Valacia and every custom SaaS application we engineer run on Google Cloud infrastructure that scales from the first user to a million. We manage and monitor Valacia in house, and your application too when it is on our Managed Service.
Enterprise IT
Our Cloud Engineering Director spent several years in enterprise IT and architected our entire IT infrastructure around the sign-in, device and access controls large organisations use.
Anyone on our side working in your company's Google Cloud project uses those same controls.
Our own IT is cloud-first. Each job gets the cloud product suited to it, from more than one major provider and a few specialist suppliers.
On a custom SaaS application, we work inside your company's Google Cloud project through Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions that you grant. Your administrators can see each one, change it or remove it at any time.
Each laptop and phone we work on is enrolled in our device management and configured before its first use. One identity system controls our people's sign-ins, and each one needs a second check.
We set up budget alerts in your project. Google bills your company directly, at Google's own prices, and we add no margin. You keep an eye on the bill and your usage.
We monitor, back up and patch every Valacia website, and every custom SaaS application on our Managed Service.
What Runs Here
Valacia and every custom SaaS application share the same Google Cloud foundations. What differs is who owns the project underneath, and who Google bills.
A business on Valacia gets its website, customer records, bookings and payments on one integrated platform, engineered and managed by us on Google Cloud.
Its pages reach visitors wherever they are through a fast global content delivery network (CDN).
Valacia is coming soon. Hosting, monitoring, backups and patching come with every plan, and with the free trial.
A custom SaaS (software as a service) application is online software made for one business.
Each one is built on Google Firebase, in a Google Cloud project your company owns from day one.
We build it there because its server-side functions, the code running on Google's servers, sit inside that project. Starting anywhere else would only mean moving them later.
Each Valacia plan includes a set number of page views a month. Past that number, a website stays online, with lower-resolution photographs until the month ends.
The website you are reading runs on the same Google Cloud infrastructure as Valacia. We built it from scratch.
Built On Google Cloud
Every application we build uses the Google Cloud services our own software runs on. We already know how to secure, monitor and scale them, so your budget goes on the parts that make your application yours.
Security
Valacia websites share one platform, which we secure as a whole. An application of your own gets a dedicated Google Cloud project.
Custom SaaS
Each application we build runs on Google Firebase in a Google Cloud project of its own. Your company owns that project, and no other business shares it.
Valacia
A hotel's guest list and a café's bookings can sit on the same platform, and neither business can see the other's.
Custom SaaS
Where your application uses your own domain, we connect it, set up and renew its certificate and add the DNS records it needs. We keep the records we manage correct and take care not to disturb your email.
Valacia
Data travelling to and from a Valacia website is encrypted on the way. We give our own administrators only the access each job needs.
Custom SaaS
Where your application handles personal data, we process it only on your company's documented instructions, in the Google Cloud regions agreed in your Quotation.
Valacia
On Valacia, a card payment goes straight to the business's own payment account, and card details never reach us.
Why The Cloud
When demand rises, Google Cloud runs extra copies of the server-side software in parallel.
Engineers call this horizontal scaling because the load spreads sideways across identical copies. We set intelligent ceilings on the number of copies to keep costs efficient, raising them seamlessly as demand grows.
A fast global CDN delivers this website, our flagship SaaS product Valacia, and every custom application we build for our clients. Pages load instantly, whether a visitor is right next door or halfway across the world.
Being cloud-native means designing for the modern web from the very first line of code. At Linko Vectis, we build everything to this standard. We choose enterprise-grade infrastructure, complete with global CDNs and automated horizontal scaling, even when it costs us more, because our customers' experience is paramount.
Who Does What
Google provides the platform. We manage the software we put on it, and our terms say exactly where our work stops and your ownership begins.
Google runs the data centres, the machines and the platform on top of them.
Keeping all of that available is Google's job, under the service level agreements Google publishes for many of its services.
For Valacia, Google makes those agreements with us. For an application in your own project, Google makes them with you.
We manage the whole Valacia platform, on every plan. On the Managed Service, we also operate your application, inside your own project and under the access you grant.
You manage what your Valacia website says and shows. The technical side underneath is ours.
With an application, your company owns the project, pays Google's bill directly and watches its own usage. We add nothing to Google's bill. Our fees are the only money that comes to us.
Your domain stays registered to you. The code and configuration of an application are yours once it is paid for, and the project was always in your company's name. Our access is yours to narrow or remove whenever you choose.
Questions
Google Cloud. Valacia, this website and every application we build run there, each application in a Google Cloud project that belongs to the business it was built for.
It scales with demand, and Google keeps the machines beneath it patched. We know one platform in depth. That is how we can fix an application's price before we build it, and trace a fault to its cause once it is live.
Google Firebase, part of Google Cloud. Each application we build runs on Firebase, in a Firebase project inside a Google Cloud project your company owns. The server-side parts of the application and its database live there too, when it needs them.
For a custom SaaS application, in the Google Cloud regions agreed with you and written into your Quotation.
A Valacia website is hosted on Google Cloud, and its enquiry emails are delivered by our email provider. Where that data is handled outside the United Kingdom, we use the safeguards UK law requires for transfers abroad, as clause 10.5 of the Valacia Terms sets out.
We keep managed backups on Google Cloud for every Valacia website and for every application on the Managed Service. The code for every application we build is kept in version control, with every change recorded, so it can be rebuilt and put back online.
A backup does not stop things going wrong. It means recovery starts from a recent copy.
Google restores its own platform, and an outage there reaches many companies at once. While it lasts, we follow Google's updates, act on anything within our control and keep you informed.
If the outage exposes a fault in our own software, on Valacia or on an application we operate, we deal with it quickly ourselves.
No. We watch what we operate and act quickly when something goes wrong, but availability also depends on Google Cloud and on third parties we do not control.
We publish no uptime percentage of our own, because we will not quote a figure we cannot show you the measurement for.
No. We manage only what we make: all of Valacia, and the applications we built that are on our Managed Service. We know how each one is engineered, down to the last setting.
If you want us to manage your software, we design and build it first.
On the Valacia platform, which runs on Google Cloud and is shared by every business on Valacia. Hosting comes with every plan. If your business needs a Google Cloud project of its own, a custom SaaS application gives you one.
Yes. The Valacia platform isolates each business's website, content and data from every other business, and every sign-in and access check runs on Google Cloud's security services. Valacia is designed so that one business cannot reach another's.
You do, directly, on your own Google billing account. We never resell Google Cloud or mark it up. We set up budget alerts in your project. They tell you when spending passes a level you choose.
The bill is yours, and so is watching usage, which sits outside our control. A traffic spike, or many users suddenly reading lots of data, raises the bill.
On request, we may be able to make the application cheaper to run, at some cost to its speed. It is already built to run efficiently, so there is little left to save, and we promise no saving.
Yes, between Google Cloud projects. It was designed specifically for Google's platform, so moving it to a traditional web server would be a separate re-engineering job, which we would assess and quote on its own.
Get In Touch
Tell us whether you need a website you manage yourself or a custom SaaS application of your own, and we will write back.