Achieving 100% Uptime with ASPIRE, a Next-Generation Managed Service

The Security Industry Authority is responsible for regulating the private security industry in the United Kingdom. It licenses individuals undertaking designated activities within the private security industry, and manages the voluntary Approved Contractor Scheme, which measures private security suppliers against independently assessed standards.

Following Version 1’s successful takeover of support of the SIA’s online licensing system STeP to an ASPIRE Managed Service (with no disruption to day-to-day operations), Version 1 and the SIA embarked on a transformational journey of continuous improvements, optimisation, and automation together on its live digital service.

Achieving 100% Uptime in 2021

No Disruptions or Downtime

A highlight of Version 1’s engagement with the SIA to date came when the year 2021 wrapped up without any disruptions or downtime of the service – 0% downtime.

Version 1 proudly celebrates the 100% uptime for the SIA’s live service and attributes the achievement to the strong relationships between both organisations and a shared relentless focus on continuously improving the service offered to SIA’s end users.

Keeping the Lights on

In a nutshell, Version 1 sought to move the dial from simply keeping the lights on for the SIA to more value-led initiatives/agreements (VLA’s).  At the heart of this was a commitment to continuous service improvement to the SIAs live digital and platform service.  By reaching beyond the SLA, Version 1 had the ability to make a real impact through the live ASPIRE managed service and the combined efforts of all resulted in reaching this milestone and level of stability and availability.

Illuminating a Way Forward

ASPIRE to More

The beginning of this transformational journey saw Version 1 relentlessly work through a backlog of improvements that were identified during the initial migration engagement. Demonstrating the ‘art of the possible’ to the SIA and building positive relationships with SIA stakeholders, Version 1’s scope and impact expanded across the organisation’s Cloud and Application estate.

The next-gen Managed Service evolved and optimised to not only bring a level of maturity to the live service, but to also carry out architectural transformation that would address challenges and leverage opportunities across the SIA’s entire Cloud and Application portfolio.

Delivering Continuous Improvement

With Version 1 proving to the SIA that a dependable, consistent, and excellent ASPIRE Managed Service was now live, the focus was able to shift from purely running and operating to designing, architecting, and automating.

Bringing the live service into the future with Cloud-based and self-healing solutions, dynamic monitoring, security by design, and continuous compliance, Version 1 is now working with the SIA on delivering continuous improvement and functionality changes through best-in-class release management processes.

Looking Forward to a Bright Future

Ben Harrison, Senior Manager – Operational Service Improvement, Security Industry Authority commented on strong alignment of values between Version 1 and SIA and how that has positively impacted the organisation:

“For me, our ability to continuously leverage optimisations and new functionality through robust release management is a source of pride. We’ve never had a supplier manage this so well for us. Obviously, Version 1 completes its contractual four quarterly releases for our live service, but together we’ve now got it down to such a fine art that we’ve been able to do two releases outside of the quarterly schedules too and they’ve been top class. We can set a clock by them and pretty much guarantee a release on a specific date with no defects. Such is the quality of the planning, development and testing regimes implemented as part of our relationship with Version 1.”

“We never felt this confident and ready to maximise our adoption of new features before Version 1 and if I were to contribute it to one specific reason, I would say it’s because Version 1 and the SIA are so well-aligned in terms of values and standards. These shared values combined with Version 1’s VLA-focused ASPIRE Managed Service approach have really removed any previous worries or headaches we would have had around the release cycle and now we look forward to seeing our new features and functionality go live.”