Virtualisation is the creation and operation of multiple virtual resources such as servers and applications on the same physical server. Virtualization uses a hypervisor to control, allocate resources and manage the different virtual machines (VM).

A VM is essentially a software container which is completely isolated and which encapsulates a complete operating system and applications like a computer. A VM behaves exactly like a physical computer and contains its own virtual CPU, RAM hard disk and network interface card (NIC). We provide a hosting offer of this type at our Frejus and Lognes datacentres.

vRAM or virtual memory is the sum total of VM memory allocated. The vRAM stores this repetitive data in order to supply very-high speeds when necessary.

vCPU: is the sum of VCPUs allocated to VMs in order to treat the data and execute applications sent by the vRAM.

vDisk is the total sum of disk space provisioned to VMs on which the host or an application can carry out reading and writing operations.

The PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard) requirement is a set of security controls for all entities that store, process, and/or transmit banking data. Sonema’s datacentres complies to PCI-DSS requirements ensuring best-practice security standards for hosting financial data.

Datacentre tiers were devised by the Uptime Institute to evaluate datacentre infrastructures. This classification ensures the level of availability of a datacentre: From
99.671% for a Tier I datacentre to 99.995% for a Tier IV datacentre. The Sonema Level III datacentre comprises a server network, storage spaces, network connections and other redundant and dual-power IT components ensuring a level of availability of 99.982% or 1.6 hours of service interruption per year (on average).

Criteria	Tier-III
Rate of Availability	99.98 %
On-line Maintenance	Yes
Power Distribution	N + 1
Dual Power	Yes
Cooling Circuit	N + 1
Dual Secured End-to-End Fibre	Yes

Cloud computing is generally used to describe the provision of resources and services available to users over the Internet. It refers to storing and accessing data via the Internet instead of via the hard drive of a computer.

Cloud Computer Operators offer the following services:

• SaaS (Software as a Service): provision of business applications: CRM, collaborative tools, email, Business Intelligence, ERP etc. The operator operates and oversees all technical aspects of the software for the customer’s account.
• PaaS (Platform as a Service): provides a middleware platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications. The operator monitors and controls the technical infrastructure (network, servers, OS, storage etc while the customer has control over application deployment and configuration.
• IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): provision of IT resources: CPU power, memory, storage etc. The IaaS model allows the customer to use virtual and remote resources whilst keeping control of the OS, storage and applications in addition to some network elements (for example the firewall).

Sonema offers all of these services within the scope of its hosting offer.

The USA Patriot Act is an anti-terrorism bill which was passed by the US Congress and
signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001. It authorises law enforcement authorities to access IT data held by individuals and American businesses, without a court order and without informing the users.

The Cloud Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) is a United States federal law which allows allow federal law enforcement to access data stored on foreign soil by American businesses for the purposes of criminal investigation.

	Patriot Act	Cloud Act
Date	October 26th, 2001	March 23rd, 2018
Beneficiaries	American governmental agencies (FBI, CIA, NSA, Army)	American authorities with a warrant
Field	Terrorism	Criminal investigations
Context	Terrorism investigations	Criminal investigations
Target	American businesses and their foreign subsidiaries
Nationality of subject	American citizen or foreigner
Location of data	USA or abroad

Sonema’s customer data is exclusively hosted in the Frejus or Lognes datacentre which are owned by Sonema and are located in France. This enables us to ensure data confidentiality without being subject to the Cloud Act.

Webmail is a web-based email application. Using a web-based interface, webmail allows users to access their emails exactly as they would via a traditional email client (known as a thick client) without having to install email software on their computer.

POP is a protocol which extracts and retrieves email from a remote mail server. POP is typically configured to connect to the mail server, provide authentication and retrieve email before deconnecting. It can also delete mail from the server.

IMAP is an Internet standard protocol which allows customers to retrieve email messages directly from a mail server. Email access can be carried out via different email clients or via webmail.

SMTP is the standard communication protocol used to transfer mail from one server to another via a point-to-point connection. When an email is sent, the SMTP server acts as the sender. It retrieves the email sent from mail software such as Outlook or Gmail and transfers it to the recipient using a series of SMTP relay servers.

An email client is an application which enables customers to receive, read and send emails. A thick client is installed on the user’s computer whereas a thin client is an application installed on a Web server which the user connects to via a web-based interface.

DAG (Database Availability Group) is a high availability and data recovery architecture for Exchange servers. It consists of deploying a group of email servers which mutually and synchronously replicate their data bases. Should one of the servers fail, one or all of the operational servers will take over.

By choosing the default configuration proposed by Sonema, upwards of 180 mailboxes the customer can take advantage of the following benefits:

• Flexibility and control: With a dedicated VM, the customer fully controls his environment
• Security: As the only user of the server, the risk of being hacked or pirated is much lower than when using a shared VM
• Stability: If the customer is the only user of the server, he will enjoy an optimum performance.

The 3-2-1 backup rule is good practice to ensure seamless back-up and restoration.
The rule is: keep at least 3 copies of your data, and store 2 backup copies on different storage media, with 1 of them located offsite.

Outsourcing your back-ups protects against all causes of data loss and the costs associated with data loss (human error, viral attack, faulty disk, water damage, theft, fire etc) and allows the customer to comply with the 3-2-1 backup rule.

Business Continuity plan or a Disaster Recovery plan is a set of processes and resources which ensure critical business functions in the event of an emergency from natural, health, energy or country risks. Sonema provides support during the creation and implementation stages of these plans.

• Business Continuity Plan (BCP):
  Sonema and the customer will define together which architectures, means and procedures are necessary in order to ensure high availability of its facilities.
  The goal is to provide the customer’s users with seamless service plus transparent data replication between two sites in real time. This replication will be carried out in the 2 server rooms at our Frejus Datacentre.
• Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP):
  Sonema will help the customer design and implement a Disaster Recovery Plan to ensure the rapid resumption of its IT facilities in the event of an outage. The restart will be carried out at our Frejus and/or Lognes Datacentres. When the DRP is implemented, Sonema and the customer will define together which architectures, means and procedures are necessary to protect the applications and rapidly resume business activity.

RPO (Recovery Point Objective) describes the maximum interval of time which passes during a disruption before the quantity of data lost exceeds the BCP maximum threshold.

RTO (Recovery Time Objective) describes the maximum duration of time from when an incident is detected to the moment when service is restored.

With these 2 parameters, Sonema will be able to define an appropriate backup policy within the framework of the « Save & Restore » and « BCP/DRP » offers which will impact unavailability cost/duration.

The Pay As You Grow (PAYG) model means that service pricing is invoiced according to the customer’s real-time consumption and not as a flat rate. All Sonema’s hosting solutions use this payment model.