Somerford Associates Limited

HashiCorp Consul - Cloud Network Automation, Service Discovery and Service Mesh

HashiCorp Consul addresses the technical complexity of managing production services by providing a way to discover, automate, secure and connect applications and networking configurations across distributed infrastructure and clouds.

Features

  • Secure, Multi-Cloud Service Networking
  • Integrate and Extend With Kubernetes (and other modern orchestrators)
  • Service Mesh Networking Across Any Runtime
  • Dynamic Load Balancing
  • Service Discovery and Registry with Health Checking
  • Service Ingress

Benefits

  • Secure services running in any environment leveraging intention based policies
  • Automatic mTLS encryption between service mesh resources
  • Automatically inject sidecars for Kubernetes resources
  • Deploy service mesh within any runtime or infrastructure
  • Resolve discovered services through integrated DNS
  • Automate 3rd party load balancers (F5, NGINX, HAProxy)
  • Eliminate manual configuration of network devices
  • Integrate many popular DevOps and Networking tools
  • Automatically detect new and changed services, and agent health

Pricing

£6,000.00 a unit

Service documents

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 penny.harrison@somerfordassociates.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 12

Service ID

3 5 6 0 6 7 8 8 9 7 8 6 2 8 4

Contact

Somerford Associates Limited Penny Harrison
Telephone: +44 1242 388168
Email: penny.harrison@somerfordassociates.com

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
What software services is the service an extension to
You can use it with modern workload orchestrators like Kubernetes, OpenShift and Nomad.
Cloud deployment model
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
Service constraints
None, as far as we are aware.
System requirements
Not applicable

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Shortest response time 60 mins. Depending on which level of support purchased, see HashiCorp SLA for more information. https://www.hashicorp.com/customer-success/on-prem-support/
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Phone support
No
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
No
Support levels
Our Service Desk provides support for P1 to P4 where a part of the software, appliance or license was previously working and is not working as expected or at all. If an issue requires a level of Professional Services to engage, a member of the support team will discuss with your Account Manager to discuss this further. Service Desk offer support through several channels, including telephone, e-mail and remote sessions where appropriate. Any employee of our entitled customers can raise a support desk ticket via telephone or e-mail with their company e-mail address. This will be logged and assigned to an engineer who will respond within 1 business hour. Somerford resolve over 90% of service desk tickets without requiring the involvement of our Partners. Where Partner involvement is required, we will advise you on this the process. Wherever possible, we will manage your service desk case with our Partners. Our service desk is available between 9am and 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding Bank Holidays. Our service desk will provide support for existing Customers and companies that are engaged in Proof of Concepts. All our customers have a Technical Account Manager.
Support available to third parties
No

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
HashiCorp and Somerford provide on-site and online training at extra cost.

Full documentation is available online via https://www.consul.io/docs
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
HTML
End-of-contract data extraction
Consul is hosted on your data centers, HashiCorp does not have access to your data.
End-of-contract process
When the contract is coming to an end you have the option to renew the subscription. If you do not wish to renew, you will lose access to HashiCorp support and Enterprise specific features.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari 9+
  • Opera
Application to install
Yes
Compatible operating systems
  • Linux or Unix
  • MacOS
  • Windows
  • Other
Designed for use on mobile devices
No
Service interface
No
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
Please refer to HashiCorp Consul API Documentation https://www.consul.io/api-docs
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
API sandbox or test environment
Yes
Customisation available
No

Scaling

Independence of resources
By using Rate Limiting.

Please note that Consul is hosted on your own data centers, which by default means that users outside your organisation will not have any influence on your usage.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
Cluster size / usage, System Load indicators, Raft Load indicators, Network activity, update/upgrade activity (autopilot)

Please refer to documentation for full list https://www.consul.io/docs/agent/telemetry
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards

Resellers

Supplier type
Reseller providing extra support
Organisation whose services are being resold
HashiCorp

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Conforms to BS7858:2012
Government security clearance
Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

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
Managed by a third party
Penetration testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
Encryption of all physical media
Data sanitisation process
No
Equipment disposal approach
A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Not applicable
Data export formats
Other
Other data export formats
Not applicable
Data import formats
Other
Other data import formats
Not applicable

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
Other
Other protection between networks
Not applicable
Data protection within supplier network
Other
Other protection within supplier network
Not applicable

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
Consul is hosted on your own data-centres - Please refer to the Reference Architecture documentation on https://learn.hashicorp.com
Approach to resilience
We offer reference architectures for you to follow best practice for installing and using Consul on your own data-centres. Standard installation provides you with Highly Available clusters.

Please refer to our documentation for the reference architecture.
https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul/datacenter-deploy/reference-architecture
Outage reporting
Not applicable, however there's an API available if you wish to deploy your own monitoring / alerting solution.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
Other
Other user authentication
Vault or ACL / API token
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Using namespaces and granular RBAC via ACL for your users - HashiCorp never has access to your data as you're hosting Consul securely on your own data-centres.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Management access authentication
Other
Description of management access authentication
Vault or API / ACL Token

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
No audit information available
How long system logs are stored for
User-defined

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
No
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
No
Security governance approach
HashiCorp’s Security Program is founded on the core principles for information security management as defined in ISO/IEC 27002. In addition to ISO 27002, HashiCorp’s Information Security Policy provides a flexible framework that addresses the needs of PCI DSS, SSAE16 SOC 1 & 2, HIPAA and other international privacy regulations. HashiCorp’s Policy follows a structure that is aligned to the ISO 27001 standard, and has been grouped into the following domains; Information Security Management System, Security Organization, People Team Security, Asset Management, Access Control, Cryptography, Physical Security, Operations Security, Communications Security, Systems and development, Vendor Management, Incident Management, Business Continuity, Compliance
Information security policies and processes
All individuals with access to HashiCorp Resources are required to report any misuse or violations of this standard to Security (security@hashicorp.com), including: Unauthorised access, disclosure, modification or deletion of HashiCorp data, Insufficient controls or weaknesses, and improper risk classifications. Please report to the IT and Security team immediately.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
The engineering team is constantly working on new features and maintenance. Once released, the customer can decide if they want to upgrade to the latest versions.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
HashiCorp uses the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) for all vulnerabilities within scope of this standard. Each vulnerability must be assessed by the Security Team to determine the CVSS rating by completing the NIST CVSS v3.1 Calculator. For a High severity vulnerability we aim to have a response timeline of 5 business days.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
At least annually or when significant changes have occurred, HashiCorp will conduct an independent review of the approach to managing information security and its implementation. Additional third party reviews may be performed at least annually as necessary. Information systems should be regularly reviewed for compliance with HashiCorp’s information security policies and standards. The security team will use approved tools to check systems and networks for technical compliance as part of regular vulnerability assessment and penetration testing activity.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
All HashiCorp employees and contractors must report any suspected incident or suspicious event within 24 hours of detection of an incident. Customers, community members, and vendors with access to HashiCorp Resources, or who act on behalf of HashiCorp must also report any suspected incident or suspicious event involving HashiCorp Resources within 24 hours of discovery. Information security weaknesses, incidents, and events must be reported as soon as possible. Employees must notify the security team through email or slack. External parties who experience an incident or event should report it to the security team via email.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Pricing

Price
£6,000.00 a unit
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
No

Service documents

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 penny.harrison@somerfordassociates.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.