Absoft Ltd

SAP Managed Cloud Hosting & Migration Services on Microsoft Azure

Unlock the full potential of your SAP platform through migration to the Azure cloud with the SAP on Azure partner specialist Absoft.

Moving your SAP applications to Azure empowers your business, giving extra flexibility, increased productivity and simplified maintenance allowing your team to focus on more strategic tasks.

Features

• Automatic Start Stop
• Flexible Landscape
• Auto-monitoring
• Integration of applications
• Scalability
• Increased Performance
• Cloud infrastructure
• Integration of SAP
• Migration Services
• Full SAP Managed Service

Benefits

• Provides a flexible infrastructure
• Optimizes cost of infrastructure
• Scalable for projects
• Ideal platform for Archiving SAP or a reference system
• Increased processing speeds
• Combined expertise of SAP & Microsoft Azure under one provider
• Optimal landscape for SAP HANA database
• Secure landscape

£485 a virtual machine a year

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 info@absoft.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

978924072491555

Contact

Eilidh Semple
01224 707088
info@absoft.co.uk

Service scope

• Service constraints: SAP landscape sizes are recommended to be optimised by Absoft as part of early engagement, however Azure offers fully flexible tools for hardware reszing and this is part of our service provision within migrations and implementations.
• System requirements:
  • Virtual Machines
  • SAP license is required - Can be procured through Absoft
  • Database licensing

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: SLAs would be agreed with the business during sign up to meet the needs of the business.; Priority 1 calls are responded to within an hour.
• 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: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Absoft can provide Full Managed Service across technical and functional requirements of SAP as well as providing sophisticated monitoring of Azure and SAP environments. ; ; Absoft's support model is designed around your business and is therefore flexible to the specific areas of support that each customer requires and priced accordingly. We will work with you as our client to ensure that the right level of support is made available including working alongside and augmenting existing internal support teams where required.; ; SAP on Azure has the potential to completely transform your business. In order to fully realise that potential, it is essential that you work with a partner who has the level of expertise to guide and support your through your journey. At Absoft, we have an expert team available to support your journey. This will include all customers having a designated Service Delivery Manger and Account Manager focused on the performance of our support services, SLA compliance and monthly reviews.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: Our team provides expertise & guidance on your journey to the cloud, including:; ; Identifying your business case; Creating a high-level project timeline; Providing a suggested project roadmap; Giving indicative costs to migrate or implement; ; As part of service transition we will complete our mobilisation alongside your internal team or incumbent supplier to ensure a smooth and risk free change process. Once implementation is complete the service can be managed and supported through our Managed Service and Hosting. Through these services specific training requirements can be identified and agreed.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
  • Other
• Other documentation formats:
  • WORD
  • PowerPoint
  • Excel
• End-of-contract data extraction: Should the end of contract also coincide with the end of use of Azure and /or SAP then the customer will be afforded the opportunity to extract their business data.; Data can be extracted via an appropriate secure technology compatible with SAP and Azure.; Once data is extracted, Absoft securely remove all customer data from the platform.
• End-of-contract process: We do not include anything in our price for extraction of data or application. If SAP and the application data is no longer required then the virtual machine/s can be turned off and all data will be deleted. Equally the data and application can be transferred as part of a migration project to an alternative platform however the cost of this is not included.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: If desired Absoft can provide the ability for our customers to access Azure hosting platform via web interface browser such as Chrome or Internet Explorer.; This can be used to view the infrastructure and how it is set up. Further access can be provided if required.
• Web interface accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web interface is accessible: Access to Azure hosting platform is via web interface browser such as Chrome or Internet Explorer.
• Web interface accessibility testing: Azure interface is provided by Microsoft. No testing has been carried out by Absoft.
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Microsoft Azure does come with API functionality. Specific requirements can be discussed during initial engagements as there are a large variety available to customers.
• API automation tools:
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • OpenStack
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
  • ODF
  • PDF
• Command line interface: Yes
• Command line interface compatibility:
  • Linux or Unix
  • Windows
• Using the command line interface: As part of our hosting arrangement access would be limited to read only by default although can discuss specific requirements as needed.

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type:
  • Automatic
  • Manual
• Independence of resources: Through hosting on Microsoft Azure, each customer has their own subscription which is independent to all other customers using the Azure cloud platform. The customer will have their own dedicated resources on the Microsoft Azure Platform. Microsoft has multiple data centres throughout various countries around the world which allow the scale to be able to guarantee that users are not affected by the demand of others.
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • API
  • Email
  • Other
• Other usage reporting: Ongoing service review meetings.

Analytics

• Infrastructure or application metrics: Yes
• Metrics types:
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • HTTP request and response status
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
• Reporting types:
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra features and support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Microsoft Azure Hosting of SAP

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
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• 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
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
• 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
• What’s backed up:
  • Virtual Machines
  • Database
  • Data
  • SAP Applications
  • Interface Data
• Backup controls: Backup service is managed and performed as part of our Managed Service. The frequency and specific requirements to customer backups will be discussed and agreed during initial scoping during the service transition period.
• Datacentre setup:
  • Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
  • Multiple datacentres
  • Single datacentre with multiple copies
  • Single datacentre
• 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
  • Bonded fibre optic connections
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: We provide availability from 99.9% to 99.99% availability SLA depending on the customer specific requirement.; Service credits can be discussed as a mechanism to refund in the unlikely event that SLAs are not met.
• Approach to resilience: The service is run on Microsoft Azure and as such the minimum SLA for the Virtual Machines productive build is guaranteed by Microsoft to have 99.9% uptime. If the customer requires additional availability guarantees, Absoft can use High Availability (HA) techniques to build an SAP cluster to provide availability of up to 99.99% uptime.
• Outage reporting: Planned outages are arranged with the customer via the Service Delivery Manager or Service Team.; Any unplanned outages would be reported via multiple channels including Absoft emailing our customers and via our dashboard notification system which can be accessed by each customer.

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
  • Other
• Other user authentication: Single Sign-on (SSO)
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Absoft use the Azure role based access controls (RBAC) in order to manage and restrict access to the Azure customer subscriptions. Absoft will work with clients to agree the appropriate level of access required.
• 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
  • Other
• Description of management access authentication: Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Devices users manage the service through:
  • 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 contact the support team to get audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get 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: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: BSI
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 19/12/2021
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: N/A
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: Yes
• CSA STAR accreditation date: 19/06/2020
• CSA STAR certification level: Level 3: CSA STAR Certification
• What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover: N/A
• 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: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Information security is at the heart of everything we do at Absoft, as we're trusted to work with some of the most sensitive data of the largest public and private organisations in the UK. ; We make significant investment in our people, processes and technology to ensure information remains secure.; ; In order to ensure our Information Security Policies are followed, Absoft are externally audited against our processes. We have been certified for ISO27001 Information Security Management continuously since 2012. The scope of ISO27001 covers all areas of Absoft’s business, particularly in provision of SAP Hosting and Support Services.; ; Our ISO27001 compliance is audited by an external auditor annually. The audit includes review of all information security policies to confirm they meet the standards of ISO27001, dip sampling of compliance with policies, and employee interviews. ISO27001 also includes a programme of internal audit, with trained Absoft employees auditing selected departments for awareness and compliance with our policies. Our internal audit is reviewed in the external audit. Absoft’s certification for ISO27001 can be provided when required, and any other documentation that is required is available on request.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Absoft follow ITIL aligned change management process which include CAB processes. This allows opportunity to manage risks associated with the security of the system.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: Absoft manage security vulnerability across both Azure infrastructure and SAP applications. Adhering to best practices in both, this includes applying publishing a monthly SAP security notes blog and apply these to our customers as appropriate.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Absoft utilise staff awareness combined with automated monitoring of systems, hosting and business practices in order to detect potential compromises. Security incidents across the organization which are identified by any individual or party are recorded in our internal management system using the steps identified the Support Centre Management Guide for Incidents. Incidents are always responded to in a timely manner and have SLAs assigned depending on the incident catagorisation.
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Absoft’s SAP Managed Service, uses automation and AI to monitor and predict your most business critical processes, and incident management. As such, Absoft align to ITIL defined incident management processes. Our customers have the ability to notify Absoft through telephone, email or web portal and these are subsequently tracked and reported on through our dashboard. Monthly reports are also provided on incidents.

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: Third-party
• Third-party virtualisation provider: Microsoft Azure
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: Customers each have a unique subscription which is secure to the respective users.; Azure uses logical isolation to segregate each customer’s data from the data of others. Segregation provides the scale and economic benefits of multi-tenant services while rigorously preventing customers from accessing one another’s data.

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: Microsofts data centers are currently operating with an average PUE of 1.6 and it is targeting a PUE of below 1.2. It has already, or is planning to implement, the majority of the Code's best practices in its data centres in Europe and across the globe in order to adhere to the code.

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  Tackling economic inequality

  Tackling economic inequality

  Absoft's offerings allow public sector organisations to create growth opportunities and entrepreneurship to support economic growth and business creation. By allowing public sector organisations to oversee financial budgets more clearly, it increases supply chain resilience and capability. It can help to support innovation and disruptive technologies.

Pricing

• Price: £485 a virtual machine a year
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: 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 info@absoft.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.