UNIT4 Business World (Agresso) Cloud Hosting & Managed Services
Embridge in partnership with cloud hosting supplier to provide Unit4 U4BW Agresso Cloud hosting and technical managed services, supported by our dedicated Inhouse experts and delivering a secure, rapid, reliable, highly available and robust system to users offering a cost effective alternative to on-premise ERP solutions.
Features
- Fully automated 24/7 monitoring for pro-active support
- Maximum security, backed by impressive accreditations
- 99.9% availability, backed by service credits
- Cutting edge platform, with VPN and MPLS links as standard
- Agile deployments; new systems provisioned within 48 hours
- Unlimited U4BW (Agresso) restores / environment refreshes
- Advanced Disaster Recovery services
- Unlimited OS, RDBMS & Agresso updates, upgrades and patching
- Lightning fast performance on ERP-optimised hardware
Benefits
- Low total cost of ownership & cost effective solution
- Expert Agresso Technical Managed Service Support
- Massive scalability - no system to big or too small
- Database and system performance tuning as standard
- Continuous knowledge-share with in-house teams
- Accessible via web browser, desktop PC or mobile devices
- Unlimited off-site backups for 'bulletproof' audit accountability
- Exceptional business continuity cover for total service coverage
- Hosting of Agresso / non-Agresso systems wherever necessary
- Enterprise SLA's backed by service credits
Pricing
£10,000 a unit a year
- Education pricing available
- Free trial available
Service documents
Request an accessible format
Framework
G-Cloud 10
Service ID
1 0 6 7 6 0 2 0 6 1 7 5 5 6 2
Contact
Embridge Consulting (UK) Ltd
Emma O'Brien
Telephone: 01474555505
Email: enquiries@embridgeconsulting.com
Service scope
- Service constraints
- When hosting Unit4 Business World, SQL Server is the only supported RDBMS in this cloud solution. Oracle is not supported.
- System requirements
-
- A modern PC with internet connectivity is required
- Desktop users will require the Citrix Receiver client
- VPN's (if required) require customer firewall
- Power users will require Excel on their desktop machine
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
- Embridge's SLA agreement is shown for reference. The response and resolution times are based on the help desk open hours, however in most cases we provide significantly faster response times. Response times are included within the SLAs, whereas the resolution times are indicative and are not included in the SLAs. Monthly reports are produced demonstrating compliance and any breaches in SLA. Urgent; Respond by:30 minutes; Resolution by:6 hours High; Respond by 1 hour; Resolution by: 12 hours Medium; Respond by 2 hour; Resolution by: 14 hours Low; Respond by 4 hours; Resolution by: 20 hours.
- 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
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support
- Yes, at an extra cost
- Web chat support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support accessibility standard
- None or don’t know
- How the web chat support is accessible
- Users have the ability to screen share, upload files securely and chat to our support team.
- Web chat accessibility testing
- None.
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
- Support is available 8.30-4.30pm Monday to Friday excluding weekends and bank holidays - although cover can be extended by prior arrangement subject to additional cost. Support is usually available on a remote basis, however on-site consultancy support can be arranged at additional cost. We offer three levels of support: Level 1 support service is aimed at customers who are already live with U4BW and covers the following functions: User assistance such as training new staff. Daily, weekly and monthly task processing including setting up new staff as users or resources, timesheet/sales orders/purchase order processing and process maintenance, monitoring of items to followup and batch input. Level 2 support service and consultancy covers issue investigation and other system tasks such as system optimisation, environment maintenance and minor system changes. Level 3 support - Remote consultancy service is aimed at customers who are either in the build phase of a new implementation and need additional support or are already live with U4BW and need development support including Project support, remote testing, development of test scripts, off site testing and patches, post go live support, amendments to excelerator reports, build and configurations, writing browser reports, additional functionality evaluation, configuration of additional flexi-fields.
- Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
- A bespoke customer system reference document is provided. This details all the resources available to users, the URL's and how to access and use them. It also includes training for in-house IT teams to support users (which is delivered via distance training; telephone or online tools).
- Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
- End-of-contract data extraction
-
This is entirely up to the users, but we support full database backups, full SFTP transfer of files / resources or the user can simply export their data directly from the system using web services or other online tools that we provide.
We can also provide the Gcon4 MFL tool for data migration at extra cost. - End-of-contract process
- All end of contract off-boarding exercises are covered under the contract. The data will ultimately be destroyed, but if it is still required it can be provided to a third-party or to the customer directly via database backup, SFTP file transfer or any other method required. The data can also be obtained on a self-service basis by the customer directly if they utilise the web API's.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Using the web interface
- The web interfaces are developed by Unit4 (for Unit4 Business World) and Citrix (for Citrix web interface). Users can log into the application(s) and can access all the functionality available to them via these web interfaces.
- Web interface accessibility standard
- None or don’t know
- How the web interface is accessible
- UNIT4 has developed a product reading list in braille for the blind and visually impaired, which sits in front of the user’s keyboard and mirrors the user’s screen text line by line. Text to speech function is available making it easy and quick to listen to the text that’s written on the screen. For the visually impaired, the text has been adapted to provide enhanced readability through stronger contrasts and increased size.
- Web interface accessibility testing
- Unit4 (the software vendor for Unit4 Business World software) has been awarded a European CSR award for its work with Blindeforbundet, the Norwegian Association for the Blind and Partially Sighted (NABP) to make its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software available to blind and partially sighted people.
- API
- Yes
- What users can and can't do using the API
- The API's allow changes to be made to the core application, such as adding, deleting or viewing users, projects, purchase orders, invoices, etc. Users need programming skills to utilise these API's. The API's are built into the Unit4 Business World product. These are published to users that need to utilise them.
- API automation tools
-
- Ansible
- Chef
- OpenStack
- SaltStack
- Terraform
- Puppet
- Other
- Other API automation tools
- The API's are open to use through any automation software
- API documentation
- Yes
- API documentation formats
- Other
- Command line interface
- No
Scaling
- Scaling available
- Yes
- Scaling type
-
- Automatic
- Manual
- Independence of resources
- CAS(t) accreditation to OFFICIAL (IL2). This is required to provide secure networking and hosting services to the UK Government and public sector organisations. These are as follows: CESG CAS(t) IL 2-2-4 CESG Assured Service (Telecoms) Scheme – Impact Level 2-2-4 525 CESG CAS(t) IL 2-2-4 CESG Assured Service (Telecoms) Scheme – Impact Level 2-2-4 Encryption Overlay Service Slice for Off-Net Services 526 CPU / disk contention is also kept to a minimum (and throttled), with all customers enjoying dedicated RAM.
- Usage notifications
- Yes
- Usage reporting
-
- Other
Analytics
- Infrastructure or application metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
-
- CPU
- Disk
- HTTP request and response status
- Memory
- Network
- Other
- Other metrics
-
- Core user numbers
- Custom application metrics
- Reporting types
-
- Regular reports
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Reseller providing extra features and support
- Organisation whose services are being resold
- Quick Think Cloud
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)
- EU-US Privacy Shield agreement locations
- 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 once a year
- Penetration testing approach
- ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
- Protecting data at rest
- Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
- Data sanitisation process
- Yes
- Data sanitisation type
-
- Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
- 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
-
- Oracle Databases
- Files & Folders
- Virtual Machines
- SQL Server Databases
- System States
- Backup controls
- Backup controls
- Users identify what they would like to back up (along with a consultant) and the backups are setup with the relevant schedule.
- 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 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
- Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
- Data protection within supplier network
- IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
- Guarantees the functioning of all cloud server hosts including the hypervisor, with a 99.9% availability for all hosted systems. In the unlikely event of host failure, HA will automatically restart the affected VM onto a healthy host. If the service fails to meet any of these availability commitments, the Customer shall be entitled to service credits.
- Approach to resilience
- Available on request.
- Outage reporting
- Service outages are reported via email and also via the customer's online portal.
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
- Access to management interfaces is strictly controlled and does not include any user access. Support channels are opened to named users within the organisation. Their access / viewing options will vary depending on their role.
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
- 2-factor authentication
- Devices users manage the service through
- Dedicated device on a segregated network (providers own provision)
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 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
- QMS International
- ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
- 17/10/2017
- What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
- N/A
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Other security certifications
- Yes
- Any other security certifications
- Cyber Essentials
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- No
- Security governance approach
- It is the intention of Embridge Consulting to commerce ISO27001 therefore, we are basing our security governance on the principles of ISO27001.
- Information security policies and processes
- Information security policies are fully documented and available to all members of staff. Updates are communicated to the organisation, with new starters undergoing a specific session that covers the security policy and invites them to ask questions. Typical policies and processes include blocking the use of USB devices, password changes, fully documented change control, subscribing to security news letters from our CHECK accredited security partners, etc.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Supplier-defined controls
- Configuration and change management approach
- All change management is tracked on our customer portal, with full visibility to customers. Changes are requested, agreed upon and advertised, documented and delivered via this medium. Every change is subject to CAB approval which happens once a week (or can be put forward for an emergency change if required).
- Vulnerability management type
- Undisclosed
- Vulnerability management approach
- A detailed account of this information is available upon request. However, at a high level the threats to our services are both managed, monitored and neutralised via our IDS / IPS systems, we deploy patches regularly in a controlled manner using industry standard deployment tools and our information about potential threats comes from our CHECK certified security provider and datacentre partners.
- Protective monitoring type
- Undisclosed
- Protective monitoring approach
- This information is available upon request, but at a high-level potential compromises are identified using an industry standard IDS system, our response includes our own security procedures and includes our CHECK accredited security partner and any such threats / compromises are classified as URGENT and are investigated immediately under the highest possible SLA.
- Incident management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Incident management approach
- Our incident management is tightly interwoven with our service desk system. Users can report incidents via email, internet portal or telephone. Uses can run their own incident reports via this system, but these are also available upon request. We have pre-defined processes for common events (environment refreshes, etc.) and these are documented on the portal knowledge-base where appropriate.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Supplier-defined process
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
- Various - all with the necessary accreditation.
- How shared infrastructure is kept separate
- CAS(t) accreditation to OFFICIAL (IL2). This is required to provide secure networking and hosting services to the UK Government and public sector organisations.
Energy efficiency
- Energy-efficient datacentres
- Yes
Pricing
- Price
- £10,000 a unit a year
- Discount for educational organisations
- Yes
- Free trial available
- Yes
- Description of free trial
- 30-day free trial is offered. This includes 1 full system with relevant infrastructure and support