THE CURVE CONSULTING SERVICES LIMITED

The Curve Cloud Hosting

For organisations looking to move to a cloud-based infrastructure but not sure where to start, we can help with everything from designing a suitable cloud-based solution, migrating current infrastructure over and can even manage the services once in place.

Features

• Managed Service
• Low Cost Operations
• 24 x 7 Availability
• Security
• Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
• Low Carbon Footprint
• Enhanced Collaboration
• Scaleable

Benefits

• Pay Structure (users only pay for the resources they use)
• Speed to Market
• Streamlined Work
• Competitive Edge
• Customisable (Flexible solutions for the customer's use case)

£0.02 a gigabyte

• Free trial available

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 lt@thecurve.io. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

894912201172552

Contact

Mai Mai Steele
0114 303 4070
lt@thecurve.io

Service scope

• Service constraints: Network Connection Dependency. To fully benefit from cloud computing services, your business or consumers must always have an internet connection.
• System requirements: All system requirements are determined per Customer/project engagement

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Type of Response by Severity Level Time to first response Critical (Severity 1) - Immediate(when raised by phone) Major (Severity 2) - 4 business hours Minor (Severity 3) - 24 business hours Update frequency Critical - every hour Major - every 4 business hours Minor - every 24 business hours Root Cause determination (time starts after issue reproduction) Critical - 48 hours Major - 60 business hours Minor - 12 business days Contact Channels Critical - Phone (recommended), Email, Ticketing Major - Email, Ticketing Minor - Email, Ticketing
• 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: Web chat
• Web chat support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Web chat accessibility testing: We outsource our ticketing software so we've not done any direct testing ourselves.
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Bronze Support 8x5 (M-F 0900 - 1700) Email/Ticket Support only, 100 cases p.a. up to 2 named contacts, £10,000 p.a. Silver 24x5 (M-F 0001-2359) Email/Ticket/Phone Support, 500 cases p.a., up to 5 named contacts, £25000 p.a. Gold 24x7x365 Email/Ticket/Phone Support, Unlimited cases, up to 8 named contacts, £50000 p.a. Platinum 24x7x365 Email/Ticket/Phone Support, Unlimited cases, up to 10 named contacts, £75,000 p.a. 1 Named Support Engineer
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Entirely dependent on the customer, their requirements and their operating environment - we provide any/all user help methods: onsite training, online training and/or user documentation.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • ODF
  • PDF
  • Other
• Other documentation formats: Google Docs
• End-of-contract data extraction: As the data is protected and stored in the cloud, the customer is provided with full access to their data as required. There are a number of export mechanisms if the goal is to move away from the service and is situation-dependent.
• End-of-contract process: The nature of our contracts are varied. This is something to be discussed and agreed with the Customer. We work closely with our partners as well to ensure smooth handover.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: We are a AWS, MS , IBM Cloud reseller and therefore fall under their service description offerings. The creation and inclusion of web interfaces vary from project to project and their functionality and attributes will be documented in the technical specification that accompanies each solution design.
• Web interface accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Web interface accessibility testing: 3
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: We are a AWS, MSA , IBM Cloud reseller and therefore fall under their service description offerings. The creation and inclusion of API's vary from project to project and their functionality and attributes will be documented in the technical specification that accompanies each solution design.
• API automation tools:
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • OpenStack
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
  • Other
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• Command line interface: Yes
• Command line interface compatibility:
  • Linux or Unix
  • Windows
  • MacOS
• Using the command line interface: All Cloud providers (AWS, MS Azure, IBM Cloud) offer fully comprehensive CLI's applications that allow the management of any aspect of the service w/o limitations.

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type: Automatic
• Independence of resources: Our resold Cloud Provider uses provisioned capacity guarantees that our customer's retrieval capacity for expedited retrievals will be available when needed. Each unit of capacity ensures that at least 3 expedited retrievals can be performed every 5 minutes and provides up to 150MB/s of retrieval throughput. Retrieval capacity can be provisioned if there are specific expedited retrieval rate requirements that need to be met. Without provisioned capacity, expedited retrieval requests will be accepted if capacity is available at the time the request is made.
• 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
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra features and support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• 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: As a Cloud Provider Reseller, each service allows several options for encrypting data at rest, for additional layer of security, ranging from completely automated encryption solution to manual client-side options. Each solution is tailored to customer's stated requirements as part of the technical solution design.
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Backup and recovery

• Backup and recovery: Yes
• What’s backed up:
  • Databases
  • Virtual Machines
  • Disk Volumes, Hard Drives
• Backup controls: A backup strategy is captured as a requirement as part of the technical solution design and will be agreed with the customer on a case by case basis. Customers can also control their backups via the web interfaces and API's as previously described. The backup options are flexible and support fine-grain control.
• Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
• Scheduling backups: Supplier controls the whole backup schedule
• Backup recovery: Users contact the support team

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

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: As we are a Reseller, we use the SLA's offered by the Cloud Provider... links for AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/sla/ MS Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/legal/sla/ IBM CLoud: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/overview?topic=overview-slas
• Approach to resilience: Information about how our service is designed to be resilient is available on request.
• Outage reporting: Service outages are reported directly to The Curve's Support Team for action via dashboard API, email and SMS alerts.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We have full identity and access management control. The Customer has the ability to define user's groups, controls, policies & permissions.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Devices users manage the service through:
  • Dedicated device over multiple services or networks
  • Any device but through a bastion host (a bastion host is a server that provides access to a private network from an external network such as the internet)
  • 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: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
• How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • Working towards ISO 27001, 9001
  • Resold providers fully compliant to several certs i.e. ISO, PCI

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: No
• Security governance approach: We are in the process of pursuing ISO security standard accreditation. Currently, we have an internal information security policy best practice which adopts a risk-based approach, sets the direction of investment decisions, ensure conformance with internal and external requirements, fosters a security-positive environment for all stakeholders. We also review performance in relation to business outcomes.
• Information security policies and processes: We have an information security policy and follow processes accordingly. This policy can be provided to customers upon request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: We have an internal configuration and change management policy and follow processes accordingly. This policy can be provided to customers upon request.
• Vulnerability management type: Undisclosed
• Vulnerability management approach: We have an internal vulnerability management policy and follow processes accordingly. This policy can be provided to customers upon request.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: We have an internal protective monitoring policy and follow processes accordingly. This policy can be provided to customers upon request.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: We have an internal incident management policy and follow processes accordingly. This policy can be provided to customers upon request.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Separation between users

• Virtualisation technology used to keep applications and users sharing the same infrastructure apart: Yes
• Who implements virtualisation: Supplier
• Virtualisation technologies used: KVM hypervisor
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: As a Reseller, our Cloud Provider deals with this. For example, AWS uses a simple key-based object store. When data is stored, a unique object key is assigned that can later be used to retrieve the data. Keys can be any string, and they can be constructed to mimic hierarchical attributes. Alternatively, S3 Object Tagging can be used to organize data across all of S3 buckets and/or prefixes.

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: The resold cloud providers' datacentres are energy efficient. As a tenant of this environment, our energy draw is negligible therefore adherant to the EU Code of Conduct for Energy Efficient datacentres

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Helping organisations transition to digital services and more efficient ways of working

  Covid-19 recovery

  Helping businesses that struggled during the pandemic redefine their processes to ensure less reliance on traditional methods

  Equal opportunity

  Allowing people to access information / data from remote locations, empowering people with different abilities, needs, and preferences

  Wellbeing

  providing ability for organisations to better manage workloads and therefore provide employees with better workplace environments

Pricing

• Price: £0.02 a gigabyte
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Dependent upon cloud provider. Free tier options are available - details provided upon request.

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 lt@thecurve.io. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.