Storm ID

Infrastructure as a Service

Azure delivers a 99.95% compute SLA and enables you to run solutions in the cloud. Azure provides built-in software patching, network load balancing and high-availability features. Azure offers 24x7 technical support with engineers constantly monitoring service health.

Features

  • Highly available compute for Virtual Machines (VM)
  • Infinitely-scalable from 1 to 100s of VM instances
  • Built-in Virtual Networking, Load Balancing
  • A wide range of compute machines capacities (CPU, RAM, disk).
  • Load balance incoming traffic for high performance and availability.
  • Data protection via auditing, restore and geo-replication
  • Data protection via auditing, restore and geo-replication
  • Multiple storage options for compute disc and data

Benefits

  • Faster time to market
  • Add or remove resources as your business demand fluctuates
  • Increased scalability
  • Align with DevOps, Agile development and Test Driven Development approaches
  • Remove the operational overhead of managing your own infrastructure
  • Improve the availability and uptime of your services
  • Improve your organisation's disaster recovery and business continuity provision
  • Pay only for the services that you consume

Pricing

£0.10 a virtual machine an hour

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 tenders@stormid.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 12

Service ID

6 9 1 1 0 4 8 9 1 2 1 3 9 5 5

Contact

Storm ID Business Development
Telephone: 0131 561 1250
Email: tenders@stormid.com

Service scope

Service constraints
No service constraints.
System requirements
All system requirements are supported

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Yes, at extra cost
Support response times
Response times are categorised by service request priority: Urgent: 1 hour; High: 4 hours; Medium: 8 hours; Low: 16 hours.

Response times at weekends, public and bank holidays are negotiated separately.
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
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Response times are categorised by service request priority: Urgent: 1 hour; High: 4 hours; Medium: 8 hours; Low: 16 hours.

P1 - Urgent: Complete loss of an entire service for all users or severe degradation resulting in inability to function;
P2 - High: Service functioning improperly resulting in some loss of service/system failure removing service from a number of users;
P3 - Medium: Service functioning at less than optimal performance/system problem impacting but not removing service, resolve minor bugs/site errors;
P4 - Low: Change requests.

Support services are tailored to each client and charges reflect the level of service required to support the service. Standard hourly rate is £105. A discounted rate of £95 can be had for bank of hours bought in advance.

Storm ID provide a Technical Account Manager backed up by a WebOps Team. Support can be accessed via an online ticketing system, email or phone. Enhanced support (outside office hours and at peak service use) is available optionally. Monitoring systems and alerts will be implemented with regular reports provided on service performance and support used.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
Storm ID's Web Operations team will provide the appropriate documentation and knowledge to allow training on use of the Azure management portal that is used as part of this service.
Service documentation
No
End-of-contract data extraction
Providers will retain the data of the user after termination of the contract. for a period of 30 days. During this period users will still be able to access the service and retrieve the data.
End-of-contract process
After you cancel the subscription, your access to Azure services and resources will end.

Before you cancel your subscription:
- We will back up your data. For example, if you're storing data in Azure storage or SQL, download a copy. If you have a virtual machine, save an image of it locally.
- Shut down your services and stop any running virtual machines, applications, or other services.
- Work with you to migrating your data.

Using the service

Web browser interface
No
API
No
Command line interface
No

Scaling

Scaling available
Yes
Scaling type
Automatic
Independence of resources
Virtualisation is used to ensure applications and users sharing the same infrastructure are kept apart.
Usage notifications
Yes
Usage reporting
  • Email
  • SMS

Analytics

Infrastructure or application metrics
Yes
Metrics types
  • CPU
  • Disk
  • HTTP request and response status
  • Memory
  • Network
  • Number of active instances
  • Other
Other metrics
  • Google Analytics
  • Bespoke Event Tracking
Reporting types
Regular reports

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

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
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 Tigerscheme qualified provider or a CREST-approved service provider
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
Equipment disposal approach
In-house destruction process

Backup and recovery

Backup and recovery
Yes
What’s backed up
  • Automated Azure Web App Protection and Replication
  • Automated Azure SQL database Protection and Replication
Backup controls
Backups are managed by the Storm ID Web Operations Team who will work with customers to define backup regimes.
Datacentre setup
Multiple datacentres with disaster recovery
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
  • 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
99.99%
Approach to resilience
Microsoft Azure provides failover capability. More information available on request.
Outage reporting
Public dashboard, API, email alerts.

Identity and authentication

User authentication
Limited access network (for example PSN)
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Available on request
Access restriction testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Management access authentication
2-factor authentication
Devices users manage the service through
Dedicated device over multiple services or networks

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users receive audit information on a regular basis
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
No
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
Cyber Essentials Plus

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
No
Security governance approach
Storm ID is working towards ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (ISO 27001).
Information security policies and processes
Information is an asset that Storm ID has a duty and responsibility to protect.

Our information security management system (ISMS) sets our approach to managing information security and is approved by top management and communicated to employees, contractual third parties and agents.

Top management are committed to protecting the information that we store and process though good information security practices. To achieve this, and comply with regulations, we have established:

an information security policy
a commitment to customer focus and applicable regulatory requirements
information security objectives that are measurable and consistent with the information security policy
an ISMS describing our approach to information security
responsibilities, authorities and communication processes
a management review process
a process to ensure availability of resources
data access and security processes
a business continuity / incident management procedure

Top management believe that a commitment to information security is important in order to:

encourage information and cyber security awareness amongst employees, to develop and a ‘secure by design’ mindset
increase customer confidence, which helps build relationships with and retain customers
reduce our exposure to risk
effectively utilise our resources

Storm ID have Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation and are in the process of achieving compliance with ISO27001.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Change management is employed to evaluate, control and minimise risk and cost, and maintain the established standards and quality criteria. Our change management process is incorporated into our ITIL-based continual improvement process, that encompasses business objectives, creates baselines, defines measurements, and plans and implements improvements. Our change controls:

establish the purpose, category and nature changes
determine the potential consequences of changes
assess resource requirements for the changes

We use configuration management to establish and maintain consistency in our software’s performance. This includes configuration management for:

Project/work management
Source control
Build/release pipelines
Packages and artefacts
Azure CSP tenancies, subscriptions and Infrastructure
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
Storm ID apply our ISO13485 accredited Quality Management System processes, and Cyber Essentials Plus backed security best practices to the information and IT assets we handle, reducing risk associated with vulnerabilities by being able to identify, classify, prioritise, remediate and mitigate vulnerabilities. Vulnerability scans are run regularly to identify weaknesses in the configuration of systems and to determine if any are missing important patches or software. Remediation or mitigation is undertaken on any vulnerabilities identified according to the class and priority of the vulnerability.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
We use ‘always-on’ proactive and protective monitoring to:

monitor the software performance
systematically identify risks
detect software faults when they occur
quickly initiate necessary corrective actions

Our proactive monitoring involves collecting meaningful and practical information. To do this we use tools such as:

Azure App Insights
Azure Log Analytics
StatusCake
Performance analytics
Service reports
Helpdesk calls and tickets
Customer complaints and positive feedback
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Storm ID’s incident management process requires that all events and suspect events that could result in the actual or potential loss of data, breaches of confidentiality, unauthorised access or changes to systems, must be reported immediately to top management by email, telephone or in person.

Incidents are centrally recorded, and appropriate management measures, including escalation and notification procedures are in place.

Incident reporting procedures are included in employee training.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Separation between users

Virtualisation technology used to keep applications and users sharing the same infrastructure apart
No

Energy efficiency

Energy-efficient datacentres
Yes
Description of energy efficient datacentres
Microsoft has signed up as a participant and an endorser of the EU code of conduct for datacenter efficiency.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud has been carbon-neutral since 2012. More than half of the energy it uses already comes from 1.6 gigawatts of wind, solar, and hydro-electric sources, and the company has announced that its cloud datacentres will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources by 2025.

Pricing

Price
£0.10 a virtual machine 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 tenders@stormid.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.