Outsourcery renews its CIF Code of Practice Certification

APM Group, the Cloud Industry Forum’s (CIF) independent certification partner, has announced that Cloud Services Provider (CSP) Outsourcery, has successfully recertified against the CIF Code of Practice (CoP) for Cloud Service Providers certification.

The CIF CoP is a credible, certifiable tool that allows CSPs to demonstrate that they meet standardised, specified requirements that ensure transparency, accountability, capability and high quality for assurance, for cloud-related projects.

Founded in 2007, Outsourcery is one of the UK’s leading providers of cloud-based IT and business communications solutions, delivering cloud services to partners and customers of all sizes. Operating throughout the UK, Outsourcery works across three offices and is a founder member of CIF. Part of the government’s G-Cloud framework, Outsourcery offers its cloud solutions through the government’s Digital Marketplace and has also gained official CESG Pan Government Accreditation (PGA) to meet data sovereignty and security specifications for the public sector.

“As one of CIF’s founding members, the CIF Code of Practice is something that we are fully committed to and have been since our very first accreditation”, says Piers Linney, Co-CEO of Outsourcery and member of the CIF Code of Governance Board. “It acts as a valuable benchmark and is important to clients as it provides them with confidence that the cloud services they are investing in are of a high quality; the relationship between suppliers and clients is of a suitably high and professional standard; and that – ultimately – the cloud delivers value and benefits to their organisation. In addition to this, Outsourcery now has platforms that are CESG PGA certified to process government classified OFFICIAL information over both the Internet and Public Sector Network (PSN).”

APM Group has been working with CIF to encourage larger cloud vendors, who provide the vital infrastructure to smaller CSPs, to go through the CIF certification process. The aim is to not only provide an added level of credibility at the very start of the cloud supply chain, but also to ensure larger providers can enable their certified status to be used by other network partners who use the infrastructure to deploy services to customers.

Richard Pharro, CEO of APM Group, adds: “Organisations seeking to use cloud services need a straightforward way to qualify potential suppliers that will accurately define the services offered and the standards of operations and security. Outsourcery has demonstrated commitment to the Code of Practice since its first accreditation in 2013 and we look forward to continuing to work closely with them to encourage their partner network to certify and drive best practice in cloud delivery.”