This G-Cloud 10 service is no longer available to buy.

The G-Cloud 10 framework expired on Tuesday 2 July 2019. Any existing contracts with Gaia Technologies Plc are still valid.
Gaia Technologies Plc

AWS Direct Connect

AWS Direct Connect links your internal network to an AWS Direct Connect location over a standard 1 GB or 10 GB Ethernet fibre-optic cable. One end is connected to your router, the other to an AWS Direct Connect router bypassing Internet service providers in your network path. aws.amazon.com/direct connect/

Features

  • Suitable for OFFICIAL (formerly IL2/IL3) and/or SENSITIVE workloads
  • 7 availability zones, 3 EU regions (including the UK)
  • NCSC Cloud Security Principles aligned, Security Cleared (SC) staff available
  • Connectivity options for N3, PSN, Janet, RLi and regional networks
  • Establish dedicated connection between your network and Direct Connect location
  • Partition into multiple virtual interfaces using 802.1q VLANs
  • 1Gbps and 10Gbps ports available
  • 1000BASE-LX or 10GBASE-LR connections over single mode fibre

Benefits

  • Integrated role-based access control across all AWS services (IAM)
  • Comprehensive, cross service API audit logging and security (CloudTrail)
  • Integration with other AWS services (24x7 support and consolidated billing)
  • Training and architectural patterns/guidance (well architected)
  • Access public/private resources while maintaining separation
  • Reduce bandwidth costs
  • More consistent network performance than Internet-based connections
  • Private connectivity to your Amazon VPC

Pricing

£0.24 a gigabyte an hour

Service documents

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Framework

G-Cloud 10

Service ID

6 2 8 1 4 4 6 5 4 3 6 7 4 9 2

Contact

Gaia Technologies Plc <removed>
Telephone: <removed>
Email: <removed>@f514a7e5-6a32-4154-8294-bb28a895f60c.com

Service scope

Service constraints
N/A
System requirements
N/A

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
AWS Support case response time depends on severity. The support response times for Developer, Business and Enterprise Support tiers are listed below:

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

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

Enterprise:
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

Information: https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/compare-plans/
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
Yes, at an extra cost
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
You can sign in to the Support Center at https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/ by using the email address and password associated with your AWS account. To log in with other credentials, see Accessing AWS Support.
Web chat accessibility testing
None
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Basic
24/7 customer service, support forums, 4 Core “Trusted Adviser” checks, personal health dashboard. No TAM. Free

Developer:
As above + business hours access to technical/architural Cloud Support Associates via email (one primary contact). No TAM. 3%x monthly AWS usage.

Business:
As above + 24/7 access to Cloud Support Engineers via email, chat and phone for unlimited contacts; architecture, 3rd party software and programmatic case management support. TAM. Greater of $100 or spend-dependent percentage (pm).

Enterprise
As above, plus architectural review, operations support, training, assigned concierge, proactive guidance, TAM. Greater of $15,000 or spend-dependent percentage (pm).
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
AWS provides a range of resources to help customers get started on our services. These include: comprehensive documentation (in multiple formats), introductory videos, hands-on labs, online and in-person training, access to a large ecosystem of partners and support from the public sector account team.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
  • Other
Other documentation formats
Kindle
End-of-contract data extraction
Data may be copied out using OS-level tools (such as xopy or rsync).
End-of-contract process
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. Please see the AWS UK G-Cloud 9 Pricing Document affiliated with this Service in the Digital Marketplace.

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 AWS account 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
None or don’t know
How the web interface is accessible
You can sign in to the Support Center at https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/ by using the email address and password associated with your AWS account. To log in with other credentials, see Accessing AWS Support.
Web interface accessibility testing
None
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
All functionality is exposed via an API.
API automation tools
  • Ansible
  • Chef
  • SaltStack
  • Terraform
  • Puppet
  • Other
Other API automation tools
  • Wide range of 3rd party services hook into AWS APIs.
  • Python,
  • Ruby
  • PHP,
  • JavaScript,
  • Java,
  • Node.js.
  • NET
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
All functionality is available via the CLI.

Scaling

Scaling available
Yes
Scaling type
Automatic
Independence of resources
Customer environments are logically segregated to prevent users and customers from accessing resources not assigned to them.

Services which provide virtualized operational environments to customers (i.e. EC2) ensure that customers are segregated via security management processes/controls at the network and hypervisor level.

AWS continuously monitors service usage to project infrastructure needs to support availability commitments/requirements. AWS maintains a capacity planning model to assess infrastructure usage and demands at least monthly, and usually more frequently. In addition, the AWS 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
No

Resellers

Supplier type
Reseller providing extra features and support
Organisation whose services are being resold
Amazon Web Services = AWS

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
Supplier-defined controls
Penetration testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
Other
Other data at rest protection approach
AWS adheres to independently validated privacy, data protection, security protections and control processes. (Listed under “certifications”).

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

Wherever appropriate, AWS offers customers options to add additional security layers to data at rest, via scalable and efficient encryption features. AWS 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
In-house destruction process

Backup and recovery

Backup and recovery
No

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
Data protection within supplier network
Other
Other protection within supplier network
Customer environments are logically segregated to prevent users and customers from accessing resources not assigned to them. AWS 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 enables customers to open a secure, encrypted channel to AWS 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 AWS Console connection is encrypted with TLS.

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
AWS currently provides SLAs for several services. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of AWS’s product offerings, SLAs are best reviewed directly on our website via the links below:

• Amazon EC2 SLA: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/
• Amazon S3 SLA: http://aws.amazon.com/s3-sla
• Amazon CloudFront SLA: http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/sla/
• Amazon Route 53 SLA: http://aws.amazon.com/route53/sla/
• Amazon RDS SLA: http://aws.amazon.com/rds-sla/
• AWS Shield Advanced SLA: https://aws.amazon.com/shield/sla/

Well-architected solutions on AWS that leverage AWS Service SLA’s and unique AWS capabilities such as multiple Availability Zones, can ease the burden of achieving specific SLA requirements.
Approach to resilience
The AWS Business Continuity plan details the process that AWS follows in the case of an outage, from detection to deactivation. 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, maximizing the effectiveness of the recovery and reconstitution efforts and minimizing system outage time due to errors and omissions.

AWS maintains 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 on AWS. AWS provides customers with the capability to implement a robust continuity plan, including the utilization of frequent server instance back-ups, data redundancy replication, and the flexibility to place instances and store data within multiple geographic regions across multiple Availability Zones.
Outage reporting
Public dashboard; personalised dashboard with API and events; configurable alerting (email / SMS / messaging)

Identity and authentication

User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • 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 controls access via unique user ID/password authentication. No actions are permissible without authentication. Remote access is multi-factor, login attempts are limited, remote administrative access attempts are logged and reviewed by Security. Suspicious activity initiates incident response procedures.

A session lock out policy that is systematically enforced: locks are retained until identification/authentication procedures are concluded.

AWS’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) system controls access to AWS services/resources. IAM facilitates the issuance of access permissions per user/group. MFA is available at no extra cost.
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
IAM provides user access control to AWS 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’ Amazon Secret Access Key (either the root AWS Account’s Secret Access Key or the Secret Access key of a user created with AWS IAM). Amazon EC2 API calls cannot be made on customers’ behalf without access to customers’ Secret Access Ke.

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 every 6 months
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Other
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
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
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
EY CertifyPoint
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
11/11/2016
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
N/A
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
Yes
CSA STAR accreditation date
11/11/2016
CSA STAR certification level
Level 2: CSA STAR Attestation
What the CSA STAR doesn’t cover
N/A
PCI certification
Yes
Who accredited the PCI DSS certification
Coalfire Systems Inc
PCI DSS accreditation date
11/07/2016
What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover
N/A
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
Cyber Essentials Plus; ISO 27017; ISO 27018; SOC 1/2/3

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • Other
Other security governance standards
Cyber Essentials Plus; ISO 27017; ISO 27018; SOC 1/2/3
Information security policies and processes
AWS implements 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. AWS Security Assurance is responsible for familiarizing employees with the AWS security policies.

AWS has 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 AWS 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 AWS leadership at least annually or following a significant change to the AWS environment.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Changes to AWS 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 AWS 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 AWS incident response procedures. Exceptions to change management processes are documented and escalated to AWS management.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
AWS Security performs vulnerability scans on the host operating system, web applications, and databases in the AWS environment. 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.

AWS Security monitors newsfeeds/vendor sites for patches and receives customer intelligence via http://aws.amazon.com/security/vulnerability-reporting/.

AWS customers are responsible for all scanning, penetration testing, file integrity monitoring and intrusion detection for their Amazon EC2 and Amazon ECS instances/ applications. Scans should include customer IP addresses (not AWS endpoints). AWS endpoint testing is part of AWS compliance vulnerability scans.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
AWS monitoring devices collect information on unauthorized 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
• Unauthorized connection attempts

Near real-time alerts flag potential compromise incidents, based on AWS set thresholds.

Requests to AWS KMS are logged and visible via the account’s AWS CloudTrail Amazon S3 bucket. Logs provide request information, under which CMK, and identify the AWS resource protected through the CMK use. Log events are visible to the customer after turning on AWS CloudTrail in their account.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
AWS adopts a three-phased approach to manage incidents:

1. Activation and Notification Phase
2. Recovery Phase
3. Reconstitution Phase

To ensure the effectiveness of the AWS Incident Management plan, AWS conducts incident response testing, providing excellent coverage for the discovery of defects and failure modes as well as testing the systems for potential customer impact.

The Incident Response Test Plan is executed annually, in conjunction with the Incident Response plan. It includes multiple scenarios, potential vectors of attack, the inclusion of the systems integrator in reporting and coordination and varying reporting/detection avenues.

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
Supplier
Virtualisation technologies used
Other
Other virtualisation technology used
N/a
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 virtualized 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 EC2 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

Pricing

Price
£0.24 a gigabyte an hour
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 <removed>@f514a7e5-6a32-4154-8294-bb28a895f60c.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.