Your Application Uptime. Managed. Maximised. Guaranteed. Private Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics AX

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1 Private Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics AX Your Application Uptime. Managed. Maximised. Guaranteed. Comprehensive platform and managed services solution built on Insite s industry-leading Private Cloud

2 Insite Private Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics AX with unique application uptime guarantee Guarantees application uptime as high as >99.95%* Enables clients to focus on revenue generation and competitive advantage by managing the risk of application failure Total managed solution comprising dedicated Private Cloud and a full suite of operational support and risk management services No capital costs and no worries about finding and retaining highly specialised IT skills Also delivers significant operational cost savings. *>99.95% for High Availability infrastructures, >99.9% or >99.5% for other infrastructures. **Service credits are part of each customer s Insite SLA. Compared with the cost of an in-house, on-premise infrastructure and support operation and compared to running business-critical Dynamics AX on an unmanaged Public Cloud platform. When it really matters, trust Insite While other Cloud and Managed Service providers only guarantee operating system availability, Insite delivers clear, no-nonsense contractual guarantees of application uptime to meet your business-critical needs. We offer three levels of application uptime guarantee: We can work with you to determine which level is most appropriate and cost-effective for your business operations. Please call for advice. 2

3 What is a managed Private Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics AX? Insite s managed Private Cloud enables its clients to leverage the power of Microsoft Dynamics AX and focus on core business activities whilst benefiting from cost savings and Insite s unique application uptime guarantee. The Insite managed Private Cloud is a complete off-premise solution that delivers significant value-add in the form of a full set of operational support services sitting on top of a superior, state-of-the-art Platform that combines dedicated (not shared) IT infrastructure and expert technical support for optimal application performance and availability. The solution is hosted at Insite s Tier 3 UK data centre and includes infrastructure rental, 24/7 proactive monitoring, 24/7 operational support and secure hosting services required to successfully deploy Microsoft Dynamics AX. Unique, guaranteed solution The Insite Private Cloud is a high-performance, fully managed and guaranteed solution, as opposed to the partial platform-only solutions typically offered by other Cloud providers. Our services can be flexed up or down on a quarterly basis and typically have a minimum duration of five years. Insite is unique in guaranteeing application uptime of >99.5%, >99.9% or >99.95% depending on the platform specification agreed with the client. The comprehensive scope of Insite s Private Cloud Insite Private Clouds for Dynamics AX include both the provision and expert support of items highlighted in blue text in the diagram below. The client s AX implementation partner takes care of the core AX application, while Insite provides and manages the IT infrastructure and underlying Microsoft technologies on which AX depends. In addition, Insite works proactively with the AX implementation specialist to maintain optimal application performance. 3

4 Why consider Private Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics AX? If managed and supported proficiently, Microsoft Dynamics AX is a flexible, feature-rich product that delivers significant business benefits including an impressive return on investment. However, those benefits are quickly eroded if the system becomes unreliable or fragile. To get the best from Microsoft Dynamics AX it is imperative that: It is deployed using a fit-for-purpose platform comprising correctly specified hardware, software and network connectivity Those responsible for its support have detailed knowledge of Microsoft technologies on which AX depends and interacts, such as Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2014 and SharePoint A robust SLA is in place, which includes guaranteed application uptime (not just OS availability), response times, fix times and problem escalation when necessary. Most internal IT departments have the capability to deliver a wide range of general support, but lack in-depth expertise required to effectively support complex applications like Microsoft Dynamics AX. Insite s Private Cloud comprehensively addresses these requirements and manages the risk of application failure. Private Cloud benefits Guarantees application uptime as high as >99.95% Clients have peace of mind and can concentrate on their core business as Insite takes total responsibility for the availability and performance of Microsoft Dynamics AX Clients do not have to procure hardware or software - Private Cloud fees include everything required to successfully deploy Microsoft Dynamics AX Clients do not have to worry about hardware obsolescence or costly refresh cycles Clients have access to a team of experienced specialists ensuring that IT resources never become a bottleneck Insite delivers all on-going support as described in detail in our Key Features section, pages The perfect fit Everything just works. And if there is the occasional AX problem then Insite will resolve it immediately. There s no need for me to get involved They are the leaders in AX hosting and support and their Private Cloud offering for AX is the perfect fit for us. Jason Stokes, IT Coordinator, Hoshizaki Europe Hoshizaki is the world s largest manufacturer of commercial ice-making machines 4

5 How Insite s Private Cloud manages the risk of critical system failure For organisations looking to move to the Cloud, Insite s Private Cloud is a fully managed solution which manages business risk. As such, it provides major business benefits over and above unmanaged, platform-only Public Cloud solutions. Our comparison diagram below clearly shows the benefits. Total Solution 24/7 Application Monitoring Security Incident & Event Monitoring Partial Solution = Variable Application Performance >99.9% Availability 24/7 Platform Monitoring Microsoft Software Virtual Servers Only Vulnerability Assessments 24/7 Server Monitoring 24/7 Servicedesk Operational Support SQL Database Administration Patch Management / Windows Updates Change Management Backup Management / Anti-Virus = Consistently Optimal Application Performance >99.5%, >99.9% or >99.95% 24/7 Platform Monitoring Microsoft Software Virtual and Servers Guarantees, or application uptime Guarantees optimum application performance Internet Only Connectivity Internet and Secure Hosting (ISO 27001) Secure Hosting (ISO 27001, ) * Depending on the platform specification agreed with the client. 5

6 Key features of Insite s Private Cloud for Microsoft Dynamics AX Expert Support Insite has a deep understanding and considerable experience of the technologies on which Microsoft Dynamics AX depends, such as Active Directory, SQL Server, SQL Reporting Services, SQL Analysis Services, SharePoint Server, Remote Desktop Services and Windows Server. 24 x 365 Service Desk Insite provides a 24/7 Service Desk where IT-related issues can be logged. Issues can be logged by phone, or through the support portal. Incidents are prioritised and assigned to the appropriate resolver group 24 hours a day. the appropriate resolver group 24/7 As importantly, we have an unrivalled knowledge of how Microsoft Dynamics AX interacts with technology platforms, which reduces incident resolution times to a minimum. Priority Definition Response Fix Cover Time Time Hours CRITICAL Complete application failure or major 30 minutes 4 hours 24 x 365 (P1) disruption to normal business operations HIGH Partial application failure or a fault which affects all users at a single 2 hours 6 hours 08:00 to 18:00 (P2) location causing significant disruption to business operations Monday to Friday MEDIUM A fault that affects a workgroup with little 4 hours 10 hours 08:00 to 18:00 (P3) effect on normal business operations Monday to Friday LOW A fault that affects individual users that does 8 hours 16 hours 08:00 to 18:00 (P4) not have any impact on normal business operations Monday to Friday QUICK Password resets, thin client 15 minutes 30 mins 08:00 to 18:00 ASSIST session resets, etc. Monday to Friday Service Level Agreement Insite operates a robust, dependable SLA that guarantees application uptime for Microsoft Dynamics AX. Application Availability Insite guarantees and achieves monthly application uptime of >99.5%, >99.9% or >99.95% for Microsoft Dynamics AX.* Response and Fix Targets The table above details the response and fix targets for Insite Private Cloud services. Disaster Recovery (Extra cost option) Insite guarantees the following for Disaster Recovery systems: Recovery Time Objective (RTO) as low as four hours for our premium service. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of less than five minutes. * >99.95% offered for High Availability, resilient infrastructure deployments with no single points of failure 6 Issues can be logged by phone, or through the Insite support portal. Incidents are prioritised and assigned to the appropriate resolver group 24/7

7 Key features continued 24 x 365 Monitoring and Alerting An acute awareness of application and system health is required to deliver market-leading standards of support. Insite uses a best-of-breed toolkit to continuously monitor application performance and the platforms on which applications are dependent. User Experience Monitoring Insite utilises Dynatrace Synthetic Transaction Monitoring to continuously monitor application performance and measure the end-user experience at 10 minute intervals. A benchmark is established by measuring the duration of thin client and Microsoft Dynamics AX logins. Thereafter, 24/7 alerts are raised if a login process fails to complete or if login times exceed the benchmark by 30%. Server Monitoring Insite employs SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor (SAM) to continuously monitor server thresholds and Windows services on which applications are dependent. 24/7 alerts are raised if thresholds are breached or if services become unavailable. SAM is integrated with HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM) and raises 24/7 alerts if hardware components fail or when error conditions occur. Network Monitoring Cisco Prime is deployed to monitor Insite s Cisco Nexus core switches and edge switches. 24/7 alerts are raised if operational thresholds are exceeded or if error conditions manifest on any network port. Windows Event Log Monitoring Power Admin from PA Server Monitor is used to identify and alert on Windows event log errors, drawing attention to individual problems before they compound into something more disruptive. Synthetic Transaction Monitoring continuously measures the end-user experience at 10-minute intervals to ensure that application performance benchmarks are maintained All infrastructure is monitored 24/7 in granular detail using best-of-breed software. If thresholds are breached or error conditions are detected, alerts are raised automatically 7

8 Key features continued Security/Compliance SIEM/Protective Monitoring Security Incident and Event Management, or Protective Monitoring, greatly enhances an organisation s awareness of cyber threat by alerting on attacks in real time. Insite utilises LogRhythm SIEM 2.0 to provide the following state-of-the-art protection: Feature Threat File Integrity Monitoring Registry Integrity Monitoring Security Log Alerting Behaviour Anomaly Detection Zero hour virus infections Unauthorised changes by malware or malicious persons Attempts to gain unauthorised access to systems Brute force attacks LogRhythm automates compliance with ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, SOC-2 and IL3 by using a powerful threat analytics / log correlation engine to audit tamper-proof copies of security logs, from servers and security appliances, in real time. Alerts are raised if a suspicious combination or sequence of events is detected. Vulnerability Assessments Insite uses Security Center Continuous View from Tenable Networks to provide quarterly vulnerability assessments of Private Cloud infrastructure. Malware, out-of-date software, missing updates and patches are identified and classified as Critical, High, Medium or Low vulnerabilities. Security Accreditations Insite is ISO 27001:2013 accredited by a certification body approved by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). Insite is also Impact Level 3 (IL3) certified by the Cabinet Office to host confidential Government systems and approved for connection to the Public Services Network (PSN). In addition, Insite is Cyber Essentials PLUS certified in accordance with the UK Government standard developed as part of the UK s National Cyber Security Programme. Secure Infrastructure Hosting Production infrastructure is hosted at Insite s Tier 3 data centre located in Kent. Disaster Recovery infrastructure is hosted at a Tata Tier 3 data centre located in Buckinghamshire. 8 Secure Internet Connectivity Microsoft Dynamics AX can be securely accessed using the Internet. Non-stop Internet access is assured by: High capacity, multi-homed Internet connections from different Internet Service Providers Clustered EAL-4 firewalls, which comprehensively protect all infrastructure under management Cisco Intrusion Detection Sensors, which protect against complex attacks, automatically killing connections if suspicious activity is detected Clustered AEP Netilla appliances, which provide secure browser based access to Citrix or Terminal Server desktops for any authorised user with an Internet connection Tenable Passive Vulnerability Scanner, which continuously monitors network traffic to eliminate blind spots by identifying vulnerabilities and threats in real-time. Server Patching/Updates Insite is responsible for applying hot fixes, security updates and service packs within a maintenance window agreed in advance. Significant updates and service packs are tested in advance, using isolated test environments, before they are applied to production infrastructure.

9 Key features continued Application Performance Reviews Insite undertakes capacity planning to identify bottlenecks and to propose system upgrades required to maintain optimum application performance. Windows performance counters are used to assess workload and capacity of server infrastructure. SQL Server Dynamic Management Views are used to identify missing indexes, blocks, deadlocks and slow SQL code. Insite works with application partners to permanently resolve application performance issues. SQL Database Administration Insite is responsible for all SQL database administration including configuration and daily validation of maintenance plans and backups. Daily or weekly SQL maintenance plans manage hourly transaction log backups, full backups, integrity checks and database re-indexing. Change Management Insite takes responsibility for all changes to production platforms. Insite uses ITIL best practice to ensure that changes are made in a controlled way to minimise the risk of business disruption. Change Requests include a regression path and are authorised by both parties before being scheduled for implementation. Server Rental High Availability Virtual Servers Insite provides high availability VMware virtual machines on a monthly rental basis, in a range of processor and memory combinations. To ensure consistent application performance, Insite does not contend virtual server resources. The ratio of virtual processors deployed to processor cores available is maintained at 1:1. Many cloud providers assume an acceptable contention ratio of 3:1 when specifying infrastructure which results in variable application performance, especially at peak times. Physical Servers Virtual servers only have sufficient resources and disk throughput to cope with SQL database workloads up to 60 concurrent users. This figure reduces significantly if Business Intelligence or other Reporting applications are in use. Equally, virtual thin client servers have a practical limit of 30 concurrent users and are inefficient compared to their physical counterparts which can support up to 80 concurrent users. For these reasons, Insite includes physical SQL database and thin client servers in the majority of Microsoft Dynamics AX Private Cloud deployments. Shared Storage and Backup Insite provides shared storage required by high availability SQL database clusters. Shared storage is provisioned using high performance 3PAR 7440 arrays, configured with solid-state disks drives (SSD). Storage arrays are connected to servers using fibre channel to guarantee consistent, optimum application performance. Insite s Enterprise backup services utilise HP Data Protector and high capacity Ultrium tape libraries. Tape libraries are connected to storage arrays using fibre channel to facilitate high-speed fabric level backups and restores. To provide consistent, optimum application performance, Insite includes both physical SQL database servers and thin client servers in the majority of AX Private Cloud deployments 9

10 10 reasons to engage Insite Ownership - Insite takes total responsibility for application uptime and performance enabling its clients to focus on revenue generation and competitive advantage by leveraging the power of Microsoft Dynamics AX Guaranteed application uptime of >99.5%, >99.9%% or >99.95% - Insite is unique amongst Cloud providers in offering this SLA-bound guarantee Business-critical ethos - we understand the need for Microsoft Dynamics AX to be constantly available; highly pro-active support is focused on application uptime as well as infrastructure maintenance Secure - ISO 27001:2013 accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. IL3 and Cyber Essentials Plus accredited by the Cabinet Office and UK Government European leader for hosted Microsoft Dynamics AX solutions - Insite is a Private Cloud and Managed Services Specialist, and a European leader in the hosting of business-critical applications Deep skills and mature processes - highly demonstrable, market-leading pedigree with Microsoft Dynamics AX, SunSystems and other business-critical applications dependent on Microsoft SQL Server 10

11 State-of-the-art Private Cloud - consisting of 3PAR high performance storage arrays supporting a hybrid of physical and virtual servers dedicated to the exclusive use of each client Cost effective - compared to procuring infrastructure and retaining skills in-house, Insite s Private Cloud can provide costs savings of up to 30% Stress-free support - Insite s Private Cloud ensures that IT personnel never become bottlenecks and clients do not have the bother of recruiting, training and retaining expensive IT resources Passionate and effective - Insite is an agile business with an exceptional pool of technical talent. We are passionate about what we do and take the utmost care of our clients. Most importantly, we do not suffer from the apathy often associated with our peer group. Trust, continuity, success Our services operate seven days a week and have 40 million visits per annum, so we need IT services that are responsive and robust. Our chosen partner is Insite and they have been an important and trusted part of our business continuity and success. Peter Bundey, Deputy Managing Director, GLL (Greenwich Leisure Ltd) GLL is the largest operator of public sports and leisure facilities within London, managing over 130 centres across the region 11

12 Get to know Insite, the application uptime people *>99.95% for High Availability infrastructures, >99.9% or >99.5% for other infrastructures. **Service credits are part of each customer s Insite SLA. Why Insite? It all comes down to a single word: trust. Major organisations trust Insite to guarantee the availability of the mission-critical ERP, CRM and Finance applications on which their reputations, revenues and profits depend. That s because we guarantee application uptime and we also monitor and measure application performance and the user experience 24/7. And all as part of our standard solution. (Other Cloud providers typically guarantee operating system availability only as part of their standard offer and charge a considerable premium when an application uptime guarantee is required.) With our 20-plus years experience, expert teams and our own state-of-the-art UK data centre, you can trust Insite to maximise application uptime for your business-critical systems. Guaranteed. Call us now on Insite Ltd. Insite Data Centre, Unit 21, Chapman Way, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 3EF Telephone +44 (0) enquiries@insite-europe.co.uk ISO27001:2013 Member of SN Registrars (Holdings) Ltd 8327 Copyright 2016 Insite Corporation. All rights reserved. Issue