UKFast

Managed AWS Hosting

ClearCloud from UKFast will deliver your AWS Infrastructure, Delivery Mechanisms and Monitoring to the AWS Well-Architected Framework’s Operational Excellence Pillar.

An AWS advanced consulting partner, with AWS Well-Architected and EC2 for Windows competency.

As an Approved Training Provider for AWS, we will help your team deploy into the AWS Cloud.

Features

• Proactive Support & Incident Response.
• 24/7/365 Monitoring & Alerting.
• Full Infrastructure & Environment Automation.
• Access to Certified AWS Architects & Engineers.
• Database Support.
• Linux and Windows Operating System expertise.
• Application Support
• Monthly AWS Cost Review

Benefits

• AWS Well-Architected reviews and reporting
• Full infrastructure and pipelined automation
• Database, operating system and application expertise
• Easy to use billing dashboard
• Build and operate workloads following best practices using IAC
• Proactive management to increase efficiency and availability
• Access to expert architects and engineers
• Regular cloud reviews
• Support 24/7, 365 days a year
• FreeFly package included

£500 an instance a month

• Education pricing available
• 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

• Modern Slavery statement

  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 gcloud@ukfast.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 12

Service ID

581580392881185

Contact

Laurel Mills
0800 923 0601
gcloud@ukfast.co.uk

Service scope

• Service constraints: All planned maintenance is covered by a mandatory 5 day notice period. We reserve the right to conduct unplanned emergency maintenance where necessary, but will always make reasonable efforts to inform impacted customers before work commences. Support is limited to services, hardware and applications provided by UKFast and does not extend into the customer's application stack.
• System requirements:
  • Proof of license ownership for customer-provided Microsoft licenses
  • Customers must adhere to fair use policy and ToS

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Calls are responded to within 3 rings. Service Ticket response time is dependent on the criticality: 1. Critical - Immediate Response 2. High - Response within 10 minutes 3. Medium - Response within 1 hour 4. Low - Response within 4 hours 5. Very Low - Response within 24 hours. The standard SLA response times are applicable from 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday (excluding UK Bank Holidays). 365/24/7 Support is also available as a service at an additional cost.
• 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: Web chat
• Web chat support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
• Web chat support accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web chat support is accessible: Use Slack as an online chat support tool, with engineers available to respond to questions and provide the assistance you need, when you need it.
• Web chat accessibility testing: 3rd party tool which has been successfully used for over 12 months.
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: All UKFast customers have access to ticket and telephone-based support, unless they choose to take an unmanaged service.; ; Customers have access to a named Account Manager who takes overall responsibility for the customer's commercial, technical and support relationship with UKFast.; ; Customers are assigned a support "pod" based on the type of solution they have with UKFast. This ensures customers will always be supported by the same core team of support engineers who are technical experts in their particular solution.; ; Enterprise and public sector customers also have access to a named Service Manager in addition to their Account Manager.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We offer services to enable seamless on-boarding and collaborate to design a bespoke solution to meet your requirements. An onboarding process would typically include - Discovery process / Timeline setting / Risk assessment / Implementation process / Quality Assurance
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: At the end of the contract any customer data stored will only be extracted by UKFast with the prior consent of the customer. ; UKFast shall purge and destroy (as defined in security accreditation for different ILs) customer data from any of its own equipment after the contract ends.
• End-of-contract process: A similar process to on-boarding is provided for customers wishing to leave UKFast. We provide full transitional services at an additional charge (please refer to the pricing document for more details). An example phased off-boarding process is as follows:; 1. Discovery: UKFast meets the customer’s new provider who will lead the project; 2. Timelines: Timelines are agreed where possible and alternatives offered when needed; 3. Risk: UKFast identifies any risks that may not be apparent to the new provider or that are inherent to the UKFast solution; 4. Implementation: UKFast assists the new provider if needed; 5. Quality Assurance: UKFast offers a debrief and review meeting if the new provider requires.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Using the web interface: MyUKFast is the customer's web interface where they can manager all aspects of their solution - for example creating/managing/deleting/scaling virtual machines, managing reports and monitoring alerts, firewall configuration and more.
• Web interface accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web interface is accessible: MyUKFast is in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. This will deliver a fully-accessible web interface.
• Web interface accessibility testing: Testing against WCAG has been performed to understand requirements for MyUKFast rebuild.
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Create VMs; Manage VMs; Delete VMs; Scale VMs up / down; Power VM on / off; Clone VM; Create and manage templates; Manage nodes; Manage Datastores; Manage firewalls; Manage system resources
• API automation tools:
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • SaltStack
  • Puppet
  • Other
• Other API automation tools: Any appropriate tool can be used
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • PDF
• Command line interface: No

Scaling

• Scaling available: Yes
• Scaling type:
  • Automatic
  • Manual
• Independence of resources: QoS policies / guaranteed resources
• Usage notifications: Yes
• Usage reporting:
  • 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:
  • Applications
  • Services
• Reporting types:
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2012
• 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
• 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: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• 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
• 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:
  • Files
  • Folders
  • Virtual machines
  • Databases
  • Operating systems - Linux and Windows
  • Microsoft Exchange servers
  • Active Directory
• Backup controls: UKFast will agree and implement a robust and granular backup schedule on the customer's behalf
• Datacentre setup: Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
• Scheduling backups: Users contact the support team to schedule backups
• 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
  • 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)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Network availability - 100%; Infrastructure availability - 99.99%; Availability is based on the total number of operating hours of a given calendar month and excludes planned and emergency maintenance.; Service credits of up to 10% of the standard monthly support fee are payable for any month where the availability SLA is not met.
• Approach to resilience: UKFast owns and operates a 5.52MW tier 3 1,000 rack data centre estate. This contains multiple physically separate buildings, connected by dedicated fibre. High voltage power connections are provided from separate primary sub-stations. All mission-critical services including Standby Generation, Cooling systems and UPS (uninterruptible power system) are provided at N+1 or greater across the whole facility. The complex has a power density of over 6KW per square foot, providing diverse A & B power to each data rack, and all eCloud service platforms are supported from quadruple power feeds. The data centre complex is supported by 9MW of standby generation with over 100,000 litres of fuel storage and eight hour fuel supply SLA. All critical services are supported by 4.6MW of UPS power and 4.9MW of data centre cooling. The public sector hosting suite has fully resilient networking, switches, carrier-redundant leased lines, power and backup generators, all separated from the rest of the UKFast network and data centre complex.
• Outage reporting: A public status page is available on the UKFast website, which shows live status of our core network and infrastructure along with details of any incidents. Customer notifications are managed via our ticketing system accessible via MyUKFast.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Management access to environments is strictly restricted to authorised and vetted personnel only. Granular access rights ensure individual personnel have access to only the resources they need in order to carry out their specific tasks and responsibilities. Logical and physical separation of access rights is provided, and all management interfaces are restricted to internal privileged networks and are not accessible to the internet or external networks.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Username or password
• Devices users manage the service through:
  • Dedicated device on a segregated network (providers own provision)
  • Dedicated device on a government network (for example PSN)
  • Dedicated device over multiple services or networks
  • 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 have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get 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: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: LRQA
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 24/06/2019
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: All processes are covered
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: Yes
• Who accredited the PCI DSS certification: Ultima Risk Management
• PCI DSS accreditation date: 29/07/2019
• What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover: Office network not covered as this has no access to client infrastructure.
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • Cyber essentials / cyber essentials+
  • SOC 2 - System and Organisation Controls
  • ISO 27017:2015 - Information security controls for cloud services
  • ISO 27018:2019 - Protection of PII in public clouds
  • ISO 22301:2020 - Business continuity management systems

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: An ISO27001-compliant information security management system is operational

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: Change management system operational which documents all changes, responsible parties, time of change and senior-level sign off. All changes pass through a Change Advisory Board (CAB).
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Vulnerability scan run once per month and critical vulnerabilities patched within 30 days. Additional vulnerability scan run after any significant change implementation.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Internally designed and developed threat monitoring system is run on all infrastructure.
• 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: ISO27001-complaint processes and systems for incident response are operational.

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: Supplier
• Virtualisation technologies used: VMware
• How shared infrastructure is kept separate: Customers are logically separated through the implementation of isolated VMs for networking. Storage and compute operated as shared pools within the environment. Individual customer data is isolated to their own VMs and constraints within the hypervisor technology.

Energy efficiency

• Energy-efficient datacentres: Yes
• Description of energy efficient datacentres: The Managed AWS services are hosted in the AWS Datacentres. ; AWS is committed to achieving 100% renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure. Further details can be found on the AWS website.

Pricing

• Price: £500 an instance a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: FreeFly option is available with paid consultancy support on a PAYG basis if needed.

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

• Modern Slavery statement

  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 gcloud@ukfast.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.