QODEA LIMITED

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Google Cloud Platform is a global and security focussed public cloud service that provides many IaaS and PaaS services including; Software & Application Development, Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence, Big Data (Data Lake and Data Warehouse), Infrastructure, Virtual Machines, Kubernetes, Databases and Networking. CTS is a Google Cloud Premier Partner.

Features

• App Engine (PaaS) Compute Engine (IaaS) Kubernetes Engine (PaaS)
• Storage Databases Object/BLOB Enterprise-Data-Warehouse Relational SQL NoSQL Key-Value JSON Block
• Networking Private Global DDoS Firewall CDN Load-Balancing Interconnect VPN DNS
• Big-Data Warehouse Ingestion Transformation Batch/Stream Messaging Service Visualisation Preparation
• AI Machine-Learning Neural-Networks Cloud-ML APIs Vision Video Translation NLP Speech-To-Text
• Identity Security IAM Identity-Aware-Proxy KMS DLP Resource Management RBAC Service-Account
• Management Tools Stackdriver Logging Monitoring Trace Endpoints Console Application Alerting
• Developer-Tools SDK Toolkit Container Registry Builder Deployment-Manager Repositories Git Plugins
• Fast High Performance Global Network Private Fiber Multi-region data centers
• Autoscaling Zero-Prewarming Supports 1 Million+ queries per second

Benefits

• No upfront costs, pay-as-you-go, no termination fees
• Sustained use discounts - Automatically applied to workloads
• Per second billing - Pay per second not per minute
• Custom machine types Pick any configuration of CPU and memory
• Rightsizing recommendations - Based on usage so you consume less
• Commit use discounts Savings without upfront fees or instance-type lockin
• Coldine Archival storage, cost of tape at speed of disk
• Live migration Instances can be moved to hosts while active
• Instances boot roughly 1/5 the time required by competing clouds
• Google grade security Infrastructure protected by more than 500 experts

£0.01 a unit

• 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 alison.king@cts.co. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

929020530669381

Contact

Alison King
07847 302291
alison.king@cts.co

Service scope

• Service constraints: No
• System requirements: None

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: P1 - 1 business hour response time; P2 - 2 business hours response time; P3 - 8 business hours response time; P4 - 2 business days response time; ; Subject to agreed contract.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: 1st, 2nd and 3rd line support is provided by cloud support engineers and in some cases a technical account manager is assigned. Calls are processed and managed based on standard P1, P2, P3, P4 classifications with defined SLAs. Support channels provided include web, phone and email.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: CTS are a Google Premier Partner with a proven track record of deploying Google into Central & Local Government, Education, 3rd Sector and Private sector. CTS Provide on-site user training, VIP training, Admin Training, Change Management, Technical & Strategic consultancy, Project Management. ; ; Google Documentation, training, worked examples, best practices, and a free usage tier are available to assist users with getting started on Google Cloud Platform.; ; Getting Started: https://cloud.google.com/getting-started/; Online Documentation: https://cloud.google.com/docs/; Training Sessions: https://cloud.google.com/training/; Google Developers Codelabs provide a guided, tutorial, hands-on coding experience:; https://codelabs.developers.google.com/; Best practices: https://cloud.google.com/docs/enterprise/best-practices-for-enterprise-organizations; Free tier available: https://cloud.google.com/free/
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • PDF
  • Other
• Other documentation formats: Google Docs
• End-of-contract data extraction: Google's adoption of open APIs and open source technology allows users to move their data easily between cloud environments and prevent vendor lock-in (https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/07/how-to-escape-lock-in-with-a-multi-cloud-stack26.html). We offer third party solutions for offline data import/export (https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/offline-media-import-export), and VM migration through recommended partners (https://cloud.google.com/migrate/). Further to this Articles 7 and 8 of Google Data Processing and Security Terms (https://cloud.google.com/terms/data-processing-terms) states that Google will provide the ability to correct, block, export and delete the Customer Data during the terms of the agreement. To the extent the customer does not have the ability migrate Customer Data to another system, Google will, at Customer’s reasonable expense, comply with any reasonable requests to assist in this.
• End-of-contract process: On the expiry or termination of the Agreement, after a recovery period of up to 30 days following such expiry or termination, Google will delete the Customer-Deleted Data within a maximum period of 180 days, unless applicable legislation or legal process prevents it from doing so.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: Deploy, scale and diagnose issues via a simple web based interface. You can securely manage and monitor everything that powers your cloud application.; https://cloud.google.com/cloud-console/
• Web interface accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web interface is accessible: We are working towards making our products and services more accessible for assistive technology users.
• Web interface accessibility testing: We are working towards improving the testing of our products and services with assistive technology users.
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: You can automate your workflows in your language by accessing the Google Cloud Platform products from your code. Cloud APIs provide similar functionality to Cloud SDK and Cloud Console, and allow you to automate your workflows by using your favorite language.; https://cloud.google.com/apis/
• API automation tools:
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
  • Other
• Other API automation tools:
  • Jenkins
  • Packer
  • Kubernetes
  • Spinnaker
  • Google Cloud Deployment Manager
  • Pivotal
  • Openshift
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
• Command line interface: Yes
• Command line interface compatibility:
  • Linux or Unix
  • Windows
  • MacOS
  • Other
• Using the command line interface: The CLI can be used to access products and services on GCP from the command-line. You can run these tools interactively or in your automated scripts.; https://cloud.google.com/sdk/

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type:
  • Automatic
  • Manual
• Independence of resources: GCP runs on top of Google's infrastructure which serves billions of users across many products and services, the integrity and scale of those services ensures that user demand is handled appropriately. ; Customer data is logically segregated by domain to allow data to be produced for a single tenant only.; The authorization to provision additional processing capacity is obtained through budget approvals and; managed through internal SLAs as part of an effective resource economy.; Further details - https://cloud.google.com/files/Google-Cloud-CSA-CAIQ-January2017-CSA-CAIQ-v3.0.1.pdf (Section AAC-03.1 and IVS-04.3)
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • API
  • Email
  • SMS
  • Other

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • HTTP request and response status
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
  • Other
• Other metrics: See documentation for further metrics https://cloud.google.com/products/management/
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards

Resellers

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

Staff security

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

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: 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
  • 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: Google hard drives leverage technologies like FDE (full disk encryption) and drive locking.; https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption-at-rest
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
  • Hardware containing data is completely destroyed
• 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
• Backup controls: This varies between services, users can control what backups are performed via the web interface, CLI or APIs.
• 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
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
• Other protection between networks: Securing data in transit is a high priority for Google. Google was the first major cloud provider to enable HTTPS/TLS by default. Google has also upgraded all our RSA certificates to 2048-bit keys, making our encryption in transit for Cloud Platform and all other Google services even stronger. Perfect forward secrecy (PFS) minimizes the impact of a compromised key, or a cryptographic breakthrough. It protects network data by using a short- term key that lasts only a couple of days and is only held in memory, rather than a key that’s used for years and kept on durable storage.; https://cloud.google.com/security/
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: Google encrypts Cloud Platform data as it moves between our data centers on our private network. Traffic on Google's networks is encrypted.; https://cloud.google.com/security/

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: SLAs are service specific:; https://cloud.google.com/terms/sla/
• Approach to resilience: Google operates a global network of data centers to reduce risks from geographical disruptions. The link; below includes the locations of our data centers:; http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/; Google does not depend on failover to other providers and builds redundancy and failover into its own; global infrastructure.; Google performs annual testing of its business continuity plans to simulate disaster scenarios that; simulate catastrophic events that may disrupt Google operations.; https://cloud.google.com/files/Google-Cloud-CSA-CAIQ-January2017-CSA-CAIQ-v3.0.1.pdf (section BCR-01)
• Outage reporting: Google maintains a dashboard with service availability and service issues here:; https://status.cloud.google.com/

Identity and authentication

• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google apps)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Google Cloud Identity & Access Management (IAM) lets administrators authorize who can take action on; specific resources, giving you full control and visibility to manage cloud resources centrally. For; established enterprises with complex organizational structures, hundreds of workgroups and potentially; many more projects, Cloud IAM provides a unified view into security policy across your entire; organization, with built-in auditing to ease compliance processes. IAM access policies are defined at the; project level using granular controls of users and groups or using ACLs.; https://cloud.google.com/iam/; https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/access/; For further information see;; https://cloud.google.com/files/Google-Cloud-CSA-CAIQ-January2017-CSA-CAIQ-v3.0.1.pdf; Section IAM-12
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password
• Devices users manage the service through:
  • Dedicated device over multiple services or networks
  • 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: Less than 1 month
• 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: User-defined

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Ernst & Young CertifyPoint B.V.
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 30/11/2021
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: See certificate for full list of products covered, anything not listed is not covered. https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/iso-27001
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: Yes
• CSA STAR accreditation date: 01/01/2017
• CSA STAR certification level: Level 1: CSA STAR Self-Assessment
• What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover: For further information see;; https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/csa-star/; https://cloud.google.com/files/Google-Cloud-CSA-CAIQ-January2017-CSA-CAIQ-v3.0.1.pdf
• PCI certification: Yes
• Who accredited the PCI DSS certification: Reviewed by an independent Qualified Security Assessor
• PCI DSS accreditation date: 19/05/2016
• What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover: The validation enables PCI Level 1 merchants to use Google Cloud Platform for their processing services.
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

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: https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance; SSAE16 / ISAE 3402 Type II:; SOC 1; SOC 2; SOC 3 public audit report; ISO 27001; ISO 27017; ISO 27018; FedRamp ATO for Google App Engine; PCI DSS v3.1; HIPAA; CSA STAR; EU Data Protection Directive; EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework
• Information security policies and processes: https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance; Custom, ISO27001, ISO27017, ISO270018

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: In Google production environments, software updates are manually vetted to ensure the stability of the system. Changes are then tested and cautiously rolled out to systems. The details vary somewhat depending on the service being considered, but all development work is separated from the operation systems, testing occurs in a multi-staged fashion in both environments and in dedicated test settings. We can share, under NDA, the SOC2 audit report (based on standards from the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board), which describes the change management process. Additionally, changes to code go through a process of code review involving additional engineer(s).
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Google administrates a vulnerability management process that actively scans for security threats using a combination of commercially available and purpose-built in-house tools, intensive-automated and manual penetration efforts, quality assurance processes, software security reviews and external audits. The vulnerability management team is responsible for tracking and following up on vulnerabilities. Once a vulnerability requiring remediation has been identified, it is logged, prioritized according to severity, and assigned an owner. The vulnerability management team tracks and follows up frequently until remediated. Google also maintains relationships with members of the security research community to track issues in Google services and open-source tools.; https://cloud.google.com/security/whitepaper
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Google’s security monitoring program is focused on information gathered from internal network traffic, employee actions on systems and outside knowledge of vulnerabilities. At many points across our global network, internal traffic is inspected for suspicious behavior, such as the presence of traffic that might indicate botnet connections. Network analysis is supplemented by examining system logs to identify unusual behavior, such as attempted access of customer data. They actively review inbound security reports and monitor public mailing lists, blog posts, and wikis. Automated network analysis helps determine when an unknown threat may exist and escalates to Google security staff.; https://cloud.google.com/security/whitepaper
• 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: We have a rigorous incident management process for security events that may affect the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of systems or data. This process specifies courses of action, procedures for notification, escalation, mitigation, and documentation. Google’s security incident management program is structured around the NIST guidance on handling incidents (NIST SP 800–61). Key staff are trained in forensics and handling evidence in preparation for an event, including the use of third-party and proprietary tools. Testing of incident response plans is performed for key areas, such as systems that store sensitive customer information.; https://cloud.google.com/security/whitepaper

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: KVM hypervisor
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: Customer data is logically segregated by domain to allow data to be produced for a single tenant only. Read white paper here : https://cloud.google.com/security/security-design/resources/google_infrastructure_whitepaper_fa.pdf; https://cloud.google.com/files/Google-Cloud-CSA-CAIQ-January2017-CSA-CAIQ-v3.0.1.pdf (Section AAC-03.1)

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: Google Data Centres are Carbon Neutral

Social Value

• Fighting climate change:

  Fighting climate change

  Environmental - Effective stewardship of the environment; ; Our Environmental Board focus their time on making our business more sustainable and educating our people to live more sustainably in their personal lives. The team have worked to implement changes in our offices, working with building managers to ensure the proper recycling of materials, building an environmental procurement policy to ensure that our suppliers are playing their part, and even implementing a ‘offset your commute’ programme which everyone in the organisation can participate in to ensure carbon neutrality in their commutes.
• Tackling economic inequality:

  Tackling economic inequality

  Economic inequality - Create new jobs and new skills; ; We work with a small number of partners, such as colleges, universities and training providers working with a focus on people who face barriers to employment or live in deprived areas. We provide free one-day workshops to the learners to help them realise their potential of working in cloud technologies. In addition, we take on a cohort of 6 learners each year and provide them with a fast track into our data and platform engineering teams.
• Equal opportunity:

  Equal opportunity

  Equal opportunity - Tackle workforce inequality; ; Our DEI committee have been working to improve diversity, equity and inclusion across the tech landscape. Whilst we work to always improve the conditions of our own business (eg. implementing a diversity-focused leadership programme, gender neutral parental policies and creating “lunch and learns” to share experiences from different backgrounds with the aim to reduce polarisation), we’re also working to diversify the wider tech community by offering free introduction to GCP workshops to communities and learners from under-represented backgrounds. We also work without partnerships providing funding, talks, mentors and connections to inspire and attract talent into our industry.
• Wellbeing:

  Wellbeing

  Wellbeing - Improve health and wellbeing; ; We have built a wellbeing ‘web’ of support to ensure a rounded approach to assist our employees. This includes;; ; Maintenance strategies; such as free yoga, fitness classes and football, as well as a resource centre and toolkit to help with mindfulness, stress management and meditation to ensure people are looking after their wellbeing day to day. We also support peoples’ financial wellbeing by providing a financial advisor free of charge and during the working day to all employees.; ; Management strategies; such as training and deploying of mental health mascots into the business. These are our key contacts for people who are struggling to self-manage their wellbeing using the above strategies. If the support required is deeper or too personal to share with a colleague, we also have an employee assistance programme with financial, legal and health experts at hand.; ; Crisis strategies; such as our fully covered and maximum level private health insurance including physical therapies, full treatment plans and unlimited mental therapies and cancer treatment.

Pricing

• Price: £0.01 a unit
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Any customer may initiate a trial of the service with a $300 free credit. The trial is available outside of the scope of G-Cloud and not offered under G-Cloud terms and conditions.
• Link to free trial: https://cloud.google.com/free/

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 alison.king@cts.co. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.