Oracle Hosting FAQs

We offer hosting on our Cloud platform, the Claremont Cloud, as well as on dedicated private hardware that we lease to customers. We can also colocate customers’ hardware in our data centres.

Yes. The Claremont Cloud is a true Cloud built using Oracle VM and Oracle Linux on a Cisco UCS and Dell Compellent platform. In addition to the public Claremont Cloud, we run private Clouds for customers and thus offer hybrid solutions. For example, for a leading conservation charity, we provide two private Clouds and various dedicated servers in addition to hosting the public Claremont Cloud.

Our data centres are purpose-built facilities within the UK that exceed the Tier III data centre standard. As such, they have multiple levels of physical and electronic security, e.g. perimeter fencing, 24x7 security, and data halls that are secured with biometrically controlled access.

The data centres are located in Newark (Nottinghamshire), Fareham (Hampshire) and London and are interconnected by 10Gbps resilient MPLS links. Potential customers can visit our data centres to see where their systems will be hosted.

No, we are an Oracle professional services specialist and do not own or run data centres. Timico has been our data centre partner for over 5 years and was selected because their quality and culture make them a great fit for us. We are now one of Timico’s largest hosting customers, and that provides us with significant benefits that we pass on to our customers.

Yes. By using three geographically diverse data centres, we are able to offer a range of disaster recovery solutions, regardless of whether you host on the Claremont Cloud or use dedicated hardware. The right disaster recovery solution depends on your requirements for recovery time, maximum permitted data loss, Oracle licenses, and budget.

We work with our customers to understand these factors and then design a suitable disaster recovery solution. Where fast failover is required, we provide warm standby disaster recovery, for example, built using.

Oracle’s Data Guard product. However, where longer downtime is permitted, a simpler solution may be implemented that doesn’t require the purchase of additional Oracle licenses but enables the production system(s) to be rebuilt at an alternative data centre within the chosen recovery time SLA.

We provide whatever level of managed service our customers require in addition to hosting, from operating system administration and Oracle DBA support to specialist skills proactively supporting Oracle E-Business Suite’s payroll functionality.

Similarly, we provide backup services, including options for tape and disk silo storage and long-term archiving. Activities such as network and Cloud management are built-in to all services and do not need to be purchased separately.

We provide the following SLAs as standard:

• Availability: As a minimum, we guarantee the availability of hardware, power, cooling and network services to our hosting customers. However, where we are responsible for wider services, e.g. operating system and Oracle DBA, we will guarantee the availability of your Oracle systems in addition to the individual infrastructure components.
• Incident Response: We guarantee the time we take to respond to Incidents. Furthermore, a response is a human response from the assigned support analyst rather than an automated systems response.
• Incident Resolution: we are different in also providing guaranteed times to resolve Incidents.

We will also provide custom SLAs where customers have specific requirements. In the past these have included SLAs for system performance, backups and the time taken to analyse changes.

As standard, all severity one Incidents are supported 24X7 while lower severity incidents are resolved during the standard service hours agreed with each customer.

Most customers link their networks to our data centre networks using IPSec (“site-to-site”) VPNs. We can also provide software VPNs to enable access from PCs where an IPSec VPN is inappropriate.

We also support customers who are connecting to the data centres using MPLS circuits. Whether an IPSec VPN or MPLS circuit is used, Claremont does not charge for connectivity or data traffic, but the customer is responsible for covering the costs they incur, e.g., with their network provider, in establishing the connectivity.

We provide fully managed, reactive, proactive support services and ad hoc call-off services in the following areas. These may be combined with a hosting service that suits our customers’ requirements.

• Oracle DBA and Oracle E-Business Suite DBA.

• Oracle Linux operating system administration.

• Oracle Functional support for Oracle E-Business Suite modules, including Financials, HCM (including Payroll), Procurement, Asset Management, Leasing and Supply Chain.

• Oracle Payroll outsourcing, including payslip printing, BACS payments and HMRC submissions.

• Oracle technical development and support for bespoke systems and Oracle E-Business Suite customisations.

All our hosting facilities meet or exceed and, where relevant, are independently certified as such the following:

• All standards and criteria for Tier III hosting facilities are defined by the Telecommunications Industry Association in the ANSI/TIA-942 standard.
• ISO 27001 standard for information security management.
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (“PCI DSS”) for Data Hall Physical Security. ISO 9001 quality management system.
• ISO 14001 standard for environmental management systems.
• EU Code of Conduct for Data Centre Efficiency.

As standard, our Service Managers produce a monthly report for each of their hosting customers. At minimum, these reports detail incidents, problems, and changes raised, resolved, and opened during the previous month, together with information relating to SLA compliance, e.g., availability and KPI adherence. Where we are also responsible for other services, e.g. database support, the report contains key performance metrics and proactive advice and guidance for these systems. Please get in touch with us if you would like to see an example of a monthly service report.

Yes, we currently host non-Oracle systems. While we are an Oracle specialist, and where we host non-Oracle systems, it is normally because these are part of an estate that includes Oracle systems. There is nothing Oracle-specific about our hosting services.

We can also provide, via our partners, non-Oracle support services, e.g. support for Microsoft technologies. Where such services are delivered by a partner, we remain commercially and operationally responsible for service delivery, and all activities are managed by our Service Desk.

Yes. Most of our customers have chosen not to host all systems with a single hosting provider. Thus, it is not unusual for network links to be required with other data centre providers and those connecting our data centres to our customers’ networks. AWS Direct Connect may also be used to connect systems hosted with Amazon’s Cloud hosting.

Live systems may be migrated by our customers, and we will provide the access required for the migration project, or we will perform the migration as part of the wider Managed Service transition.

We migrate systems to our hosting using our proven migration methodology. We understand that every customer requires a hosting migration to be successfully completed with minimal downtime.

First, we build a copy of the current live system on our servers. The next steps can vary depending on the system being migrated, but normally we set up ongoing synchronisation so that the “copy” is continuously kept up-to-date. We then work closely with the customer to perform multiple cycles of rigorous testing – identifying and fixing any issues along the way.

Transitions are managed by our assigned Project Manager using our well-established migration methodology and project governance approach. Upon go-live the connection between Claremont’s copy database and the old production system is broken. The copy environment is then quickly configured to become the new production instance.

After minimal downtime, our customers successfully complete a highly detailed, 175-step migration plan. Mark Douglas, PPL’s Chief Technology Officer, said after Claremont migrated his Oracle E-Business Suite system to our hosting, “I had the overriding impression that this has all been a bit of a non-event!”