Triad Group Plc

Cloud Design Assurance Service

Our design assurance service ensures all aspects of your digital data and technology projects meet business objectives, are secure and implement best practice. Delivered by experienced Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and hybrid solution architects to mitigate risks at the earliest opportunity, control costs and increase confidence in delivery.

Features

• Delivery at key stages from procurement through to live deployment
• Evaluation of supplier proposals during procurement and project delivery
• Change management advisory to support continuous improvement
• Prioritisation of recommendations to expediently resolve technical issues
• Championing and challenging design decisions giving a clear rationale
• Optimisation of application design, implementation and digital transformation initiatives
• Suitable for agile and waterfall project delivery environments
• Knowledge transfer to in-house teams for ongoing effective governance
• Enabling continuous monitoring and reporting to increase delivery success
• Tailored cloud assurance approach, considering cloud product strategy and development

Benefits

• Flexible, open and transparent on-demand service, complementing internal capability
• Ensures architecture and design drive quality outputs and service delivery
• Focuses on performance, scalability and availability for resilient IT
• Improves design quality and supports effective post-delivery maintenance
• Ensures cost-effective selection and configuration of cloud services
• Mitigates mistakes by identifying technical risk and fixes early
• Integrates design authority governance into your organisation
• Validates conformance with UK Technology Code of Practice
• Ensures projects deliver to the Government Digital Service (GDS) Standard
• Ensures that third parties will deliver high-quality solutions

£500 to £1,500 a unit a day

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 tenders@triad.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

918488723718944

Contact

Adrian Leer
+44 (0) 1908 278450
tenders@triad.co.uk

Planning

• Planning service: Yes
• How the planning service works: Triad advise technology leaders and senior managers to inform plans for implementation, reduce disruption and increase automation based on extensive experience gained planning and delivering cloud services. The analysis and plans delivered will confirm your drivers and motivation and clearly define where you are, where you want to be and how to get there.; ; Triad will review your architecture and operating environment to assess and recommend the optimal cloud solution for your business needs, following the UK Technology Code of Practice and GDS standards. Triad will analyse and design a secure solution or assure an existing design; plan migration of your operating environment and data; project manage the changes and plan new services, putting in place governance, tools and techniques including vendor migration methodologies; and develop continuity plans to ensure that your cloud software and services are constantly available.; ; Services are compared from a business and technical perspective, with a focus on the value they deliver; trade-offs are identified, and risk captured upfront so mitigations can be planned as early as is practical.
• Planning service works with specific services: No

Training

• Training service provided: No

Setup and migration

• Setup or migration service available: Yes
• How the setup or migration service works: Triad will define, design and deliver a migration strategy and technical plan to migrate to or between cloud services. A road map will be built to re-host, repurpose or replace your applications or workloads with cloud alternatives. Practical advice is given based on our experience of the most achievable way to migrate to the cloud, eliminate technical debt and digitally transform services. Your current operating environment is assessed to identify where savings can be made, and improvements introduced to meet users’ needs. We focus on value to leverage the right mix of cloud and digital technologies to achieve business agility to enable you to respond to change and scale cloud resources appropriately. Triad has experience in a diverse range of cloud technologies and platforms, including: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform and UKCloud.
• Setup or migration service is for specific cloud services: No

Quality assurance and performance testing

• Quality assurance and performance testing service: Yes
• How the quality assurance and performance testing works: Triad’s quality management system is certified to ISO9001:2015 for the provision of IT consultancy services including software development. We are working towards gaining ISO27001 certification in Autumn 2022. ; ; Our design assurance service conducts a thorough assessment of clients’ IT infrastructures and project designs to ensure they have sufficient resources, bandwidth and infrastructure equipment to meet all technical pre-requisites. Our testing service ensures that cloud deployments are successful. We automate tests to measure the effectiveness of changes and to simulate different performance scenarios to allow tuning of services.; ; Triad provides the following quality assurance services to test that cloud solutions realise the client's functional and non-functional requirements and thereby meet the on-going needs of users and the business:; ; • Unit Testing, API Testing, Integration Testing and System Testing; • User Acceptance Testing (UAT); • A/B User Experience Testing; • Performance Testing, Load Testing and Stress Testing; • Usage and Performance monitoring; ; We have experience with several test management tools, including TestRail and Xray, and test automation tools, such as Selenium, Cucumber, RestSharp, Jenkins, SonarQube, OWASP-ZAP and Axe, plus others. We often incorporate these tools into a Continuous Delivery pipeline. Triad also has a User Experience Laboratory at clients’ disposal.

Security testing

• Security services: Yes
• Security services type:
  • Security strategy
  • Security risk management
  • Security design
  • Cyber security consultancy
  • Security incident management
  • Security audit services

Ongoing support

• Ongoing support service: Yes
• Types of service supported:
  • Buyer hosting or software
  • Hosting or software provided by your organisation
  • Hosting or software provided by a third-party organisation
• How the support service works: Triad's cloud support service ensures that your cloud software and services are constantly available, up to date and secure. We reduce the burden of managing your cloud services by providing dedicated experienced infrastructure and platform support engineers, and application specialists to perform service monitoring, preventative maintenance, and when needed, defect investigation and resolution.; ; Our service maintains control and delivers predictability through governance, tools, and techniques to provide a comprehensive support service wrap. By participating in your change management process, we can assess the impact of change to avoid fix on fail situations to keep your services running.; ; We can support the development of good Service Management, having implemented significant ITIL and ServiceNow management systems. We have experience with a diverse range of cloud technologies and can support all the major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google and UKCloud) and many cloud based services including (but not limited to) Microsoft 365, Sharepoint online and Atlassian Suite.

Service scope

• Service constraints: None

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Formal Service Levels are not applicable to this service. We will discuss and agree availability and scheduling with you when we draft the Call-off Contract.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Support levels: Triad will assign a single point of contact to administer support requests so that an experienced support engineer can be assigned to assist you at the earliest opportunity. Support engineers, with experience in the cloud services you operate, will take ownership and work with you to resolve issues and provide guidance. We recognise that clients have different support needs so we can tailor our service to fit best with your ways of working during an engagement and on an on-going basis. Our on-going support model provides clients with access to engineers that are already familiar with their cloud environment so they can resolve problems quickly and provide relevant advice and guidance. Support costs only apply to the engineers and not to administrative account management. Prices for this G-Cloud service will be based on your specific requirements and our assessment of your needs. All prices will be based on the day rates provided in the SFIA rate card and our Pricing document attached to this service.

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

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

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Peers Quality Assurance
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 10/05/2023
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: N/A
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

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

  Fighting climate change

  Triad’s Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP) commits to net zero by 2050. Our environmental strategy and policy are based on:; • Continual engagement with government and industry to be a knowledgeable “fast follower” of strategies for carbon reduction.; • Measurement of our carbon emissions and setting commitment targets.; • Production and regular review of a plan of actions to reduce our emissions.; • Tracking per capita emissions to ensure underlying improvement.; • Introduction of carbon reduction initiatives prioritising those with highest impact.; • Reporting and publication of progress towards our targets against the plan.; We promote our carbon reduction strategies to our staff and supply chain through training (induction and ongoing) and regular briefings. This includes switch-off policies, expected actions and opportunities for efficiencies outside of work.; Our default work method is the Triad Virtual Office, a mature remote-working model with digital collaboration tools that reduces CO2e by 80%. For essential office work, we promote low/no-carbon essential travel through cycle-to-work and walk-every-day schemes.; To minimise equipment waste, we adopt 360° usage, re-task when obsolete and dispose at end-of-life with 100% traceability. By 2025, we will be paperless with zero single-use plastic.; We adopt a cloud-first principle adopting carbon-neutral cloud platforms for internal use and for client projects. Our CTO validates all designs to ensure environmental factors have been fully considered.; To implement our commitments, we use a detailed checklist at project initiation, reviews and handover to validate we have challenged and optimised environmental factors. We collate data to measure and report progress.; On each Buyer contract, we will agree specific targets and measures as appropriate using our commitments outlined above as a baseline.

  Tackling economic inequality

  To tackle economic inequality, we will consider job creation, upskilling and supply chain partnerships for every contract we win.; Our dedicated in-house Talent Team tracks employment trends and skills shortages to target recruitment at industries, growth sectors and communities in need. ; We facilitate training opportunities with our one-week GCSE and A-level work experience placements and our graduate intake programme. Since September 2021, we have partnered with University of Northampton (in the global top 30 universities for tackling inequality) to support final-year IT students develop and find work.; To attract the disadvantaged, we use neutral language in job adverts (independently audited); advertise on EvenBreak and Find a Job for under-represented groups; display our Disability Confident badge; and offer virtual interviews and remote working. To reach deprived areas suffering digital poverty, we offer telephone or face-to-face interviews. We commit to interview every applicant who meets the minimum criteria. Interviews involve online tests and at least three interviewers to minimise bias. ; We use our supply chain partners to address project capability gaps and we involve them in technology innovation through user research and ideation workshops. We feed ideas into our Innovation Hub, a technical research environment where we invest in emergent and evolving technologies. For example, our successful Blockchain proof-of-concept that proved increased trust and traceability with higher quality distributed transactions. We share the results of our innovation with partners and staff to include in new design and continuous improvement activities. ; To support robust cyber security, we maintain Cyber Essentials Plus and provide cyber security training to our staff and supply chain partners working on our projects.

  Equal opportunity

  To ensure equal opportunity in recruitment, we level the playing field by using neutral language in job adverts (independently audited); advertise on EvenBreak and Find a Job for under-represented groups; display our Disability Confident badge; and offer virtual interviews and remote working. To reach deprived areas with digital poverty, we offer telephone or face-to-face interviews. We commit to interview every applicant who meets the minimum criteria. Interviews involve online tests and at least three people to minimise bias. ; Our ‘think twice’ principle promotes diversity. We train all Triad staff to challenge every decision by asking: “what could we do in this situation to improve diversity?”; We embed ‘think twice’ into staff development. Our annual self-identifying diversity questionnaire confirms how staff wish to be identified, so we can treat them with respect and offer appropriate work choices. Training includes mandatory induction explaining diversity policies and personal responsibilities. Using personal development plans and 360° feedback, we align further training and opportunities to individual needs and aspirations. Management ‘think twice’ about promotion opportunities. For example, using this approach senior staff from under-represented groups increased from 10% to 24% since 2020.; We promote diversity when motivating teams by focusing on proactively recognising everyone’s contributions. We do this by celebrating successes and stories where diversity made a difference in ‘all-hands’ briefings and Triad News. We ‘think twice’ about team composition to achieve a diverse mix on the basis different perspectives breed success.; To ensure everyone feels well-rewarded, we grade and pay everyone equitably. Using the Tech Talent Charter (TTC) benchmark data, we have eliminated gender, race and age pay gaps. To support industry-wide diversity, we collate and report our data to TTC. We openly share all data, so staff feel included and informed.

  Wellbeing

  Triad supports the physical and mental health and wellbeing of our staff through our “Five Ways to Wellbeing” programme:; Connect: We encourage everyone to stay connected with and facilitate connection through fortnightly virtual ‘all-hands’ update meetings with time for questions. Designated team captains connect with all staff, and we run daily management triage meetings for rapid response to reported problems.; Be Active: For both physical benefit and to lower rates of depression and anxiety, we encourage staff to increase activity. Our cycle-to-work scheme helps with bicycle purchase and we reimburse gym fees. We encourage a short exercise before starting a virtual meeting; regular breaks; and lunchtime walks.; Take Notice: Awareness of the here and now enhances self-understanding and promotes positive choices. To support this, we encourage staff to ‘clear the clutter’; vary their routines; visit new places; and check in with colleagues to see how they are. ; Learn: We encourage staff to enhance self-esteem, interact socially and lead an active life. We provide staff with a development and training programme aligned with their role. They have achievable goals and regular performance reviews. ; Give: We offer additional leave days for volunteering and fundraising activities. Our chosen charity is Action for Children. Recent events include ‘Boycott your Bed’ and ‘30 miles in 30 days’ cycling and walking. ; We run an occupational health programme for all staff and provide them with suitable equipment so they can work as effectively at home as they do in the office. This helps to alleviate stress or anxiety from not being able to work productively. ; Our staff also have access to help in the form of the Employee Assistance Programme where they can access 24/7 counselling with support for any issue, round the clock access to GPs, nutrition and fitness programmes, and expert financial and legal advice.

Pricing

• Price: £500 to £1,500 a unit a day
• Discount for educational organisations: No

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 tenders@triad.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.