Computacenter - IBM Watson AI Platform
Get deep insights from your data, interact with customers and employees on their terms, and train your AI systems on the language of your industry. Infuse AI into your applications to make more accurate predictions, automate decisions and processes, and optimize your team’s time. https://www.ibm.com/watson/products-services
Features
- Conversational AI voice or text chatbots/virtual assistant
- Enterprise AI-powered search and text analytics Natural Language
- Deep insights into meaning of text
- Speech to Text - transform voice into written text accurately
- Text to Speech - convert written text into natural-sounding audio
- Watson Knowledge Studio - teach Watson domain language
- Natural Language Classifier - text classification made easy Service benefits
Benefits
- Access Watson APIs through IBM Cloud or other clouds
- Quickly build and deploy AI applications trained by business users
- Find patterns and meaning in unstructured data
- Adapt and customise to work in specific domains
- Use business friendly tools for machine learning
- Collaborate on AI related tasks
- Infuse Watson AI into business applications and processes
Pricing
£150 a unit a month
- Free trial available
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 14
Service ID
8 5 5 9 8 4 9 9 9 8 0 7 9 7 3
Contact
Computacenter (UK) Ltd
Karen Baldock
Telephone: +44 (0) 1707 631000
Email: government@computacenter.com
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- Yes
- What software services is the service an extension to
- Contact us for details
- Cloud deployment model
-
- Public cloud
- Private cloud
- Hybrid cloud
- Service constraints
- No current constraints
- System requirements
-
- Internet connection & web browser
- Runs on IBM Cloud or IBM Cloud Pak for Data
- Can be deployed on AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud
- Can be deployed on premise
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
- Contact us for details.
- 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
- Web chat
- 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
- Contact us for details
- Web chat accessibility testing
- Contact us for details
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
- Support is available 24x7. Support is provided by a ticketing system. Customer can define severity level 1-4. Basic, Advanced and Premium support options available at additional cost. Full details of support options available here : https://www.ibm.com/cloud/support
- Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
- We provide comprehensive online documentation, tutorials, free online training courses and hundreds of tutorials and articles available on our IBM Developer portal.
- Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
-
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
- Each service on the IBM Cloud platform differs in the ability to export data. IBM will return the Client Data within a reasonable period in a reasonable and common format upon receiving written instructions from the Client prior to termination or expiration.
- End-of-contract process
- At the end of the contract services continue to run but the user will be prompted to add a new payment method or sign a new contract. Access via the UI will be disable but services continue to run and there is no immediate data loss.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Internet Explorer 11
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Application to install
- No
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- Contact us for details
- Service interface
- No
- User support accessibility
- WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
- Contact us for details
- API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
-
- HTML
- API sandbox or test environment
- No
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
- New users can be added, service can be split into organisations & spaces to separate projects. Quotas and spending limits can be applied.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
- The architecture of IBM cloud services maintains logical separation of client data. Internal rules and measures separate data processing, such as inserting, modifying, deleting, and transferring data, according to the contracted purposes.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- No
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Reseller providing extra support
- Organisation whose services are being resold
- IBM
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
-
- 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
- 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
- Other
- Other data at rest protection approach
- Security for both data-in-use and data-at-rest is the customers responsibility as the applications are developed. Customers can take advantage of several data-related services available in the IBM Cloud Catalog and IBM will advise and support as required. IBM are unable to view or access customer data.
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
- Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
- Equipment disposal approach
- Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
- Depends on the service being used in the platform.
- Data export formats
- Other
- Other data export formats
- Range of formats supported depending on the service being used
- Data import formats
- Other
- Other data import formats
- Range of formats supported depending on the service being used
Data-in-transit protection
- Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
-
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
- Other
- Other protection between networks
- IBM will encrypt content not intended for public or unauthenticated viewing when transferring content over public networks. Further, unless excluded by a TD, IBM will enable use of a cryptographic protocol, such as HTTPS, SFTP, and FTPS, for Client’s secure transfer of content to and from the Cloud Service over public networks.
- Data protection within supplier network
-
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
- 99.95% for applications/services configured for high availability across 2 or more IBM Cloud geographic regions. 99.5% for applications/services deployed in a single geographic region. 10% credit refund if SLA is not met with necessary information to validate such a claim.
- Approach to resilience
- Information can be made available on request
- Outage reporting
- Email alerts and available on a webpage at: https://cloud.ibm.com/status
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)
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- Role based access restricts access to management interfaces and support channels. Roles include developer, manager, auditor and billing manager. Different roles see different interfaces.
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
- Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
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
- Between 1 month and 6 months
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- Yes
- Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
- BSI
- ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
- 28/04/2022
- What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
- Our ISO/IEC 27001 certification relates to the information security management system and not the products or services of the certified organisation.
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- Yes
- Who accredited the PCI DSS certification
- Gemserv Ltd
- PCI DSS accreditation date
- 22/09/2021
- What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover
- As per section 2a of the PCI-DSS certificate, there are no areas that were marked as ‘Not Included’. We therefore confirm we are compliant across all relevant requirements for our services as a Hosting Provider, Managed Services and Payment Processing.
- Cyber essentials
- Yes
- Cyber essentials plus
- Yes
- Other security certifications
- No
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
- IBM has an Information Technology (IT) Security policy that establishes the requirements for the protection of IBM's worldwide IT systems and the information assets they contain, including networks and computing devices such as servers, workstations, host computers, application programs, web services, and telephone systems within the IBM infrastructure. IBM’s IT Security policy is supplemented by standards and guidelines, such as the Security Standards for IBM's Infrastructure, the Security and Use Standards for IBM Employees and the Security Guidelines for Outsourced Business Services. Such are reviewed by a cross-company team led by the IT Risk organization every six months. IBM has a dedicated Vice President of IT Security who leads a team responsible for IBM's own enterprise data security standards and practices. Responsibility and accountability for executing internal security programs is established through formal documented policies. IBM Services teams also have dedicated executives and teams who are responsible for information and physical security in the delivery of our client services.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Supplier-defined controls
- Configuration and change management approach
- IBM uses QRadar to track configuration and manage the lifecycle of components. Core platform components run through an automated pipeline to evaluate security impact of the change.
- Vulnerability management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Vulnerability management approach
- IBM uses endpoint manager to manage patches to the system. IBM hardens the systems to ITCS 103.
- Protective monitoring type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Protective monitoring approach
- IBM uses QRadar to monitor system events which automatically raises a ticket to manage incidents.
- Incident management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Incident management approach
- IBM maintains and follows incident response policies aligned with NIST guidelines for computer security incident handling, and will comply with data breach notification requirements under applicable law. IBM investigates security incidents, including unauthorised access or use of content or the Cloud Service, of which IBM becomes aware, and, if warranted, define and execute an appropriate response plan. IBM promptly notifies Client upon determining that a security incident known or reasonably suspected by IBM to affect Client has occurred. IBM provides Client with reasonably requested information about such security incident, status of applicable remediation, restoration activities performed or directed by IBM.
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)
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- No
Social Value
- Social Value
-
Social Value
- Fighting climate change
- Covid-19 recovery
- Tackling economic inequality
- Equal opportunity
- Wellbeing
Fighting climate change
Computacenter ensures that our business practices deliver effective stewardship of the environment in line with the Social Value Model. Computacenter's science-based emissions reductions targets are approved with the SBTi. Our Net Zero Journey Group Emissions is now just 16% of 2015 levels as outlined in our carbon reduction plan to achieve ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions by 2040.
Business travel is necessary, both for our customer requirements and for our staff. We have materially reduced business travel, ensuring all business trips are necessary, helping reduce carbon emissions. We are investing in technology to allow greater use of existing communication platforms as part of our ‘hybrid working’ strategy. One of the key benefits we believe this will help us realise is reducing emissions from business travel by 35 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2019). For G-Cloud services this means that we will drive the use of virtual, technology-enabled meetings as much as possible for all internal and external sessions, including those with our wider supply chain.
Further to this we can provide customer advisory services which include guidance and recommendations on how to improve their sustainability performance to help inform customer decision making whilst achieving the desired commercial and technical outcomes through the services being provided.
Computacenter has introduced incentives to encourage the replacement of the existing Fleet with Ultra Low Emission Vehicles. We have 44 electric charging points across 2 of our locations to encourage the adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles, either through our company car scheme or privately. For this framework specifically, this means that our consultants, project managers and engineering resource will have access to a ULEV vehicle via our company car scheme and the ability to charge a vehicle at Computacenter office locations.Covid-19 recovery
Throughout the pandemic we have closely followed and implemented government guidance relating to the workplace and COVID-19. We created a COVID-19 risk assessment to enable us to understand the improvements that need to be made to our workplace conditions in line with the Government COVID-19 secure workplace guidelines and the business advice that is now current. It looks at the risks of COVID-19 in the workplace, such as hygiene, & cleaning and then states what we must put in place to mitigate these risks.
As we enter the recovery phase of the pandemic, we have introduced hybrid working for our employees. This will allow most employees including those delivering G-Cloud services increased flexibility in how and where they work ensuring that we still deliver the best service to our customers whilst looking after our people.
Our COVID-19 steering committee is there to identify activities that will improve workplace conditions then plan, build and regularly monitor various programmes focused on supporting the COVID-19 recovery effort. At these meetings, chaired by our Chief People Officer (‘CPO’) Sarah Long, our CIO John Gibbs and Services operations, the steering committee discuss changes that need to be implemented, identify areas of improvement, and review our roadmap of new activities.
Throughout the life of the contract, we will use our existing activities (as well as those that are in development in due course) to continue to improve workplace conditions in support of the COVID-19 recovery effort.
Questions relating to travel were included in the COVID-19 surveys that were issued through the pandemic. The assessment highlighted concerns people had about public transport. To help all employees; managers were coached and given guidance about being flexible with start/finish times. We continue to adapt our approach based on feedback received through the steering committee and employee surveys.Tackling economic inequality
As a diverse and inclusive organisation with a strong focus on equality and driving in-work progression, our approach to recruitment and employment is aligned to recognised industry best practices such as the 5 principles of quality work as set out in the Good Work Plan.
Our Employee Impact Groups for disadvantaged or minority groups provide representation, support, and community engagement, feeding into our People Panel ensuring all voices are heard, underpinning our wider ambition of building a sustainable business for the long term.
We put specific measures in place to provide opportunities to under-represented groups or those who face barriers to employment, including comprehensive outreach programmes for schools and universities, as well as partnerships with non-profit organisations within our communities. We continue focus on reaching harder to reach groups and people who are underrepresented in our sector by working with charities and schools in the local community to offer career talks and work experience opportunities. Our school outreach programme has over 130 volunteers dedicating over 2,600 hours running activities for employability and life skills in schools, colleges, and universities.
Computacenter is one of the 9 founding members of ‘Technology Community for Racial Equality’ (‘TC4RE’), a group set up to drive racial equality throughout the technology industry, with which we are delivering a half-day virtual event on ‘Enabling Ethnic Diversity’ featuring a series of expert keynotes, live panel discussions and interactive workshops with representation from across the UK technology community.
Furthermore, Computacenter are a silver level partner in the Armed Forces Covenant and has introduced a programme that provides the opportunity to attain a degree and ServiceNow certification whilst receiving full salary for armed forces leavers. This programme is the first of many programmes we intend on running to help ex-forces personal transition back into the workplace and the IT industry.Equal opportunity
Computacenter is committed to providing equal opportunities to all through fair recruitment practices and employment conditions across our organisation.
We are a Disability Confident ‘Committed’ employer, committed to making lasting changes to our business creating a diverse talent pool. We work with partners through our community outreach, who are specialists in disability. An example is our work with Knightsfield School in Welwyn Garden City, a specialist school for deaf children. We run at least 3 ‘get work ready’ events with them, as well as offer up to 4 work experience opportunities and onsite visits every year.
For this contract, we will use existing initiatives (as well as others that are in development) to provide career opportunities for individuals from under-represented groups to address requirements for specific skills or roles with a focus on increasing skillsets through the life of the contract. This will include apprenticeships aligned to security and cloud/infrastructure departments, as well as industrial placements and graduate schemes for our ServiceNow Centre of Excellence, with specific focus on delivering cloud-based services to our customers.
Our workforce for services delivered under this framework will have access to existing initiatives aimed at supporting in-work progression and development for those from disadvantaged/minority groups. For example, our gender diversity initiatives include our Growing Together programme, which over 150 women have been through so far, of which over one-third have been promoted or taken a new role within a year following the mentoring and coaching provided.
We are also committed to driving racial equality across our business and the wider technology industry. We are a founding member of ‘Technology Community for Racial Equality’ which recently delivered a half-day virtual event on ‘Enabling Ethnic Diversity’ featuring a series of expert keynotes, live panel discussions and interactive workshops with representation from across the UK technology community.Wellbeing
We understand how important employee Wellbeing is for a sustainable business model, therefore we are committed to creating a sustainable supply chain. Ensuring the wellbeing of our employees are looked after will positively affect productivity, recruitment, and retention rates.
In November 2021, a designated UK wellbeing manager was appointed and has since launched our wellbeing strategy, which aligns with the Social Value Model and the 6 standards of the Mental Health at Work Commitment, signed in July 2021. We are actively implementing the enhanced mental health standards as recommended through the ‘Thriving at Work’ review, and NICE mental health at work guidelines, as part of our Wellbeing strategy. The strategy encompasses four pillars of wellbeing, mental, physical, financial, and social. We are a Menopause friendly organisation and have created a support network for those in need.
We have 109 Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) accredited staff in the UK, trained by Mind, who act as Wellbeing Champions providing mental health first aid support and promoting our wellbeing services which those delivering G-Cloud service provisions will have access to. These champions are from every business area and from different seniority. We hold events throughout the year organised by our UK wellbeing manager and Champions, which have included celebrating World Mental Health days, Menopause awareness, financial wellbeing webinars and sponsored events to raise money for our mental health charity partners.
2021 also saw the launch of our new groupwide app-based programme ‘Be Well’ which gives our people access to over 3,000 fitness, nutrition, health and wellbeing courses through Humanoo. Through this app we have launched an extremely popular groupwide step challenge and has encouraged our people to be more active, with over 35% of our workforce now using the app and covering over 1.8bn steps so far.
Pricing
- Price
- £150 a unit a month
- Discount for educational organisations
- No
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- Contact us for details