Commercial in Confidence
Service Description – Primary Storage in the Cloud
Product Overview
Leveraging a cloud storage gateway architecture and Skyscape’s Primary Storage in the Cloud, allows
storage administrators to securely benefit from the cloud as enterprise-grade primary storage, in the same
way they enjoy local storage today.
Product Features
Having your Primary Storage in the Cloud provides a secure solution that enables organisations to fully
realise the following benefits of cloud storage:






Significantly reduced storage infrastructure costs.
Cached information access to provide local performance.
Single point of management – reduces complexity and associated storage management costs.
Elasticity – the solution scales indefinitely and on-demand.
Metered Billing –the organisation is charged by how much (or how little) is consumed.
Assured Security – the platform is hosted in highly resilient Tier3, UK sovereign data centres and
benefits from QinetiQ’s Protective Monitoring solution.
Example Use Cases
 Improve efficiency of your current environment by redeploying local storage for other applications in your
datacentre.
 Ability to retire redundant storage, end of life appliances.
 Storage DR can be provided without the need for the additional costs (CAPEX, Datacentre space, etc)
traditionally associated with DR.
Technical Features
A third party cloud storage gateway appliance (EMC Cloud Tiering Appliance, Panzura Alto Cloud Controller,
Seven10 StorFirst EAS, StorSimple Appliance, etc) is installed locally and provides a global network share
with CIFS/NFS/HTTP presentation of the storage layer, which will then replicate to Skyscape’s Primary
Storage in the Cloud Service.
 Integrates with existing, native and virtualized, enterprise applications with no change to the application
or stack.
 Easy to deploy and use.
 Native support of a wide variety of Cloud interfaces (via REST), block based disk (SAN), SCSI/iSCSI,
NAS, tape, and VTL (dependant on chosen appliance).
 Full data encryption.
Multi-petabyte level scale is achieved from a single appliance with support for billions of files and directories.
An overview of the G-Cloud Service (functional, non-functional)
By installing a local virtual or physical appliance (must be purchased separately) Skyscape’s Primary
Storage in the Cloud is presented as existing local primary storage, but with the benefits of the Cloud.
Information assurance – Impact Level (IL) at which the G-Cloud Service is accredited to hold and
process information
Suitable for IL0, IL1, IL2 and IL3 data.
All datacentres (locales) are highly resilient Tier3, UK sovereign with LISTX status.
Commercial in Confidence
Page 1 of 5
Commercial in Confidence
Connectivity Available
Connectivity via the internet or a government secure network (GSI, PNN, N3, etc.) is standard.
Details of the level of backup/restore and disaster recovery that will be provided
The default option is that data is held in a single named UK locale, protected using a data protection
technique called EMC GeoParity which improves data durability.
Optional: Remote replication where data is stored in two UK sovereign locales, with a copy maintained in a
primary named UK locale and copied to a geographically remote UK locale.
On-boarding and Off-boarding processes/scope etc.
A virtual or physical appliance is installed locally, according to the chosen manufactures installation
instructions, which acts as a “gateway” to the Skyscape Primary Storage in the Cloud Service.
The organisation will be issued with unique Credentials (UserID, Subtenant ID, resolvable hostname and
shared secret), which are required during the setup of the 3rd party appliance.
Pricing (including unit prices, volume discounts (if any), data extraction etc.)
IL0
Bronze
£0.22
Silver
£0.28
Gold
£0.36
The pricing in the above table is based on £ per GB per month.
Il2
£0.28
£0.40
£0.61
IL3
£0.33
£0.52
£0.82
Additional data transfer (i.e. network traffic) charge of £0.13 per GB per month.
Product / Service Options
Bronze
Silver
Gold
SLA
99.90%
99.95%
99.99%
QinetiQ Protective Monitoring
None
Basic
Advanced
Backup/DR
Single copy
Local Protection
Remote Protection
Scalability
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Retention
None
Configurable
Configurable
1. Local Protection - data is held in a single named UK locale, protected using EMC GeoParity coding
which improves data durability.
2. Remote Protection -data is stored in two UK sovereign locales, with a copy maintained in a primary
named UK locale and copied to a geographically remote UK locale.
3. Data Retention (no cost). The organisation may choose to implement a global policy for data retention (or
automated expiry and deletion) of one, three or seven years.
Service Management Details
A comprehensive secure online Portal will provide the most common Service Management functionality and
address most requirements.
An experienced, qualified ITIL Service Delivery Manager will be assigned to each client, and will be
responsible for the on-going client relationship. They will also provide assistance with reporting, incident
Commercial in Confidence
Page 2 of 5
Commercial in Confidence
escalation and continual service improvement, at all times following Skyscape’s ITIL-based process
framework.
Service constraints (e.g. maintenance windows, level of customisation permitted, schedule for
deprecation of functionality/features etc.)
No service constraints exist, beyond the functionality that is available from the 3rd party appliance.
Skyscape will adhere to the following in terms of maintenance windows;
“Planned Maintenance” means any pre-planned maintenance of any infrastructure relating to the Services.
Skyscape shall provide the Client with at least twenty four (24) hours’ advance notice of any such planned
maintenance:
 Planned maintenance of Skyscape’s infrastructure relating to the Services shall happen between the
hours of 00:00and 06:00 (UK local time) Monday to Sunday and/or between the hours of 08:00 and
12:00 (UK local time) on a Saturday and/or Sunday;
 Planned Maintenance shall be excluded from any availability calculation in regard to Service Credits but
shall be included in the monthly service reporting;
“Emergency Maintenance” means any emergency maintenance of any of the infrastructure relating to the
Services. Whenever possible, Skyscape shall provide the Client with at least six (6) hours’ advance notice:
 Whenever possible Emergency Maintenance of Skyscape’s infrastructure will happen between the hours
of 00:00and 06:00 (UK local time) Monday to Sunday and/or between the hours of 08:00 and 12:00 (UK
local time)on Saturday and/or Sunday unless there is an identified and demonstrable immediate risk to a
Clients environment;
Emergency Maintenance shall be excluded from any availability calculation in regard to service credits but
shall be included in the monthly service reporting.
Service Levels (e.g. performance, availability, support hours, severity definitions etc.)
Bronze
Auto email
response with
access to online
portal
Silver
Gold
Bespoke email
Dedicated customer
support advisor
Initial response and update
frequency
Within two hours,
and every 8 hours
thereafter
Within an hour and
every 4 hours
thereafter
Within first 15
minutes and every 2
hours thereafter
Update methods
Auto email
Bespoke email
Phone – dedicated
customer support
advisor
Incident review
FAQs via online
portal
Incident report
Incident report
Availability
99.90%
99.95%
99.99%
Service Credits
5% of monthly fee
10% of monthly fee
15% of monthly fee
Incident Response
Financial recompense model for not meeting service levels
Commercial in Confidence
Page 3 of 5
Commercial in Confidence
If the service level falls below the stated availability percentage (excluding Planned and Emergency
maintenance periods), the Client will be eligible for Service Credits. Service Credits will be calculated as a
percentage of the fees for the monthly billing period during which the failure occurred (to be applied at the
end of the billing cycle).
Training
A range of user and administrators manuals, tutorials and FAQs are available online.
Further documentation, tutorials and training is typically available from the 3rd party appliance vendor.
Ordering and invoicing process
Billing for the service can either be monthly or quarterly.
Payment can be via the following methods: Direct Debit, Debit / credit card or purchase order.
Service lead time
New Clients (organisations) will typically be deployed within 1 day from order. Shorter deployment times may
be available and prioritised upon request.
Existing Organisations have instant access to additional storage with no notice period required.
Termination termsBy consumers (i.e. consumption)By the Supplier (removal of the G-Cloud Service)
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.
Termination costs
There are no termination costs for this Service.
Skyscape may make an additional charge for transferring data out of the service.
Data restoration / service migration
Upon commissioning of the 3rd party appliance and Service, data will automatically be transferred to
Skyscape’s Primary Storage in the Cloud Service, dependant on the settings and polices of configured on
the 3rd party appliance.
Consumer responsibilities
The selection, purchase and installation of a 3rd party appliance.
Clients must be aware of the variable nature of the billing based on usage.
The consumer is also responsible for ensuring only appropriate data (e.g. IL0-IL2 or IL3) is stored and
processed by applications on this environment.
Technical requirements (service dependencies and detailed technical interfaces, e.g. client side
requirements, bandwidth/latency requirements etc.)
A 3rd party appliance (such as, but not limited to EMC Cloud Tiering Appliance, Panzura Alto Cloud
Controller, Seven10 StorFirst EAS, StorSimple Appliance) will need to be separately purchased, installed
and configured.
Commercial in Confidence
Page 4 of 5
Commercial in Confidence
The servers will require internet access (IL0-IL2) or connectivity via a government secure network (IL3) to
the Skyscape Cloud Platforms.
Details of any trial service available
A 30 day free trial for a single organisation with upto 5TB is available upon request.
Commercial in Confidence
Page 5 of 5