Multi Cloud Hosting Services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)

Service scope

Service constraints: We have no specific constraints apart from standard ones imposed by public cloud providers. They vary from customer to customer and cloud providers and can be complex to understand. We provide services to our clients to help them make the right choices and highlight any of the providers constraints.
System requirements: Bring your own License, where allowed by Public Cloud Provider

Support Enterprise License Agreement, where allowed by Public Cloud Provider

License Mobility, where allowed by Public Cloud Provider

User support

Email or online ticketing support: Yes, at extra cost
Support response times: The response times are agreed as per customer's requirements and budgets. We broadly classify our support into three categories: Standard, Important and Critical.

Standard:
General guidance cases < 24 business hours; system impaired cases < 12 business hours.

Important:
General guidance cases < 24 hours; system impaired cases < 12 hours; production system impaired cases < 4 hours; production system down cases
< 1 hour.

Critical:
General guidance cases < 24 hours; system impaired cases < 12 hours; production system impaired cases < 4 hours; production system down cases < 1 hour; business-critical system down cases < 15 minutes
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: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support: Yes, at an extra cost
Web chat support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Web chat accessibility testing: We have not directly done web interface testing for assistive technology users but can work and channelise with partners to bring those testing experience for our clients.
Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
Support levels: We provide support for various cloud services and are agnostic of cloud providers ( AWS, Azure Cloud). We offer 9am to 5pm or 24/7 support dependent on client needs and can be a combination of on-site and remote support. We have a team of consultants and specialists who are certified in the specific technology and cloud services area. We provide the 1st line and 2nd line support using our in house resources and we leverage on our relationship with the cloud service providers for any 3rd line support.

We support three levels titled: Standard, Important and Critical. We work with clients to understand their business requirements and cost implications and then align workloads to support levels. We have Technical Account Manager and Cloud Specialist to help our clients define these support levels and ensure right fit throughout the contract. This activity is carried during the initial setup and can be altered if our client's requirement changes to provide flexibility.
Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started: We provide a comprehensive package which is customised to meet client’s requirements for onboarding the cloud services. Since every client is at a different level of cloud adoption maturity level, our approach is modularised and includes comprehensive documentation (in multiple formats), introductory videos, combination of onsite and remote training covering how-to’s, hands-on labs, online and in-person training, right-first-time modules and access to a large ecosystem of partners.
Service documentation: Yes
Documentation formats: HTML

PDF
End-of-contract data extraction: Data may be copied out using OS-level tools (such as xopy or rsync) and is available on request and per contractual agreement. Also, in most cases there is support for third party tools and we work with customers to understand their data type, timelines and cost to support such tools.
End-of-contract process: The exit clause varies for every individual contract and so are the associated costs. We will jointly agree to explicitly call out all inclusions and exclusions possible in the remit of services contracted.

"Buyer may terminate the relationship with Supplier for any reason by (i) providing Supplier with notice and (ii) closing Buyers account for all services for which Supplier provide an account closing mechanism.

Buyers pay for the services they use to the point of account termination.

Supplier customers retain control and ownership of their data. Supplier will not erase customer data for 30 days following an account termination. This allows customers to retrieve content from Supplier services so long as the customer has paid any charges for any post-termination use of the service offerings and all other amounts due.

Using the service

Web browser interface: Yes
Using the web interface: Almost all functionality for each of our services is exposed through the web console.

The web console facilitates management for all aspects of the Azure and AWS account (or other providers) in a consolidated view whilst providing access to all services and their respective functionalities.

In some cases, specific configuration parameters of a service are dedicated to, and only available from, the CLI, SDK, or API interface.
Web interface accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Web interface accessibility testing: We have not directly done web interface testing for assistive technology users but can work and channelise with partners to bring those testing experience for our clients.
API: Yes
What users can and can't do using the API: All our public cloud solution offerings support publishing API for internal and external customers, which can be extended to our clients so that the overall stack integrates with their IT ecosystem. The API supports open system as well and users can develop, integrate, automate and maintain API gateways in a secured manner for their applications to access data, business logic, or functionality from your back-end IaaS services.

We provide real life examples and expertise to our clients to use Azure API Management and Amazon API Gateway so that they can deploy and scale their workload in a consistent manner.

There are no restrictions per se apart from technology limitations between client and public cloud setup, but since most platforms support open system and support REST API, PowerShell and Git we are fairly confident of overcoming any limitations using our combined knowledge and expertise.
API automation tools: Ansible

Chef

OpenStack

SaltStack

Terraform

Puppet
API documentation: Yes
API documentation formats: HTML

PDF

Other
Command line interface: Yes
Command line interface compatibility: Linux or Unix

Windows

MacOS
Using the command line interface: The users can manage and administer public cloud resources from the command line. They can further automate their tasks using scripts, shell programmes and commands across multiple services.

Scaling

Scaling available: Yes
Scaling type: Automatic

Manual
Independence of resources: Customer environments are logically segregated to prevent users and customers from accessing resources not assigned to them.

Services which provide virtualised operational environments to customers ensure that customers are segregated via security management processes/controls at the network and hypervisor level.

We continuously monitor service usage to project infrastructure needs to support availability commitments/requirements. We maintain a capacity planning model to assess infrastructure usage and demands at least monthly, and usually more frequently. In addition, our capacity planning model supports the planning of future demands to acquire and implement additional resources based upon current resources and forecasted requirements.
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
Reporting types: API access

Real-time dashboards

Regular reports

Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type: Reseller providing extra support
Organisation whose services are being resold: Microsoft Azure, AWS, Citrix, IBM/RedHat

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)
User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
Datacentre security standards: Supplier-defined controls
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

Other
Other data at rest protection approach: AWS and Azure adheres to independently validated privacy, data protection, security protections and control processes.

AWS and Azure are responsible for the security of the cloud; customers are responsible for security in the cloud. They enable customers to control their content (where it will be stored, how it will be secured in transit or at rest, how access to their environment will be managed).

Wherever appropriate, AWS and Azure offers customers options to add additional security layers to data at rest, via scalable and efficient encryption features. It offers flexible key management options and dedicated hardware-based cryptographic key storage.
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: A third-party destruction service

Backup and recovery

Backup and recovery: Yes
What’s backed up: Files

Virtual Machines

Database

Machine Image

Operating System
Backup controls: User can control the backup target and environment either manually or scheduled via API call and/or script, depending upon their application and service requirements. This is also linked to their cost, criticality and backup policy.
Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery

Multiple datacentres

Single datacentre with multiple copies

Single datacentre
Scheduling backups: Users schedule backups through a web interface
Backup recovery: Users can recover backups themselves, for example through a web interface

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

Bonded fibre optic connections

Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
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: Customer environments are logically segregated to prevent users and customers from accessing resources not assigned to them. AWS and Azure gives customers ownership and control over their content by design through simple, but powerful tools that allow customers to determine how their content will be secured in transit.

AWS and Azure enables customers to open a secure, encrypted channel to their services using TLS/SSL, and/or IPsec or TLS VPN (if applicable), or other means of protection the customer wish to use.
API calls can be encrypted with TLS/SSL to maintain confidentiality; the Console connection is encrypted with TLS.

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability: AWS and Azure currently provides SLAs for several services. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of their product offerings, SLAs are best reviewed directly on our website via the link below: https://aws.amazon.com/legal/service-level-agreements/ and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/support/legal/sla/summary/
Approach to resilience: The AWS and Azure Business Continuity plan details the process that they follow in the case of an outage, from detection to deactivation. For e.g. AWS has developed a three-phased approach: Activation and Notification Phase, Recovery Phase, and Reconstitution Phase. This approach ensures that AWS performs system recovery and reconstitution efforts in a methodical sequence, maximising the effectiveness of the recovery and reconstitution efforts and minimising system outage time due to errors and omissions.

Both maintain a ubiquitous security control environment across all regions. Each data centre is built to physical, environmental, and security standards in an active-active configuration, employing an n+1 redundancy model, ensuring system availability in the event of component failure. Components (N) have at least one independent backup component. All data centres are online and serving traffic. In case of failure, there is sufficient capacity to enable traffic to be load-balanced to the remaining sites.

Customers are responsible for implementing contingency planning, training and testing for their systems hosted. AWS and Azure provides customers with the capability to implement a robust continuity plan, including the utilisation of frequent server instance back-ups, data redundancy replication, and the flexibility to place instances and store data within multiple geographic regions.
Outage reporting: A combination of Public dashboard; personalised dashboard with API and events; configurable alerting (email / SMS / messaging), email alerts.

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)

Limited access network (for example PSN)

Dedicated link (for example VPN)

Username or password

Other
Other user authentication: AWS’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) system controls access to AWS services/resources. No actions are permissible without authentication. IAM facilitates the issuance of access permissions per user/group. MFA is available at no extra cost.

AWS CoudTrail allows you to log, continuously monitor and retain events related to API calls across your AWS infrastructure.

We also have provision to use Azure Identity and Access Management.
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: IAM provides user access control to services, APIs and specific resources. Other controls include time, originating IP address, SSL use, and whether users authenticated via MFA devices.

API calls to launch/terminate instances, change firewalls, and perform other functions are signed by customers’ Secret Access Key (either the root AWS/Azure Account’s Secret Access Key or the Secret Access key of a user created with AWS/Azure IAM). The API calls cannot be made on customers’ behalf without access to customers’ Secret Access Key.

API calls can be encrypted with TLS/SSL for confidentiality and customers can use TLS/SSL-protected API endpoints.
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 on a segregated network (providers own provision)

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: User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information: You control when users can access audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

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: No
Other security certifications: No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
Security governance certified: Yes
Security governance standards: Other
Other security governance standards: As a company we are Cyber Essentials.

Azure and AWS have Cyber Essentials Plus; ISO 27017; ISO 27018; SOC 1/2/3. Microsoft is ISO 27001 certified.
Information security policies and processes: We implement formal, documented policies and procedures that provide guidance for operations and information security within the organisation. Policies address purpose, scope, roles, responsibilities and management commitment.

Employees maintain policies in a centralised and accessible location. The management is responsible for familiarising employees with our security policies.

We have established information security functions that are aligned with defined structure, reporting lines, and responsibilities. Leadership involvement provides clear direction and visible support for security initiatives.

The output of the Leadership reviews include any decisions or actions related to:

• Improvement of the effectiveness of the ISMS.
• Update of the risk assessment and treatment plan.
• Modification of procedures and controls that affect information security to respond to internal or external events that may impact the ISMS.
• Resource needs.
• Improvement in how the effectiveness of controls is measured.

Policies are approved by the leadership at least annually or following a significant change to the environment.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach: Changes to customer services and features follow secure software development practices, including security risk reviews prior to launch. Developer access to production environments is via explicit access system requests, subject to owner review and authorisation.

Teams set bespoke change management standards per service, underpinned by standard guidelines.

All production environment changes are reviewed, tested and approved. Stages include design, documentation, implementation (including rollback procedures), testing (non-production environment), peer to peer review (business impact/technical rigour/code), final approval by authorised party.

Emergency changes follow incident response procedures. Exceptions to change management processes are documented and escalated to the management.
Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach: AWS and Azure Security performs vulnerability scans on the host operating system, web applications, and databases. Approved 3rd party vendors conduct external assessments (minimum frequency: quarterly). Identified vulnerabilities are monitored and evaluated. Countermeasures are designed and implemented to neutralise known/newly identified vulnerabilities.

We monitor newsfeeds/vendor sites for patches and receive customer intelligence.

We support our customers for all scanning, penetration testing, file integrity monitoring and intrusion detection for their instances/ applications. Scans should include customer IP addresses excluding AWS and Azure endpoints, as that is part of AWSAzure and compliance vulnerability scans.
Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach: We use AWS and Azure deploy (pan-environmental) monitoring devices to collect information on unauthorised intrusion attempts, usage abuse, and network/application bandwidth usage. Devices monitor:

• Port scanning attacks
• Usage (CPU, processes, disk utilization, swap rates, software-error generated losses)
• Application metrics
• Unauthorised connection attempts

Near real-time alerts flag incidents, based on Service/Security Team- set thresholds.

Requests to the log events is through the portal. We can also integrate with other third party software applications for additional/enhanced functionalities.
Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach: We closely follow ITIL processes and incident management process is clearly defined to ensure the service is restored to a predefined standard of service to our customers. This is achieved with the monitoring tools deployed as part of the service and is configured based on the inputs from both users as well as technology to maintain the standard of the services. Based on the severity of the incident, incident reports are followed by Root Cause Analysis to the identified stakeholders and knowledge base is update for continuous improvement and incident avoidance

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: Other
Other virtualisation technology used: VMware, Hyper-V, KVM hypervisor, Xen hypervisor, AWS proprietary and others
How shared infrastructure is kept separate: Customer environments are logically segregated, preventing users and customers from accessing unassigned resources. Customers maintain full control over their data access. Services which provide virtualised operational environments to customers, ensure that customers are segregated and prevent cross-tenant privilege escalation and information disclosure via hypervisors and instance isolation.

Different instances running on the same physical machine are isolated from each other via the Xen hypervisor. The Amazon/Azure firewall resides within the hypervisor layer, between the physical network interface and the instance's virtual interface. All packets pass through this layer. The physical random-access memory (RAM) is separated using similar mechanisms.

Energy efficiency

Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
Description of energy efficient datacentres: AWS and Azure are committed to running their business in the most environmentally friendly way possible. In addition to the environmental benefits inherently associated with running applications in the cloud, They have a long-term commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure footprint and have made a lot of progress on this commitment.

Given the nature of changes being made, the latest information can be found at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/environment/energy and https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability/

Fighting climate change: Fighting climate change

"Simplex are a responsible supplier who works ethically and professionally. As a G-Cloud member we follow a strict code of conduct and how we provide services to our customer. Simplex is Brighton-based company, supporting and promoting employment and economic sustainability and we have demonstrated this by basing our office in University of Sussex campus (Sussex Innovation Centre). We actively work with interns and graduates needing work experience during their industry sandwich course placement as part of their Catalyst Programme. We do not discriminate on Race, Religion, Age or Gender. Simplex actively supports environmental awareness on how our business operates, and we have several key policies in place: 1. Use conference calls or Microsoft Teams and only travel where necessary 2. Think before you print 3. In 2018, we added our first zero emissions vehicle to our company car fleet Where possible, we normally place consultants or support staff who work in the local region. This supports employment growth in the local community and promotes environmental sustainability too. We employ staff or contractors above minimum wage and all exceed market rates." We have published our Environment Policy on our website and can be accessed at -https://simplex-services.com/environment-policy-statement/
Covid-19 recovery: Covid-19 recovery

We supported our staff during the Covid and provide them necessary support during the lockdown.
Tackling economic inequality: Tackling economic inequality

We are fair in our employment and reward our associates as per their skills. Also if any associate needs financial assistance, we provide them the necessary assistance.
Equal opportunity: Equal opportunity

We are an equal opportunity employer and have a defined policy. All our opportunities are outlines their commitment to fair treatment of all employees, regardless of: Age Sex Race Gender Reassignment Disability Pregnancy Marital Status Religion or Beliefs
Wellbeing: Wellbeing

We support our associates for mental and physical well being.

Pricing

Price: £1 an instance a day
Discount for educational organisations: Yes
Free trial available: Yes
Description of free trial: The free trial version for cloud as per AWS and Azure terms and conditions. The key components include virtual machines, storage, backup and database. The link for latest set of free products has been provided below for reference.
Link to free trial: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/free/ and https://aws.amazon.com/free

Multi Cloud Hosting Services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)

Features

Benefits

Service documents

Framework

Service ID

Contact

Service scope

User support

Onboarding and offboarding

Using the service

Scaling

Analytics

Resellers

Staff security

Asset protection

Backup and recovery

Data-in-transit protection

Availability and resilience

Identity and authentication

Audit information for users

Standards and certifications

Security governance

Operational security

Secure development

Separation between users

Energy efficiency

Pricing

Service documents

Cookies on Digital Marketplace

Multi Cloud Hosting Services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)

Features

Benefits

Pricing

Service documents

Framework

Service ID

Contact

Service scope

User support

Onboarding and offboarding

Using the service

Scaling

Analytics

Resellers

Staff security

Asset protection

Backup and recovery

Data-in-transit protection

Availability and resilience

Identity and authentication

Audit information for users

Standards and certifications

Security governance

Operational security

Secure development

Separation between users

Energy efficiency

Social Value

Pricing

Service documents