Our Cloud Offers You a Brighter Future

Transcription

1 Our Cloud Offers You a Brighter Future Qube Global Software Cloud Services are used by many diverse organisations including financial institutions, international service providers, property companies, corporate real estate departments and charitable institutions. Irrespective of your business size or sector it provides a cost effective, readily available, secure, robust and scalable solution for hosting your application.

2 Qube Cloud Services Our Cloud services have seen a vast growth in popularity due to the numerous business advantages over the traditional On Premise model whereby companies are responsible for operating and managing their own IT applications. These advantages range from tangible benefits such as the elimination of IT infrastructure and security costs to intangible benefits such as flexibility in implementation, rapid adoption and improved service levels. IT research organisations predicts that the Cloud market for Enterprise level software will grow by over 14% per annum, despite the current economic climate. Many industry professionals recommend that companies should move from the On Premise solution to the Cloud model. They can then focus their resources on core business issues and leave the operation and management of IT solutions to industry specialists. At Qube we have provided the operational management of our applications for over 10 years from our Tier III data centres. We have built up a wealth of experience, knowhow and best practice in how to provide a high value and high quality service to our customers. Before the Internet we provided a black box, or fully serviced hardware and software applications, located On Premise. With the advent of the Internet we adapted this to a dedicated hosted platform located at our data centres. With the evolution of virtualisation technology we now offer a private Cloud solution; our private Cloud of computer resources can be allocated to your specific application in a secure, dedicated environment. Qube Global Software Cloud Services provides our customers with a high quality, high availability, fully served, simple to implement, state of the art solution. You no longer have to spend your valuable time and money implementing your own IT infrastructure or training your own IT staff. Qube Cloud Services I Copyright 2012 Qube Global Software Ltd I 2

3 Delivering Benefits Qube Global Software Cloud Services delivers the following benefits: Rapid Implementation Reduced Upfront Costs Flexibility Our Cloud computing resources are already in situ and ready to use. There s no need to order, install and configure new hardware, determine backup capacity or ensure that capacity exists. No need to buy hardware or software. You can start small and increase usage as your company grows. The Qube Global Software Cloud Service is ultimately flexible to your usage requirements. 24/7 Access Our data centres are always on so you can work from anywhere at any time. Quality Service Future Proof Security Business Continuity Lower Cost of Ownership Our applications are maintained by the people who created them, making the expertise directly available to support these applications second to none. You get the benefits of our constant renewal in technology without having to make those difficult decisions about purchasing and prioritising resources. Security is paramount. Qube Global Software Cloud Services incorporates multiple layers of security to ensure that your data stays protected at all times. A range of uptime protection systems aids business continuity. These include a high availability physical infrastructure, high availability system architecture, pro-active server monitoring, multiple backup layers and a Disaster Recovery configuration. The Cloud solution offers better overall value than On Premise implementations. Traditional Vs Virtual Infrastructure Resource Optimisation Optimisation of resources is achieved through a resource pool at the virtual level. Instead of paying for hardware and its unused capacity, you only contract for the resources you need. Qube Cloud Services I Copyright 2012 Qube Global Software Ltd I 3

4 Security Qube Global Software Cloud Services offers our customers a highly secure environment. Security starts with the physical aspects of the Tier III data centre and continues with the Qube private Cloud. Tier III Data Centre 24hr video surveillance On site security personnel 24hr building monitoring systems State of the art fire suppression systems Intruder detection systems Securely managed loading and delivery areas Rack space that is physically locked and dedicated to the Qube Cloud Electronic access controls, including proximity key cards and pin access Data Centre Providers Qube Global Cloud Services is located in specialised and purpose built Tier III data centres. Qube utilises the Global Switch 2 data centre in London Docklands (right), which is Europe s largest purpose built data centre, and the Level 3 Communications Goswell Road data centre in North London. These facilities offer Tier I IP data connectivity for fast internet connectivity. Qube Private Cloud Three different firewalls: an external Cisco ASA Firewall; an internal Microsoft ISA server, behind which resides the application code; another Cisco ASA Internal firewall, behind which resides our customers data SSL data encryption Symantec Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) to monitor network traffic for malicious content Symantec anti-virus and anti-spyware systems IP whitelist and blacklist options Customer dedicated databases Encrypted backups Username authentication policies that customers can adapt to their preference, including rules on password policies for format, length, age, re-use history, first use rules, lockout attempts thresholds and lock-out duration Qube Cloud Services I Copyright 2012 Qube Global Software Ltd I 4

5 Security These are in addition to the security features of the application itself, which is role based and defines what functionality an authenticated user can access. For example the screens and processes they can operate and associated privileges (insert, update, query, amend). All application access and all amendments and changes to the systems are logged. Security Model Traffic Flow Finally, Qube utilises a specialist third party security company to undertake an annual review and penetration test of the Cloud environment and the application code for security vulnerabilities. Qube Cloud Services I Copyright 2012 Qube Global Software Ltd I 5

6 Service Features As part of the Qube Global Software Cloud we regularly deliver a number of key services features our customers. This ensures our customers are always up to date and maximises the performance and resilience of their system. Service Packs The Qube Cloud Service includes the validation and application of third party service packs and hot fixes. These are tested and applied in alignment with their release cycle. For example, Microsoft operating system patches are tested and applied monthly. This ensures our customers have the most secure and robust versions of our third party products. Monitoring & Performance Optimisation The operational performance of our customers applications is monitored pro-actively using specialised tools such as VSphere and Enterprise Manager. Our dedicated team of DBA s has also created specific alerting utilities to optimise the performance of our applications. Sustainability To reduce our environmental impact we use low energy servers for our Cloud. Distributed Power Management In addition, our Cloud is configured to optimise resources based on usage. When user usage of Cloud resources is low, for example at night, the unused processing capacity is powered down until it is needed. Qube Cloud Services I Copyright 2012 Qube Global Software Ltd I 6

7 Business Continuity Resilience All servers are configured on RAID disk arrays ensuring protection against disk failure. Databases are located on a SAN. Qube Global Software Cloud Services is configured in a High Availability mode using virtualisation technology from VMWare. High Availability consists of parallel server capacity that automatically activates if there is a failure within the Live system. If there is a hardware failure on one server our customers Cloud of resources is automatically switched to alternative hardware with minimal downtime. Customers can also elect to have a Disaster Recovery Cloud as insurance against a catastrophic disaster at the Live data centre. The Live system is automatically replicated at an alternative physical location; in the unlikely event that the Live system suffers a catastrophic failure the DR system is activated with minimal downtime. High Availability Disaster Recovery Cloud Backup Strategy Qube has a multi-tiered backup strategy. When DR is selected, real time block level replication ensures that the entire system is copied to the DR data centre. Additionally, VMware snapshots, with a time saving data de-duplication facility, create disk copies of the entire system that are stored for 14 days on alternative hardware. Database level real time archive logging ensures that point in time restore and recovery points through to the last successful commit are available; these too are located on alternative hardware. In addition, weekly full database export backups are taken and located off site. Qube Cloud Services I Copyright 2012 Qube Global Software Ltd I 7

8 Contact us at: Alternatively: Visit and see for yourself what Cloud services can do for you. 9 King Street, London EC2V 8EV T: +44 (0) F: +44 (0)