Background

The Standards and Testing Agency (STA) is an executive agency of the UK Governments Department for Education (DfE).  STA set the tests to assess children in education from early years to the end of primary school. In order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the test development process, STA contracted Texuna Technologies which specialises in data management solutions to develop ItemBank, a robust and secure data management system.

The original system was deployed in 2012 as an on-premise solution. At that time, as part of the DfE’s risk management process, they requested for Texuna to deposit the source code of the system with a different software escrow vendor.

Over the years, Texuna has innovated their system and migrated it over to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to take advantage of the efficiency and data security that the AWS cloud platform provides.

The DfE risk assessment team identified that relying on a cloud hosted application had some inherent risks and they would require a more advanced software escrow arrangement.

In order to provide an assured level of business continuity and to mitigate against these risks, the DfE published a tender for a new contract to provide a full continuity solution within AWS.

After a thorough review of GCloud 10 approved software escrow vendors, The Escrow Company were awarded the new SaaS Escrow contract to provide a comprehensive and secure SaaS Escrow solution.

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The Challenge

A major concern for enterprise companies that often blocks the adoption of SaaS-based technology is the question of continuity in the unlikely event that a software vendor becomes unable to support the application. These events are usually due to situations such as bankruptcy, insolvency or major support failure.

As a company that takes business continuity planning (BCP) extremely seriously, the APC surveyed the software escrow market seeking a robust solution that would provide complete continuity in the unlikely event Loqus were no longer able to support their software hosted within Amazon Web Services (AWS). In evaluating their options, the APC would need a software escrow partner with an extensive skillset including AWS certified cloud architects and real-life experience of deploying and spinning up cloud environments. After a lengthy search and intensive due diligence, the APC management team were most impressed by the multipronged continuity solution proposed by The Escrow Company. While Loqus is a solid company with an incredible track record of over 30 years of logistics software experience they still understood the concerns of their client and were keen to provide comfort to the APC to further cement their strong and growing partnership.

Trusted by 1000'S of software developers and industry leaders alike

“The Escrow Company provided us with a clear implementation program for the Replicated SaaS Continuity solution that was put in place on behalf of our client, the DfE. During the verification exercises, the The Escrow Company team of AWS consultants worked diligently alongside our developers to ensure that the replicated environments were fully functional meeting the expectations of our client. We will be happy to work with The Escrow Company again going forward”.

ItemBank Team, Texuna Technologies

The Solution

The Escrow Company team of AWS certified architects and code specialists consulted with the DfE to implement a bespoke Replicated SaaS Continuity solution that best addressed their concerns. The main aim was to provide the DfE with complete continuity in the unlikely event of a release scenario. Several critical instances needed to be protected and replicated. The final implemented solution includes:

  • Complete source code deposit of the Texuna ItemBank application.
  • Scheduled deposit of an encrypted copy of the DfE ItemBank database.
  • Deposit of the Texuna AWS cloud environment.
  • Full Verification test on the source code to ensure that it can be built into the working application.
  • SaaS Release Verification to demonstrate that The Escrow Company has the ability to deploy and host a replicated ItemBank environment including the DfE database within a dedicated The Escrow Company AWS account.
  • Vendor Financial Monitoring that provides the beneficiary with pre-emptive alerts if there are any irregularities with the payments to AWS.

The Escrow Company and Texuna collaborated to ensure that all the required source code, databases, detailed build documentation and AWS instances were available to be securely deposited. Two in-depth verification exercises were then conducted as part of the Replicated SaaS Continuity solution to successfully confirm that the deposited source code was full and complete and that the ItemBank application was replicated successfully within the dedicated The Escrow Company AWS environment.

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Success

The secondary environment hosted by The Escrow Company within their AWS account was successfully deployed during the SaaS release verification exercise. Representatives of the DfE were invited to join the testing session via Webex allowing them to fully test the functionality of the replicated environment from the comfort of their own office.

In the unlikely event of a release, The Escrow Company will deploy the replicated AWS environment, connect the most recent backup set and provide a dedicated URL for the DfE to seamlessly access the secondary environment providing full business continuity.  In addition to the replicated environment, the DfE will have full access to the verified source code providing additional assurance.

The DfE and Texuna have both benefited from the Replicated SaaS Continuity solution implemented by The Escrow Company.  The DfE have been able to adopt industry leading technology hosted within AWS with the full assurance that they comply with their business continuity objectives. Texuna has excelled in delivering innovative data management solutions and the The Escrow Company Replicated SaaS Continuity solution provides their clients with comfort that they will always be protected.

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