microsoft’s API using Azure API Management. To set up a service, users can sign in to the Azure portal, navigate to your API Management instance, and create a resource from the Azure portal menu. Detailed instructions for setting up services are available at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/api-management/get-started-create-service-instance; From the API Management section of the Azure Portal, users can make changes using by selecting "Add API" and following the steps listed at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/api-management/add-api-manually; There are some limitations when using Azure API Management. For instance, the maximum number of subscription (API Keys) per service instance is 500. Additional API import restrictions are available at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/api-management/api-management-api-import-restrictions
• API automation tools:
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: HTML
• Command line interface: Yes
• Command line interface compatibility:
  • Linux or Unix
  • Windows
  • MacOS
  • Other
• Using the command line interface: The Azure Command-Line Interface (Azure CLI) allows users to interact with Azure services and manage their Azure resources in many ways, including the following:; - Create, update, delete, and manage Azure resources (e.g., virtual machines, storage accounts, web apps, databases, and networks); - Automate routine tasks (e.g., deploying applications, scaling resources, and configuring networks); - Integrate with other tools and services (e.g., with Azure DevOps for CI/CD pipelines); - Using multiple shell environments (e.g., Windows Command Prompt, Bash, PowerShell); - Learning and understanding Azure services; ; For more information on Azure CLI's features and capabilities, visit:; - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/; - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/use-azure-cli-successfully

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type:
  • Automatic
  • Manual
• Independence of resources: We currently have On-Demand Capacity Reservation in preview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/capacity-reservation-overview
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • API
  • Email
  • SMS

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • HTTP request and response status
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
  • Other
• Other metrics:
  • A comprehensive list such as AD, Server, Service, Configuration Stores
  • Spring, Automation, Private Cloud, Batch, Workspaces, Accounts, Blockchain Members
  • Bot Services, Redis, App Firewall policies, Profiles, Roles, VM's
  • Storage accounts, blob services, file services, queue services, table services
  • Storage accounts, blob services, file services, queue services, table services
  • All metrics can be found here:
  • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/essentials/metrics-supported
• Reporting types: API access

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra features and support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Microsoft

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• 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)
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: Less than once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Other
• Other data at rest protection approach: Azure Key Vault & Azure Active Director see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/encryption-atrest?msclkid=b2f26c8ea91a11ecac8f8d24fb4e36fc
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• 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
• What’s backed up:
  • On-premises Back-up files/folders/system state with Microsoft Azure Recovery Services
  • Back up entire Windows/Linux VMs
  • Back up Azure Managed Disks
  • Back up Azure File shares to a storage account
  • Back up SQL Server databases running on Azure VMs
  • Backup SAP HANA databases running on Azure VMs
  • PostgreSQL Back databases, retain backups for up to 10 year
  • Azure Blobs - Overview of operational backup for Azure Blobs
• Backup controls: By assigning Azure Policies in Backup Center.
• Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
• Scheduling backups: Users schedule backups through a web interface
• Backup recovery: Users can recover backups themselves, for example through a web interface

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
  • Other
• Other protection between networks: Transit encryption using Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2. All traffic leaving a data centre is encrypted in transit. TLS provides strong authentication, message privacy, and integrity (enabling detection of message tampering, interception, and forgery), interoperability, algorithm flexibility, and ease of deployment and use.; An additional layer of encryption is provided at the infrastructure layer. Whenever Azure customer traffic moves between datacentres-- outside physical boundaries not controlled by Microsoft or on behalf of Microsoft-- a data-link layer encryption method using the IEEE 802.1AE MAC Security Standards (also known as MACsec) is applied from point-to-point across the underlying network hardware.
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Microsoft’s approach to enabling two layers of encryption for data at rest is:; ; Disk encryption using customer-managed keys. You provide your own key for disk encryption. You can bring your own keys to your Key Vault (BYOK – Bring Your Own Key), or generate new keys in Azure Key Vault to encrypt the desired resources.; Infrastructure encryption using platform-managed keys. By default, disks are automatically encrypted at rest using platform-managed encryption keys.

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: See SLA's for each service here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/support/legal/sla/summary/?msclkid=0132c6f0a91b11ec927496d95a52a9a9
• Approach to resilience: Network reliability through intelligent software; Safe Deployment with AIOps ; Resiliency threat modelling for large distributed systems; Low and no impact maintenance ; For more detail please see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/features/reliability/#features
• Outage reporting: Through Azure Service Health which gives personalised alerts and guidance for Azure service issues.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
• Other user authentication: Azure Active Directory is Microsoft’s multi-tenant cloud-based directory and identity management service. Azure-AD includes a full suite of identity management capabilities including multi-factor authentication, device registration, self-service password management, self-service group management, and privileged account management.; ; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/concept-authentication-methods?msclkid=b2a138a1a92d11ec918375623c320dc1
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Azure-AD can designate separate administrators to serve different functions. These administrators will have access to features in the Azure portal and, depending on their role, will be able to create or edit users, assign administrative roles to others, reset user passwords, manage user-licenses, and manage domains, among other things. A user who is assigned an admin role will have the same permissions across all of the cloud services that your organization has subscribed to, regardless of whether you assign the role in the Office365 portal, in the Azure classic portal, or by using the Azure-AD module for Windows PowerShell.
• Access restriction testing frequency: Never
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
• Devices users manage the service through: 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 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: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• 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: The Certification Body of Schellman & Company, LLC
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: November 28, 2023 for Certificate version 13. Original registration date: November 29, 2011
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Please see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/compliance/regulatory/offering-ISO-27001?view=o365-worldwide
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: Yes
• CSA STAR accreditation date: Microsoft obtained CSA STAR Certification in 2013
• CSA STAR certification level: Level 2: CSA STAR Attestation
• What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover: None
• PCI certification: Yes
• Who accredited the PCI DSS certification: Microsoft’s PCI DSS certification was accredited by Coalfire
• PCI DSS accreditation date: Azure expanded PCI DSS cert scope 15/03/2021
• What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover: Service Scope is identified here http://aka.ms/azure-pci
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications: MS certs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-home?view=o365-worldwide

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: EN 301 549, ENISA IAF, EU Model Clauses, UK Cyber Essentials Plus, UK NPIRMT, CIS Hardened images, SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2,
• Information security policies and processes: We have policies for infrastructure security, physical security, availability, components & boundaries, network architecture, production network, SQL DB, operations, monitoring, integrity, and data protection. For more information please visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/security/fundamentals/infrastructure-availability

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: Azure addresses change management practices through Microsoft's configuration management policy, which is part of the Microsoft Security Policy (MSP) and the Microsoft Security Program Policy (MSPP). Azure implements the configuration management policy and associated controls through a series of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), including the Microsoft Change Management Standard, the Azure Software Change and Release Management SOP, Azure Hardware Change and Release Management SOP. The Azure SOPs cover the change management process around information system design, development, and implementation of changes and align with Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Vulnerability management recommendations focus on addressing issues related to continuously acquiring, assessing, and acting on new information in order to identify and remediate vulnerabilities as well as minimizing the window of opportunity for attackers.; 1: Run automated vulnerability scanning tools; 2: Deploy an automated operating system patch management solution; 3: Deploy an automated patch management solution for third-party software titles; 4: Compare back-to-back vulnerability scans; 5: Use a risk-rating process to prioritize the remediation of discovered vulnerabilities; For more information https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security/benchmark/azure/security-control-vulnerability-management
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: Microsoft Defender for Cloud helps you prevent, detect, respond to threats. Defender for Cloud gives you increased visibility into, and control over, the security of your Azure resources as well as those in your hybrid cloud environment.; ; Defender for Cloud performs continuous security assessments of your connected resources and compares their configuration and deployment against the Azure Security Benchmark to provide detailed security recommendations tailored for your environment.; ; Intelligent Security Graph provides real-time threat protection in Microsoft products/services. It uses advanced analytics that links threat intelligence and security data to provide insights that can strengthen organisational security.
• 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: Microsoft has developed robust processes to facilitate a coordinated response to incidents. ; • Identification – System and security alerts may be harvested, correlated, and analysed. ; • Containment – The escalation team evaluates the scope and impact of an incident. ; • Eradication – The escalation team eradicates any damage caused by the security breach, and identifies the root cause for why the security issue occurred. ; • Recovery – During recovery, software or configuration updates are applied to the system, and services are returned to a full working capacity.; • Lessons Learned –Each security incident is analysed to protect against future reoccurrence.

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: VMware, Hyper-V, Oracle VM, Red Hat Virtualisation, KVM hypervisor; ; Microsoft uses a combination of virtual machines (VMs), virtual disks, data virtualization, and container technologies, automatically deployed through Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates to enable a dynamically scalable and resource-rich data platform.
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: In the cloud-enabled workplace, a tenant can be defined as a client or organization that owns and manages a specific instance of that cloud service. With identity platform provided by Azure, a tenant is a dedicated instance of Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) that your organization receives/owns when it signs up for a Microsoft cloud service. Each Azure AD directory is distinct and separate from other Azure AD directories. The Azure AD architecture isolates customer data and identity information from co-mingling. This means users/administrators of one Azure AD directory cannot accidentally/maliciously access data in another directory. More information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/security/fundamentals/isolation-choices

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: Microsoft datacenters adhere to the EU Code of Conduct for Energy Efficiency in Data Centres by implementing a variety of best practices and measures:; Power Utilisation Effectiveness (PUE): The EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres uses PUE as a key metric to assess the overall efficiency of a data center. PUE represents the ratio of total data center input power to IT load power. The lower the PUE value, the higher the efficiency of the facility1. The ultimate goal is to achieve a PUE close to 1.0, indicating a perfectly efficient data center where almost all power is delivered to IT equipment.; Monitoring and Improvement: By regularly monitoring PUE, data center operators can identify areas of inefficiency and implement targeted energy-saving measures. Those who demonstrate the effective adoption of the Code of Conduct best practices, leading to significant reductions in energy consumption, are eligible for the annual EU Code of Conduct in Data Centres Awards.; Adoption of Best Practices: The Code of Conduct encourages data center operators and owners to adopt best practices that reduce energy consumption and promote sustainability. These best practices are outlined in a document that is revised annually to include the latest technological developments.

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Microsoft’s approach to addressing the climate crisis starts with the sustainability of our own business. In 2020, we made a bold set of commitments: to be a carbon negative, water positive, zero waste company that protects ecosystems—all by 2030. Three years into this journey, we remain steadfast in our commitment. 2022 was a reminder that to mitigate the most severe impacts of climate change, our commitments need to extend beyond our four walls, and we must continue to accelerate investments that will enable progress for decades to come.; In 2022 we launched Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, a comprehensive suite of enterprise-grade sustainability management tools. We also helped to advance a set of global sustainability initiatives that aim to benefit every person and organization on the planet. These include accelerating the availability of new climate technologies through our Climate Innovation Fund, strengthening our climate policy agenda, helping to develop a more reliable and interoperable carbon accounting system, advocating for skilling programs to expand the green workforce, and working to enable a just transition for the vulnerable populations of the global south.; We believe that Microsoft has an important role to play in developing and advancing new climate solutions, but also recognize that the climate crisis can’t be solved by any single company, organization, or government. The global community needs partnerships, new innovations, policies, and global commitment to ensure a healthy future for all.

  Covid-19 recovery

  In response to the urgent health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have marshaled our resources to protect public health by providing tools and technology to those on the front lines–including health care providers and researchers–to better understand the virus, its transmission, treatment and potential vaccine. Specific actions include:; • Using Azure high-performance computing capabilities and our data scientists and Microsoft researchers to protect public health. One example of this is our expanded commitment to our AI for Health Program, dedicating an additional $20 million in funding to advance the efforts of researchers on the front lines of COVID-19.; • Through AI for Health we are focused on funding projects that use data to help public health authorities make informed and effective decisions on social distancing policies and healthcare capacity needs, help healthcare providers respond to the immediate crisis more safely and effectively, and accelerate scientific efforts to understand and treat COVID-19 and develop a vaccine.; • We have awarded more than 150 grants through AI for Health to organizations tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, including:; • Duke University, selected through the White House High Performance Computing Consortium, whose research team is addressing the short supply of ventilators by developing a new technique that allows them to be split and used with multiple patients.; • COVID-19 Moonshot project by UCB that is leveraging Azure to screen targets and potential entities for research.; • Folding@home, a global organization using distributed computing to research COVID-19 proteins and inform new therapies.; • Helping establish and make available the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset, representing the most extensive machine-readable coronavirus literature collection available for data and text mining to date, with more than 130,000 scholarly articles. The aim is to aid research and discovery efforts for scientists, clinicians, and those working toward a solution.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Inclusive economic growth means leaving no one behind. To this end, we have programs in place to support and help the most vulnerable in our communities.; ; Our business is one of collaboration, co-creation, partnership, and interdependence, particularly with our partner ecosystem, which includes over 40,000 organisations in the UK, employing over 570,000 people. In delivering social value we adopt a similar approach with our partners and customers as we do in the technology delivery – a commitment to maximize social and economic ROI through partnership.; Through our Partner Pledge we extend this ambition to our partner ecosystem, focusing on five critical themes: digital skills, apprenticeships, diversity, responsible & ethical AI, sustainability.; ; Microsoft’s mission is empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more - with inclusiveness at it’s core. By taking the following steps, Microsoft actively addresses workforce inequality across employment, skills, pay, and development, further demonstrating our commitment to creating an inclusive and diverse work environment:; • Diverse and inclusive hiring: We believe diversity brings unique perspectives, accelerates innovation, and contributes to economic equality.; • Skills development: We're dedicated to providing ongoing training and development opportunities for our employees to improve their skills, increase their knowledge, and advance their careers.; • Pay equity: We regularly review our compensation packages to facilitate parity across roles, experience, and locations, regardless of gender, or ethnicity.; • Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and Employee Networks: Microsoft supports various ERGs which provide career development and networking opportunities, as well as activities that promote community engagement and cultural awareness.; • Transparency: As one of the most transparent multinational companies of our size, we publicly share our diversity and inclusion metrics, pay equity analysis, and progress towards equality goals.

  Equal opportunity

  Microsoft recognizes that a diverse workforce is essential to innovation and growth. We promote a cooperative and productive work environment by supporting the cultural and ethnic diversity of our workforce, and are actively committed to providing equal employment opportunity to all qualified employees and applicants. We have many initiatives and programs in place to promote diversity and inclusion, including employee resource groups, diversity and inclusion training, and partnerships with organizations that support underrepresented groups.; We maintain a work environment free from discrimination, one where employees are treated with dignity and respect. All employees share in the responsibility for fulfilling Microsoft's commitment to equal employment opportunity.; Microsoft does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We adhere to these principles in all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, compensation, promotion, benefits, social and recreational programs, and discipline. In addition, it is the policy of Microsoft to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified employees who have protected disabilities to the extent required by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances where a particular employee works. We are committed to equally opportunity practices as demonstrated in the following links:; https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/legalpolicies; https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/default.aspx; https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/default.aspx; Microsoft is committed to equal opportunities employment practices. Microsoft policies on managing and developing workforce, how to empower employees and Inclusive hiring can be found here:; ; https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/empowering-employees

  Wellbeing

  Microsoft has implemented several initiatives to foster the wellbeing of its employees:; ; Microsoft Viva: Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform that fosters a culture of wellbeing and improves productivity. It provides data-driven, privacy-protected insights and recommendations to help improve employee wellbeing.; Work-Life Integration: Microsoft promotes work-life integration, which is the natural evolution of work-life balance. In many flexible employment situations, the boundaries between work life and home life are blurred. This makes it even more important to consider how work—and the rest of life—are more integrated than we might think.; Mental Health Resources: Microsoft has deeply invested in mental health resources as an integral part of employee wellbeing, through its benefits package and workplace culture.; Employee Empowerment: Microsoft focuses on bringing out the best in people, supporting their goals, and allowing them to find deep meaning in their work. They strive to create a respectful, rewarding, diverse, and inclusive work environment.; Diversity and Inclusion: Microsoft believes in empowering everyone on the planet and sees diversity and inclusion as core to its business model. The better they represent diversity inside Microsoft, the better they’re able to innovate for those they seek to empower.; Learning and Development Opportunities: Microsoft provides personalized, integrated, and relevant views of all learning opportunities on Microsoft Learning and LinkedIn Learning. They also offer frequent promotion opportunities.; Benefits and Rewards: Microsoft develops dynamic, sustainable, and strategic programs that together provide a highly differentiated portfolio to attract, reward, and retain top talent.

Pricing

• Price: £0.01 a virtual machine an hour
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Depending upon the service there are range of trial offerings available. There is also a free trial of Azure
• Link to free trial: Free trial of Azure at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/free/search/?ef_id=_k_d00f79182b1a1d5b7a5a1f0d4a8f4aaf_k_&OCID=AIDcmm3bvqzxp1_SEM__k_d00f79182b1a1d5b7a5a1f0d4a8f4aaf_k_&msclkid=d00f79182b1a1d5b7a5a1f0d4a8f4aaf

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

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