easy to adopt, easy to use, easy to leave
service description
Compute as a Service
(Production)
IaaS
version 6.0
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Contents
Highlights .............................................................................................................................. 3
Overview ............................................................................................................................... 3
Example use cases ............................................................................................................... 4
Trial service .......................................................................................................................... 4
Information assurance........................................................................................................... 5
Product features.................................................................................................................... 5
Technical features................................................................................................................. 6
Service options ..................................................................................................................... 6
Backup / Recovery & Disaster Recovery ............................................................................... 7
Service levels ........................................................................................................................ 9
Pricing ................................................................................................................................. 10
Appendix ............................................................................................................................. 16
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Highlights

UK Sovereign – an assured cloud platform delivered from two secure UK data
centres by a UK company with SC cleared UK staff

Disaster Tolerant – two Tier 3 UK data centres separated by more than 100km
and securely connected by high bandwidth, low latency dedicated connectivity
enabling synchronous replication

Optimised for OFFICIAL – hosted in the UK & operated by SC cleared staff, the
service benefits from extensive independent validation (including CESG PGA) that
it is properly aligned with CESG Cloud Security Principles making it the ideal
service for all data classified at OFFICIAL (including OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE) and
legacy IL0-IL4 solutions

Flexible Connectivity options – Connect via our DDoS protected Internet, a
government community network (e.g. PSN Assured service, PSN Protected
service, N3 or legacy GCF networks including PNN, GSI, GSE etc.) or by
HybridConnect – using your own dedicated circuits such as CPA encrypted
tunnels, Leased Lines or MPLS

Advanced Cross Domain Security Zone – A secure managed or self-managed
area that can enable citizen access over the internet to data hosted on the
Elevated domain

Exceptional value – from £0.02 per hour for workloads which are not performance
sensitive or from £0.03 per hour for workloads requiring predictable performance)

Immediately available at all Security Domains – zero delay to your project

Flexible and Adaptable – add, remove or change your solution via the Skyscape
Portal or our fully documented API
Overview
Compute as a Service from Skyscape is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering which
enables organisations to rapidly provision and scale secure Virtual Machines in minutes, in a
flexible and autonomous manner.
Skyscape provides this service across two security domains Assured OFFICIAL (PGA IL2)
and Elevated OFFICIAL (PGA IL3) and 4 Service Levels – up to 99.99% availability –
allowing consumers to precisely match their application / user needs to an appropriate
security domain, service level and cost instead of designing to the highest level when not
needed.
The service benefits from extensive independent assurance:

CESG Pan Government Accredited at both IL2 and IL3

PSN Accredited for both the PSN Assured service and PSN Protected service

Alignment with international standards including ISO27001 and CSA STAR
Hence, the service provides the most robust levels of assurance for data classified as
OFFICIAL or OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE.
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Skyscape’s service has been designed specifically for the UK public sector and is available
only to the UK public sector. The service supports and complies with all relevant areas of the
Government ICT Strategy and Information Principles for the UK Public Sector. Skyscape’s
datacentres are some of the most energy efficient in the world and as such support the
Green Government ICT Strategy in full.
Example use cases
Skyscape support the Government’s Cloud First policy by delivering a true Cloud computing
service that has achieved PSN accreditation and adheres to the NIST definitions – resource
pooling, on-demand, rapid scalability and transparent, utility style billing.
The service can help organisations in a number of ways:

Migrate away from existing physical environments.

Delivery of new applications and services designed for cloud.

Support & facilitate Agile project delivery in line with the GDS Service Design
manual.

Test, evaluation and consolidation of existing services.
Compute as a Service provides consumers with a virtual data centre in which they build,
configure and control their VMs, with their own self-managed firewall and full API available
for programmatically controlling their compute estate – all for a simple, low, hourly price per
VM.
Simpler
Better
Cheaper
Organisations wanting to
consolidate or grow their
existing infrastructure by
migrating / deploying on a Pan
Government Accredited Cloud
platform, significantly reducing
the complexity and constraints
of traditional hosting models.
Based on ubiquitous VMware
technology, consumers can
make best use of the service
without having to learn
unfamiliar platforms.
Organisations can choose from
a range of service levels to
match their requirements and
budgets. The platform is
designed to offer on-demand
responsiveness, flexibility and
scalability enabling
organisations to better control
their environment (including an
option to programmatically
control their environment via
the API).
Based on a true Cloud utility
model, organisations can
reduce their costs by paying
for the resources they
consume on an hourly basis –
there are no minimum monthly
commitments and when the
VMs are not needed they can
simply be turned off (further
reducing their charges) and
then simply restarted when
required.
Trial service
Skyscape offer a 30 day free trial. This is a defined pool of resources (equal to 5 Small VMs
(10vCPU and 20GB RAM total)) which can be configured to create a combination of VM
sizes up to the total resources allowed, and with a maximum of 5 VM instances. This is done
by the consumer within the compute environment. The VMs will be on the Assured Domain
at the BASIC Service Level and Operating systems are included in the trial. Free Trial
conditions as outlined in Appendix A of Skyscape Standard Terms & Conditions will apply.
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Information assurance
The Skyscape assured cloud platform is designed and optimised to meet the unique
information assurance needs of UK public sector organisations.

UK Sovereign cloud platform delivered from two secure UK data centres by a UK
company with SC cleared UK staff

Suitable for all data classified at OFFICIAL, including OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE data
under the Government Security Classification Policy (GSCP)

Suitable for legacy IL2, IL3 and IL4 (by aggregation) systems under the Government
Protective Marking Scheme (GPMS)

Extensive independent validation of alignment with the CESG Cloud Security
Principles

CESG Pan Government Accredited at both IL2 and IL3

Accredited PSN Service enabling secure, compliant access via both PSN Assured &
PSN Protected networks

Independently certified against ISO27001, ISO9000, ISO20000, Cyber Essentials
Plus and members of the Cloud Security Alliance

Secure (List X) and resilient (Tier 3) UK data centres facilities capable of hosting data
classified at SECRET

Advanced Cross Domain Security Zone – designed to facilitate controlled
connectivity between higher security domains (e.g. PSN Protected) and lower
security domains (e.g. OFFICIAL).

Protective Monitoring (aligned with GPG13) across all Skyscape platforms
Product features
Compute as a Service provides an accredited, secure and highly scalable compute platform
which offers the following benefits:

Agile – Build and configure VMs within minutes via a secure self-service Portal.
Users can add more (or less) resources when needed

Flexible – A range of services levels and VM sizes – chose the right service at the
right price for what you and your application / data require

Value – Billed by the hour / resources used – enabling significant cost savings if VMs
are turned off when not needed and simply restarted when they are

Innovative – Cross Domain Security Zone – designed to facilitate citizen access to
secure systems (e.g. between the Assured and Elevated platforms (IL2 to IL3)), code
migrations, browse down management, etc.

Assured Security – the platform is Pan Government Accredited and PSN Accredited
at both IL2 & IL3, hosted in highly resilient Tier 3, UK sovereign data centres and
benefits from Protective Monitoring

Green – the Skyscape service is based in UK data centres which offer market
leading efficiency around power and cooling

Geodiversity – the platform spans two UK data centres separated by over 100km
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Technical features
Underpinning the service is a range of features that make it easy to use and control. Via the
secure portal or API, organisations can:

Stop, start, clone and delete VMs whilst managing firewall security rules and load
balancer policies

Reconfigure virtual hardware “on the fly” – changing memory, processors, network
and storage as and when needed

Set and control access, user profiles and capabilities

Upload own VM images, applications and data, or alternatively select from
Skyscape’s catalogue of template based standard OS configurations

Control the environment via an easy-to-use self-service portal or programmatically
through a documented API

Connect via a variety of networks; PSN, Internet, N3, legacy GCF networks such as
GSI, GSE, PNN, etc and HybridConnect options

Skyscape use VMware vSphere as the hypervisor for this IaaS service. This gives
consumers the widest choice of supported operating systems within their VM’s –
including a large selection of open source platforms

Skyscape provide a Virtual Firewall as part of its service. The performance
characteristics are outlined in the Technical Requirements section. If consumers
require more advanced or specific features, they are recommended to deploy (and
license) their own appliance
Service options
Skyscape provide four Service Levels to choose from:
T&D compute is hosted in one UK DC with no backup included by default. Typical use cases
can include short term testing and development projects or less critical workloads such as
temporary applications. If backup is required then consumers can pay per GB at the rates
above or deploy their own solution using Skyscape Cloud Storage.
BASIC compute is hosted in one UK DC with no backup included by default. Typical use
cases can include true cloud applications which are designed for failure, short term Pilots &
PoC’s or when disposable compute resources are required. If DR/site resilience is required,
consumers can deploy independent systems in each of Skyscape’s data centres. If backup
is required then consumers can pay per GB at the rates above or deploy their own solution
using Skyscape Cloud Storage.
STANDARD compute is hosted in one UK DC and includes a remote backup for 14 days
within the price of both the VM and additional storage. In addition, backups can be stored for
28 days at an additional charge. Typical uses cases include Enterprise / Production
environments requiring the additional protection of automated backup included. This solution
can be engineered to help a consumer design a solution that is highly resilient as consumers
can deploy independent systems in each of Skyscape’s data centres (similar to the concept
of availability zones).
ENHANCED compute offers the consumer a turnkey solution that contains a highly resilient
environment by continually replicating the live VMs over to the second DC in real time,
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offering near zero RPO and RTO’s to help consumers with their Disaster Avoidance plans.
The service includes a local and remote backup for 14 days within the price of both the VM
and additional storage. In addition, backups can be stored for 28 days at an additional
charge. This service leverages synchronous replication to ensure data is always available at
both data centres – consumers should be aware of the additional latency this incurs.
T&D
BASIC
STANDARD
ENHANCED
Service Level
Agreement
99.90%
99.99%
99.99%
99.99%
Compute
Environment
Location
Single UK DC
Single UK DC
Single UK DC
Dual UK DC
Disaster Recovery
between DCs
No
No
No
Yes
Performance of VM
Contended
Uncontended
Uncontended
Uncontended
Automated VM
Backup
Optional
Optional
Included - Remote
Included – Local
and Remote
Storage included
(GB) [1]
50
50
50
50
Protective
Monitoring
DDoS Protection
1
Included for the Assured and Elevated OFFICIAL platforms at the hypervisor
layer and below.
Specialist DDoS mitigation service included for services accessed over the
internet
Micro VM has 10GB of storage included.
Backup / Recovery & Disaster Recovery
As standard, localised component failures are tolerated within the infrastructure by
eliminating all single points of failure (including physical server failure or disk failure).
Depending on requirements, consumers may wish to consider building in high availability
and fault tolerance at the application level (e.g. load balancing across multiple virtual
machines) or purchasing capacity on the Skyscape Cloud Storage on which secondary
copies of data can be stored. This can be achieved via manual data copy, scripted data copy
or the use of supported backup applications such as Commvault, Networker and others.
Such data can be replicated between data centres for even higher data protection.
Automated VM Backup and DR can be selected as per the table below:
T&D
BASIC
STANDARD
ENHANCED
Backup Availability
Optional Cost
Optional Cost
Inclusive
Inclusive
Default Retention Period
14 days
14 days
14 days
14 days
28 day Retention Period
Optional Cost
Optional Cost
Optional Cost
Optional Cost
Replicated Backup
No
No
No
Yes
Backup Location
Remote DC
Remote DC
Remote DC
Local and
Remote DC
Backup Frequency
Once every 24
hours
Once every 24
hours
Once every 24
hours
Once every 24
hours
Recovery
Via Service
Request
Via Service
Request
Via Service
Request
Via Service
Request
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
Automated VM Backups include the whole Virtual Machine (crash consistent
snapshot) and so partial backups are not supported.

Automated VM Backups do not include the Virtual Data Centre configuration (e.g.
firewall rules, load balancing configuration, etc).

Automated VM Backups of virtual machines utilising the ‘Shared Disk’ option are not
available – consumers using this option must backup their systems themselves.

Skyscape do not guarantee how quickly a restore can occur as this is based on the
amount of data.

A restore of a VM from backup will incur additional (hourly) charges based on the
resources consumed i.e. it will be treated as another VM.
Disaster Recovery
For consumers choosing the ENHANCED Service Level:

Skyscape will automatically replicate the VMs and associated data to a second UK
locale which provides a robust solution for more substantial failure of the primary
environment (e.g. site failure).

This option is best for consumers looking to mitigate the risk of infrastructure failure
such as; data centre failure (power/cooling), significant hardware failure, and similar.
At the T&D, BASIC and STANDARD service levels:

Consumers looking to mitigate a wider variety of failures (e.g. application failure, data
corruption, etc) or desiring more control and visibility relating to replication, failover,
failback and DR testing can design their own DR solution.

Consumers can choose to deploy independent VM’s in each site and implement
application level replication utilising Skyscape’s secure and scalable inter-datacentre
circuits (at additional cost). In the event of a site failure, the consumer is in control of
the failover their environment to the second data centre.

Alternatively, consumers can choose to have backups stored at the remote site. In
the event of a major failure affecting the primary data centre, Skyscape will
endeavour to allow consumers to re-provision their environment within the second
data centre. Consumers should note that this is subject to available capacity within
the second data centre. If consumers require certainty that capacity will be available
in the event of DR, it is recommended that VM’s are procured at the second data
centre. Remote backups are included within the STANDARD service level. For T&D
and BASIC service levels, consumers can achieve a similar outcome by backing up
to Skyscape Cloud Storage.
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Service levels
Skyscape will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the availability of the Skyscape
service purchased by the consumer in a given calendar month equals the applicable
Availability Commitment. To define availability, Skyscape monitors a number of service
elements – some generic, some service specific – which collectively enable the consumer to
use or access the Service. If the availability of the Service is less than the associated
Availability Commitment, the consumer may request Service Credits for the Service within
30 calendar days of the Service being deemed unavailable. For more detailed information
on our SLAs please request the Skyscape SLA Definition Document.
Skyscape provide both an Availability SLA and Response Time SLA for Compute as a
Service as per the following table.
Availability (monthly*)
T&D
BASIC
STANDARD
ENHANCED
99.90%
99.99%
99.99%
99.99%
P1 –
P2 –
P3 –
P4 –
Incident response
Service credits
3% of monthly
spend per VM
within 15 minutes
within 4 hours
within 24 hours
within 72 hours
5% of monthly
spend per VM
10% of monthly
spend per VM
15% of monthly
spend per VM
* Availability indication based on an average 730hrs per month. - excludes Emergency
Maintenance. Unavailability applies to existing VMs where the VM becomes unresponsive
due to a fault recognised at the hypervisor layer or lower, for example:

Fault is not caused by the consumer (OS, Applications, user networks).

Fault is within Skyscape controlled components such as the virtual infrastructure,
storage, power and physical firewalls & routers etc.

External connectivity providers (e.g. internet, PSN), and components co-located at
Skyscape are also not included in the availability calculation.
In addition, Skyscape also provide an Availability Service Level Target on the Skyscape
Portal and API i.e. the ability to login to manage your environment via portal, create support
tickets and use other functions. Access to the API allows direct commands to be sent to the
environment for programmatic control of the Skyscape Compute Service.
Target Availability (monthly*)
Client Portal and API Availability (monthly)
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Pricing
Cloud VM pricing
T&D
STANDARD
ENHANCED
Elevated
Assured
Elevated
Assured
Elevated
Assured
Elevated
Assured
RAM (GB)
2GHz vCPU
Micro1
BASIC
1 (500MHz)
0.5
£0.020
£0.040
£0.030
£0.050
£0.050
£0.070
£0.250
£0.340
Tiny
1
2
£0.060
£0.100
£0.100
£0.140
£0.140
£0.210
£0.280
£0.450
Small
2
4
£0.080
£0.120
£0.140
£0.170
£0.190
£0.290
£0.330
£0.540
Medium
4
8
£0.120
£0.180
£0.260
£0.310
£0.330
£0.480
£0.430
£0.710
Medium High Memory
4
16
£0.240
£0.330
£0.390
£0.470
£0.470
£0.680
£0.680
£1.110
Large
8
16
£0.270
£0.380
£0.530
£0.640
£0.680
£0.990
£0.890
£1.460
Large High Memory
8
32
£0.500
£0.650
£0.860
£1.030
£1.100
£1.600
£1.630
£2.390
Tier 1 Apps Small
8
48
£0.670
£0.890
£1.200
£1.420
£1.520
£2.210
£2.220
£3.240
Tier 1 Apps Medium
8
64
£0.840
£1.110
£1.520
£1.800
£1.940
£2.830
£2.790
£4.150
Tier 1 Apps Large
8
96
£1.180
£1.560
£2.190
£2.570
£2.780
£4.050
£3.930
£5.970
BASIC Storage (Primary storage only)
£0.20 / GB /
Month
£0.20 / GB / Month
N/A
N/A
Optimised BASIC Storage3
£0.35 / GB /
Month
£0.35 / GB / Month
N/A
N/A
STANDARD Storage
(including 14 day backup)
N/A
N/A
£0.25 / GB /
Month
N/A
Optimised STANDARD Storage3 (including 14
day backup)
N/A
N/A
£0.45 / GB /
Month
N/A
ENHANCED Storage
(including replication & 14 day replicated
backup)
N/A
N/A
N/A
£1.20 / GB /
Month
Optimised ENHANCED Storage3 (including
replication & 14 day replicated backup)
N/A
N/A
N/A
£1.50 / GB /
Month
14 day Backup Retention2
£0.50 / GB /
Month
£0.50 / GB / Month
N/A
N/A
28 day Backup Retention2
£0.75 / GB /
Month
£0.75 / GB / Month
£0.15 / GB /
Month
£0.15 / GB /
Month
1
Micro has a fixed 10GB storage allocation (no additional storage can be added to Micro
VM’s) and a single 500Mhz vCPU.
2
Additional price per GB per month to retain backups for either 14 or 28 days. All storage
allocated to each VM must have the same backup policy (no backup, 14 day retention or 28
day retention) – partial backups are not supported. e.g. a VM at STANDARD allocated with
200GB storage will cost £0.15p * 200GB = £30 per month for 28 day retention.
3
Optimised Storage provides a greater write performance profile for consumers. This
storage:




Exclusively uses RAID10 to accelerate write intensive workloads
Only uses SSD and SAS disks (no nearline disks) to ensure that even inactive data
delivers consistent performance
Has a significantly higher proportion of SSD capacity to deliver better performance
for active data
Optimised Storage is available by request and is subject to availability
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Consumers can also buy Skyscape Cloud Storage which provides a lower priced option for
data which does not need the highest levels of performance.
The hourly VM charges above are incurred when the VM is running. When the VM is
stopped, the storage & backup charges are incurred at a pro-rated hourly rate based on the
monthly charge above. This applies also to consumer specific template images, clones and
snapshots. When the VM (and associated storage) is deleted, no charges are incurred. If
reconfiguring or resizing a VM outside the pre-defined templates, pricing is based the next
closest sized machine in an upwardly fashion.
The pricing in the above table is based on GBP (£) per hour (part hour charged as a whole
hour).
Dedicated Compute Pricing
Skyscape offer consumers dedicated compute in easily to consume packages, which
provide defined resources on dedicated physical hosts. As per our on demand VMs,
consumers build, configure and manage their environment themselves; however this model
offers the additional benefits of and ability to;

License applications that require dedicated physical hardware such as Oracle or
Windows Desktop.

Deploy whatever VM size they want (up to the maximum allowed) using the
resources available within the resource pool.

Choose the resource contention between VMs - enabling greater flexibility between
VM capacity and performance.
Type
Starter Pack
Upgrade Pack
Specification
20 cores 300GB RAM (usable)
20 cores 300GB RAM (usable)
Assured
£9,000 per month
£4,500 per month
BASIC Storage (Primary storage only)
Optimised BASIC Storage3
BASIC 14 day Backup Retention2
BASIC 28 day Backup Retention2
£0.20 / GB / Month
£0.35 / GB / Month
£0.50 / GB / Month
£0.75 / GB / Month
STANDARD Storage (including 14 day backup)
Optimised STANDARD Storage3 (including 14
day backup)
STANDARD 28 day Backup Retention2
£0.25 / GB / Month
Elevated
£11,000 per month
£5,500 per month
£0.45 / GB / Month
£0.15 / GB / Month
Licencing
£100 per month (Starter pack)
£50 per month per Upgrade Pack
£150 per month (Starter pack)
£75 per month Upgrade Pack
£100 (Starter pack)
£50 per Upgrade Pack
Windows (GSPLA)
Windows (SPLA)
RHEL
Details:

Consumers procure this service with a Starter Pack; they can then add resources by
procuring upgrade packs.
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
Storage is bought on a per GB basis and is not dedicated.

Each resource pool and inherent VMs within can only be at either BASIC or
STANDARD VMs.

Consumer can only buy a maximum of 9 addition upgrade packs before they must
buy another starter pack.

Lead Time: from 10 days

Minimum Term: 90 days

Cancellation Notice Required: 90 days
Ancillary Options
The Skyscape Pricing Guide provides a comprehensive catalogue of pricing; including all
ancillary service options available to consumers when used in conjunction with Skyscape
Compute as a Service. Ancillary options include:

Licenses/subscriptions for selected Operating Systems & Software.

Offline facilities to support data ingestion and extraction.

Connectivity options including PSN, N3, Internet etc.

HybridConnect allows consumers to install their own dedicated leased lines in to the
platform.

Consumer can utilise Skyscape’s Data Centre Interconnect alongside their exiting
form of connectivity to add their own resiliency between DC’s.

Cross Domain Guard as described below.

Limited support for Shared Disk configurations as described below.

Support for Performance Testing and/or Security Testing of consumer’s solutions.
Cross Domain Zone
The Skyscape Cross Domain Security Zone enables consumers to securely transfer data
between the Skyscape Assured OFFICIAL (PGA IL2) cloud platform and the Skyscape
Elevated OFFICIAL (PGA IL3) cloud platform using CESG approved cross domain security
patterns. The service is designed to enable consumers to achieve the goals of the
Government Digital Strategy, specifically enabling PSN facing applications to be made
available to citizens and Industry via the Internet.
This service is available in two options:
1. Skyscape-managed Cross Domain Guard
Skyscape provide a secure and scalable managed Cross Domain Guard which supports
structured and inspectable HTTP based data flows. This option provides an immediately
available multi-tenant Cross Domain Guard to support simple use-cases.
2. Self-managed Cross Domain Solution
Skyscape provide self-service access to the Cross Domain Security Zone which enables
consumers to create their own Cross Domain Solution using technology and application
services of their choice. Skyscape provide an assurance wrap by managing firewalls
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between the security zones and ensuring consumers use appropriate risk management
to understand and mitigate identified risks.
Pricing for this ancillary option can be found in the Skyscape Pricing Guide.
Shared Disk
Skyscape strongly recommend consumers implement application architectures that are
designed for cloud – architectures which are typically loosely coupled and have a ‘shared
nothing’ architecture. For consumers with legacy applications or designs which mandate a
Shared Disk configuration, Skyscape are able to provide a limited service to meet this
requirement which is only available through our Dedicated Compute option. Please contact
Skyscape for more information about the limitations of this option. Pricing is included in the
Skyscape Pricing Guide.
Cloud Access Service
Skyscape recognise that consumers may need to host physical devices in order to further
enhance the security and performance of their cloud solutions hosted on the Skyscape
Compute as a Service platform. Using the Cloud Access Service, consumers are able to
host devices such as Hardware Security Modules (HSM), CPA Foundation Grade security
gateways, WAN acceleration devices and so on as appropriate to consume and manage
virtual machines on the Skyscape Compute as a Service platform.
Pricing for this ancillary option can be found in the Skyscape Pricing Guide.
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Discount Schemes
Customers can choose between either of the following two discount schemes:
Option 1: Commitment Discount (Available for all Services, except Cloud Storage and
Dedicated Storage)
Consumers commit to spending a specific minimum amount each month for a minimum of
12 months. The discount level attained is based on the total spend committed.
To achieve the discount, the consumer will fix a value that they will commit to spend for each
month of the term. This must be in a single PO with each month as a separate line item. As
consumers can consume more than their committed amount each month, they must also
add an additional line item and value to cover any over spend. This must be part of the same
PO.
If the consumer has an existing contract, they must accept a Contract Change Notice and
set the values as outlined above. Where multiple contracts are affected any changes will be
made via a Side Letter.
PO Value
Discount Level
<£250K
0%
£250K-£499K
9%
£500K-£749K
13%
£750K-£1,499k
16%
£1,500K +
19%
Points:







Individual projects or departments (billing entities associated with each monthly
spend) can be amended during the year through discussion with and agreement from
Skyscape; however the committed value cannot be reduced midterm.
Consumers only get a discounted rate for each month, up to the set monthly figure
i.e. not for over usage.
At the end of each month Skyscape will do one of two things.
o If the actual usage is above the committed value, Skyscape will take the value
from the monthly commitment line item and the remaining balance from the
Overspend line item.
o If the actual usage is below the set value, Skyscape will bill the consumer the
committed value.
At the end of the 12 months, Skyscape will rebate the consumer the value of the
applicable discount over the 12 month period minus any over usage for the last
month. For example, the invoice for month 12 is for the committed consumption plus
any overuse at standard prices with the potential for a 12 month rebate.
If the Overspend PO line item value is spent prior to the 12 months, the consumer
must issue a top up PO value for the remainder of the 12 months or increase their
spend and commit to a further 12 months.
The consumer will pay for any usage above the set amount at the standard rates.
The discount is set based on the committed PO value, not the actual usage.
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Option 2: Annual Subscription Discount
Customers can gain a discount off the standard rates by subscribing to pay for VM’s for a
minimum 12 month period. Skyscape will take the discount of the annualised hourly cost of
the VM which is payable in 12 equal monthly payments regardless of actual utilisation.
Subscription Period
Discount Level
12 Months
9%
Customers will be required to specify the quantity of VM’s (by VM size, service level and
impact level) that they wish to subscribe to. The Skyscape billing system will then
automatically offset the cost of VM’s which exactly match the size, service level and impact
level of specified VM’s. All other VM’s and ancillary services (e.g. additional storage
allocated to subscribed VM’s) will be billed at standard Skyscape rates.
Worked Example:
If you know that you will be consuming a minimum of 20 Small, IL0 STANDARD VM’s for at
least one year, you can make an Annual Subscription to those 20 VM’s and receive an
effective 9% discount. The price of a Small, IL0 STANDARD VM is £0.19 per hour. This
would usually cost £1664.40 per year (£0.19 x 24 hours per day x 365 days), so 20 of these
VM’s would usually cost £33,288 per year. If you subscribe to these 20 VM’s for a year you
will be entitled to a 9% discount (£2995.92) and hence the annual cost would reduce to
£30,292.08 and you will be billed at £2524.34 per month. In the months that you are using
less than 20 of these VM’s, you will still be billed £2524.34. In the months that you are using
more than 20 of these VM’s, the additional VM’s will be billed at standard Skyscape rates.
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Appendix
On-boarding and off-boarding
On-boarding
Within 4 hours of acceptance of an order,
Skyscape will create the consumer’s Primary
Administrator account and send the consumer a
Welcome Pack which includes the URL for the
Skyscape Customer Portal and associated
authentication details.
The consumer’s Administrator is then able to raise
a support request to add Services. Via the portal
the Administrator can create additional user
accounts and allocate roles and privileges for
users within their project.
As Skyscape has two UK DC’s, a consumer can
request to be deployed into a specific one at the
time of the order if they require. Whilst unlikely to
ever be rejected, this remains at Skyscape
discretion.
Off-boarding
Prior to terminating the contract, the consumer is
able to transfer all their data out of the solution
(e.g. using the Skyscape portal to export Virtual
Machines).
When the organisation terminates their agreement
with Skyscape, Skyscape ensures all of the
organisation’s data is deleted.
Service management
As a true Cloud service aligned to the NIST
definition of IaaS, the service is designed to be
self managed via the secure online Skyscape
portal (or API) which provides common Service
Management functionality and addresses
standard requirements.
On rare occasions, Skyscape may decide to
assign an experienced, qualified ITIL Service
Delivery Manager to some consumers. In these
cases, the SDM will provide additional assistance
with reporting, incident escalation and continual
service improvement, at all times following
Skyscape’s ISO20000 certified ITIL-based
process framework.
For Organisations that require more of a managed
service, Skyscape work with a number of Partners
which have extensive capability to provide a
Managed Service wrapper around the Skyscape
IaaS. Skyscape will be pleased to make an
introduction where appropriate.
Service constraints
The Skyscape platform is engineered to be highly
resilient and is able to tolerate both unplanned
component failure as well as planned
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maintenance activities. Skyscape is committed to
frequent and regular maintenance of the platform
to ensure that the service delivers the highest
levels of security and availability. Hence, the
following conditions apply:
Compute as a Service
“Planned Maintenance” means any pre-planned
maintenance of any of the infrastructure relating to
the Service. In accordance with our design
principles, Planned Maintenance will have no
impact on the availability of the virtual machines
running on the Service. However, the Planned
Maintenance activity may result in short periods of
degraded service (for example, temporary
performance degradation). In such cases,
Skyscape shall provide affected Customers with at
least fourteen (14) days advance notice of the
Planned Maintenance.
If during Planned Maintenance there is a loss of
availability to virtual machines on Compute as a
Service, an SLA event will be triggered and for
affected Customers this time shall be included in
the availability calculation and monthly service
reporting related to Compute as a Service.
“Emergency Maintenance” means any emergency
maintenance of any of the infrastructure relating to
the Service. Whenever possible, Skyscape shall:
a) provide affected Customers with at least six (6)
hours’ advance notice and b) carry out the
emergency maintenance between the hours of
00:00 and 06:00 (UK local time) Monday to
Sunday or between the hours of 08:00 and 12:00
(UK local time) on Saturday or Sunday unless
there is an identified and demonstrable immediate
risk to Customer environment(s). Emergency
maintenance may result in periods of degradation
or loss of availability depending on the nature of
the activity required.
If during Emergency Maintenance there is a loss
of availability to virtual machines on Compute as a
Service, an SLA event will be triggered. However,
this time shall be excluded in the availability
calculation but will be included in monthly service
reporting related to Compute as a Service.
Customer Portal & API
“Planned Maintenance” means any pre-planned
maintenance of any of the infrastructure relating to
the administrative components of the Services
(i.e. the Customer Portal and API). Planned
Maintenance activity may require short periods of
downtime or degraded service (for example, loss
of ability to manage or change the Services via
the Customer Portal and API). In such cases,
Skyscape shall provide affected Customers with at
least fourteen (14) days advance notice of the
Planned Maintenance.
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If during Planned Maintenance there is a loss of
availability to the Customer Portal & API, an SLA
event will be triggered. However, this time shall be
excluded in the availability calculation but will be
included in monthly service reporting related to
the Customer Portal & API service.
“Emergency Maintenance” means any emergency
maintenance of any of the infrastructure relating to
the Services. Whenever possible, Skyscape shall:
a) provide affected Customers with at least six (6)
hours’ advance notice and b) carry out the
emergency maintenance between the hours of
00:00 and 06:00 (UK local time) Monday to
Sunday or between the hours of 08:00 and 12:00
(UK local time) on Saturday or Sunday unless
there is an identified and demonstrable immediate
risk to Customer environment(s). Emergency
maintenance may result in periods of degradation
or loss of availability depending on the nature of
the activity required.
If during Emergency Maintenance there is a loss
of availability to the Customer Portal & API, an
SLA event will be triggered. However, this time
shall be excluded in the availability calculation but
will be included in monthly service reporting
related to the Customer Portal & API service.
Training
Skyscape have created a number of videos, help
guides, manuals and FAQs to help train and
instruct users so that are up and running quickly
and easily.
Skyscape also have a number of Partners who
are able to deliver additional services such as
training, support and managed services.
Skyscape would be please to introduce you to
such partners where appropriate.
Ordering and invoicing
Billing for the service is monthly in arrears.
Payment can be via Purchase Order and Direct
Debit. Skyscape are preparing to be able to
accept Debit/Credit Card payments (e.g.
Government Procurement Card) – please enquire
at time of order to check whether this is available.
Service lead time
Setting up a new account will typically be
completed within 4 hours from acceptance of
order. Once a Compute environment has been set
up (Dedicated Compute has a 10 day lead time),
consumers have instant access to additional
compute and storage resources with no notice
period required. This is all managed by the
consumer themselves.
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Termination
Terms
At the point of termination, all consumer data,
accounts and access will be permanently deleted,
and will not be able to be subsequently recovered
or restored.
Consumers buying the Dedicated Compute option
have a minimum term of 90 days and a 90 day
notice period for cancellation.
Costs
There are no termination costs for this Service.
Consumers are responsible for extracting their
own data from the platform if required.
Skyscape may make an additional charge for
transferring data out of the service.
Data restoration / service migration
For service migration, Skyscape allows existing
VM images built using VMware or compatible
Open Virtualisation Format (OVF) to be migrated
to and from the platform via the Skyscape Portal.
In many circumstances, Skyscape can help
facilitate a bulk migration to the platform using
offline data ingest and extraction – please ask
Skyscape for details.
Consumer responsibilities
The control and management of access and
responsibilities for end users including appropriate
connectivity, security and accreditation if required.
Where access is required over Government
Secure Networks such as N3 or PSN, the
consumer is responsible for adhering to the Code
of Connection and assigning appropriate IP
addresses from their own allocation to their
services hosted on the Skyscape platform.
Management and administration of layers above
the Hypervisor (e.g. OS patching, application
performance monitoring, user administration, etc).
As a core benefit of the Cloud Platform,
consumers are expected to self-manage the
environment including provisioning,
stopping/starting virtual machines, AV, patching,
etc. Where customers license operation systems
through Skyscape, they will have access to
update repositories.
Consumers must be aware of the variable nature
of the billing based on usage.
The consumer is also responsible for ensuring
only appropriate data is stored and processed by
applications on this environment and that they
comply with the Skyscape Security Operating
Procedures (SyOps) and other information
assurance requirements such as Protective
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Monitoring or as specified in Skyscape System
Interconnect and Security Policy (SISP) and
associated accreditation documentation sets.
the N3 Information Governance Statement of
Compliance process

PSN Assured service – You will need to be a
PSN Service Provider or a HMG customer
that has PSN certification.

HybridConnect – private circuit solutions
including:
Financial recompense model
If the service level falls below the stated
availability percentage (excluding Planned and
Emergency maintenance periods), consumers will
be eligible for service credits on affected VM’s
only. Service credits will be calculated as a
percentage of the fees for the affected services for
the monthly billing period during which the failure
occurred (to be applied at the end of the billing
cycle).
o
CAS(T) compliant connections (e.g.
Leased Line, MPLS, etc)
o
non-CAS(T) compliant connections
(e.g. Leased Line, MPLS, etc) using
additional CPA/PEPAS overlay
encryption
o
Site-to-Site VPN using standards
based IPSEC solutions
o
Dedicated fibre connectivity within
Ark Data Centre
Service Level
Service Credit
T&D
3% of the affected VMs
monthly spend
BASIC
5% of the affected VMs
monthly spend
STANDARD
10% of the affected VMs
monthly spend

ENHANCED
15% of the affected VMs
monthly spend
Preferred connectivity is over a Government
Secure Network such as N3, GSI or PSN

N3 – for access to the Health and Social Care
community. You will be required to complete
the N3 Information Governance Statement of
Compliance process. (additional controls may
need to be implemented to enable N3 access
to the higher security IL3 domain)

PSN Protected service - You will need to be a
PSN Service Provider or a HMG customer
that has PSN certification.

Legacy GCF networks such as GSI, GSE,
PNN, etc via the PSN Protected service

Skyscape Secure Remote Access service

HybridConnect – private circuit solutions
including:
Client Portal
and API
Elevated OFFICIAL (Higher security domain)
1% of monthly spend per 1%
below service level target or
part thereof
Technical requirements
Consumers will require appropriate network
connectivity such as internet access (Assured
Security Domain) or accredited connectivity such
as a government secure network (Elevated
Security Domain) to the Skyscape Cloud
Platforms. Connectivity via the internet, a
government secure network (PSN or N3) or
private leased line is available but may incur
additional charges if the hosting of CPE routers is
required - see the pricing section for more details.
Where required, consumers are responsible for
procuring and managing appropriate devices or
software to meet the requirement for data security
over the various forms of connectivity.
o
CAS(T) compliant connections (e.g.
Leased Line, MPLS, etc) using
additional CPA/PEPAS overlay
encryption
Consumers have a number of options to choose
from with Skyscape to access their environment
dependant on their requirement. The list below
provides a guide to demonstrate what is possible
but may require further engagement with
Skyscape to explain and validate further:
o
non-CAS(T) compliant connections
(e.g. Leased Line, MPLS, etc) using
additional CPA/PEPAS overlay
encryption
o
Site-to-Site VPN using standards
based CPA approved solutions
Assured OFFICAL (Lower security domain)
o
Dedicated bonded fibre connectivity
within Ark Data Centre
o
Site-to-Site VPN using CAPS
approved solutions (e.g. Ultra AEP
X-Kryptor)

Standard Internet connectivity over common
protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, etc)

N3 – for access to the Health and Social Care
community. You will be required to complete
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Virtual Firewall
Skyscape offer customers a Virtual Firewall which
is included as part of the service. Customers can
request additional instances of this firewall but
should note that each instance has the following
performance limitations. Consumers should
consider deploying alternative firewalls if needed.

Max SSL VPN sessions: 5

Max IPSEC VPNs: Support up to 64 tunnels

Firewall concurrent connections - maximum
750,000

Firewall performance - 7.2Gbps (Note that
this includes traffic between tiers within the
cloud environment)

Load balancer concurrent connections maximum of 6000
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Skyscape Cloud Services Limited
A8 Cody Technology Park
Ively Road
Farnborough
Hampshire
GU14 0LX
+44 (0)1252 303300
info@skyscapecloud.com
www.skyscapecloud.com
@skyscapecloud
© Skyscape Cloud Services Limited.
All Rights Reserved.
SC-SVC-02