Six Degrees Technology Group Limited

Managed Public Cloud - Microsoft Azure

As an Azure Expert MSP we offer Azure managed services via two different service tiers designed to help buyers gain control over cloud spend, security and optimisation.

This can be combined with our broader range of cloud managed services - please see the Service Definition and pricing for more details.

Features

• Azure platform resell with value-adding managed services.
• Options for CSP, Non-CSP and Enterprise Agreements.
• Azure Platform support management, backed by Azure premier support.
• Foundation Tier provides ongoing governance through quarterly FinOps reporting.
• Manage & Govern Tier provides monthly FinOps and SecOps reporting.
• Monthly CloudOps reporting helps keep your environment optimised.
• Remediation options available based on reporting recommendations.
• First/Second/Third-line support available for Azure, standard Operating Systems, and SQL.
• Manage multiple workloads across providers (hybrid / multi-cloud).
• Managed options for Backup, Disaster Recovery in Azure.

Benefits

• Gain control over cloud costs and spend.
• Faster resolution with proactive support and prioritised escalation.
• Manage cost control and ensure good security practice.
• Resolve performance, security, reliability, or operational challenges.
• Ensure service availability and resolution.
• Our architecture and management will standby Azure SLAs
• Address in-house resourcing constraints.
• Benefit from access to expert Azure MSP resources.
• Simplify complex licencing and billing processes.
• We can provide one ubiquitous multi-cloud experience.

£650 a unit a month

• Education pricing 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 Publicsector.sales@6dg.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

827968181109889

Contact

Six Degrees' Public Sector team
08000128060
Publicsector.sales@6dg.co.uk

Planning

• Planning service: Yes
• How the planning service works: Assuming Six Degrees performs the migration/transformation activity, the below represents our typical process:; ; Phase 1: Kick-Off Call; Phase 2: Complete and Confirm Pre-requisite; Phase 3: Configure management plane and deploy monitoring, cost and self-service portal (as required); Phase 4: Confirm alerts threshold and tagging conditions; and perform management UAT; Phase 5: Provide handover docs and move into steady-state
• Planning service works with specific services: Yes
• Hosting or software services the planning service works with: Cloud Management on Microsoft Azure

Training

• Training service provided: Yes
• How the training service works: Training around the designed and implemented solution by Six Degrees, including management portals.
• Training is tied to specific services: Yes
• Services the training service works with:
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Six Degrees Private Cloud
  • Six Degrees Public Sector Cloud

Setup and migration

• Setup or migration service available: Yes
• How the setup or migration service works: Six Degrees help buyers migrate in the following way:; ; 1) Governance: Develop governance approach and success criteria; 2) People: Identify user personas and training requirement; 3) Process: Develop operational model, high level design and process flows; 4) Technology: Assess and confirm application suitability for migration or transformation; 5) Proof Of Concept: Conduct POC and pilot testing on migrated/transformed workloads, and user acceptance test.; 6) Go-Live: Redirect traffic to new platform and support/train for initial period.; 7) Handover: Exit migration with success criteria met and handover documentation provided.; ; Note: Cloud to Cloud migration may be inherited as-is under certain circumstances before improvements are recommended and executed.
• Setup or migration service is for specific cloud services: Yes
• List of supported services:
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Six Degrees Private Cloud

Quality assurance and performance testing

• Quality assurance and performance testing service: Yes
• How the quality assurance and performance testing works: Six Degrees can provide penetration testing and some of the quality assurance testing internally. Other more specific performance or load testing are done via a 3rd party provider.

Security testing

• Security services: Yes
• Security services type:
  • Security strategy
  • Security risk management
  • Security design
  • Cyber security consultancy
  • Security testing
  • Security incident management
  • Security audit services
  • Other
• Other security services:
  • Azure Security Center
  • Penetration Testing by Six Degrees' independent security team
• Certified security testers: Yes
• Security testing certifications:
  • CHECK
  • CREST
  • Tigerscheme
  • Cyber Scheme

Ongoing support

• Ongoing support service: Yes
• Types of service supported: Hosting or software provided by a third-party organisation
• How the support service works: Six Degrees resell Microsoft Azure services and provide overlaying management and support services. The majority of support is provided internally by Six Degrees' 24x7 support team. 3rd party providers are used to complement Six Degrees to ensure buyers are provided with best in-class experience and skills.

Service scope

• Service constraints: Buyers will need to abide by 3rd party hosting platforms' rules of engagement. e.g. Microsoft Azure.

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Dependant on incident/request and priority level - please see attached Service Description for details.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 A
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
• Web chat support: No
• Support levels: Please see attached Service Description for support levels.

Resellers

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

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Security Clearance (SC)

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: LRQA
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 03/10/2022
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: N/A
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: Yes
• Who accredited the PCI DSS certification: IT Governance
• PCI DSS accreditation date: 08/11/2023
• What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover: Only the physical and environmental security at the data centres we use in our operations were included in this assessment. The relates to the provision of the secure physical environment for the Colocation Services that Six Degrees provides to its clients. All other services provided by Six Degrees, internal systems supporting business operations or for other clients are specifically excluded from this assessment.
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • ISO 9001
  • ISO 22301
  • PSN Compliance Certified
  • SOC 1 Type 2
  • SOC 2 Type 2

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

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

  Fighting climate change

  We have an established environmental committee that is specifically focussed on ensuring that we apply an approach of continuous improvement in relation to environmental compliance and good practice. As part of our environmental commitments, we are aligned to ISO 14001(Environmental Management) and have a published Carbon Reduction Plan on our website, which was measured and recorded in accordance with GHG Protocols and Procurement Policy Note 06/21. ; ; We will be reviewing our footprint on an annual basis and carrying out actions identified to reduce our footprint. We are committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050 at the latest. During this time, targets will be set for the remaining period to ensure Net Zero will be achieved by our target date. We are aiming to reduce our absolute carbon emissions by at least 90% from our baseline year or achieve (and maintain) a carbon intensity metric of <1 tonne CO2e per employee, whichever comes soonest. This is in line with science-based Net Zero targets. ; ; Our largest environmental burden is the use of power in our datacentres. We use technology designed specifically to manage power consumption. We are very proud to have switched our data centres fully to use green and renewable energy. ; ; Our focus on environmental performance as a supplier under this framework will benefit you as you strive to achieve your own Net Zero targets. ; ; As a leading Microsoft partner, we can work with Microsoft to help you understand the carbon footprint for your existing estates, and how a transition to hybrid/public cloud could help reduce it. As part of any agreement under this framework we can also engage with your local communities to promote environmental awareness or engage in projects that benefit the environment.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Six Degrees supports this theme in several ways. Firstly, by working with local communities to provide mentoring and job opportunities. We take pride in employing local people and offering new opportunities as they arise. We do this through our internal Talent Acquisition (TA) team, who are actively building richer and deeper contacts within the local community to raise aspirations of people from all backgrounds. ; ; We seek to encourage local people to work within the technology sector by removing barriers to entry, for example through behavioural interviewing with objective behaviours that actively seek to remove bias (unconscious or otherwise) in recruitment and individual development discussions. Our TA team partner with local universities, schools and colleges to support careers fairs and our subject matter experts provide talks on IT or cyber security to local students. ; ; We are also very passionate about our ‘Women in Tech’ group, which seeks to encourage women into IT through all sorts of activity, such as webinars, school visits and other events. We are continuously planning new events and initiatives under this scheme, which we could then offer to buyers and their community as part of engagements on this framework. ; ; Secondly, we will tackle economic inequality and the digital skills gap through creation of new skills & jobs in the high-growth cyber security sector. Our cyber apprenticeship programme, sponsored by our People Business Partner & Cyber Consultancy Director, provide skills and accreditations that enable our people to progress in cyber security or transition into that space. ; ; We also run in-person events, known as ‘Cyber University’, as an education scheme for our Buyers based on our extensive knowledge and experience in Cyber Security. Cyber University provides an open forum for customers to create new skills in Cyber Strategy, best practice approaches and the latest in Cyber Security.

  Equal opportunity

  We recognise that people are more likely to be engaged and productive if they are rewarded fairly and offered flexibility to help achieve a positive work life balance. We therefore pay at the Real Living Wage in all of our roles, and remain committed to our ongoing pay review process to ensure all our employees are fairly rewarded. Six Degrees also has a continuous focus on closing the gender pay gap in our company, with our latest report available on our website. ; ; We recognise that females are underrepresented in education, training and employment related to STEM. To combat this, we have introduced several strategies to bring new females into the organisation. These include our engagement with schools, colleges, and universities to raise the aspirations of females toward tech. Our goal of ensuring every recruitment shortlist contains as least one female, and our offer of a guaranteed interview for every shortlisted female. ; ; We have collaborated with the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion (ENEI), achieving a bronze TIDE Award in our first two years of collaboration. Through our continued devotion to improving, we were awarded a silver status in 2023. Through this partnership we have focused our work around seven critical areas of inclusion – our workforce, our strategy and plan, leadership and accountability, recruitment and attraction, training and development, employment practices, and communication.; ; We have zero tolerance to slavery in any form, but by no means limited to, bonded labour, debt bondage, serfdom, forced labour, child slavery, marital slavery, sexual slavery and/or human trafficking. We expect all those in our supply chains to comply with our values and the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which is governed by our Supplier Management and Sustainable Procurement Policy.

  Wellbeing

  Supporting our workforce’s health and wellbeing is crucial to Six Degrees. We have established an employee network, known as the 360 Degrees Group, which is made up of people who are passionate about making a difference from across all different business units, with an Executive-level sponsor and SLT-level sponsors for each sub-group or initiative. The initiatives include: ; ; - Including Everyone, Everywhere: Our forum which focuses on diversity and inclusion: it’s about creating a Six Degrees where everyone feels able to bring their truest self to work.; ; - Healthy Minds, Healthy Lives: Our forum for mental health and general wellbeing. A healthy mind and body is at the core of being happy and productive at work and at home.; ; - For The Benefit of Others: There’s something that touches, motivates or inspires all of us; this is a forum which focuses on charity fundraising, on making a positive mark on the communities which Six Degrees touches, and on making this a greener place to work.; ; We operate a well-being calendar led by Healthy Minds, Healthy Lives and also have certified Mental Health First Aiders across the business, demonstrating our commitment to providing our workforce with wellbeing support. ; ; We have a significant focus on building awareness and promoting dialogue around health and wellbeing: our Women in Tech committee talks about female health, and for June (Men’s Health Awareness Month) they will be promoting awareness of men’s health, for example testicular and prostate cancers.; ; Under the 3rd initiative we actively encourage community engagement through numerous social value activities. These include collaborative and individual fundraising projects for our partnership with Macmillan as well as promoting events within communities. In 2019 we sponsored the Women in IT awards and have also sponsored a Tough Mudder charity event.

Pricing

• Price: £650 a unit a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes

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 Publicsector.sales@6dg.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.