INFORMATION on Hosting Sage 200 & CRM

Cloud Hosting of Sage is a new technology. Read our THREE LEVELS of explanation below, each providing an increasing amount of technical information.

FIRST LEVEL - IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE CLOUD

"Cloud" is the use of data centres to hold your data and provide your computing power. Your programs and your data are held in the data centre and you connect to them using the internet. You workstation, laptop or mobile device become just a screen, mouse and keyboard that let you communicate with your computer system "in the cloud"

Cloud exists in two simple types:

• Multi-tenanted, which shares resources and applications between customers and provides very low cost hosted access, but is not terribly secure and not suitable for Sage users.
• Single-tenanted, which provides dedicated private servers to customers not unlike renting a Local Area Network in the internet. Cost savings and flexibility is still to be had by sharing resources like server hardware and disk space. This is suitable for Sage use.

So, we are talking about a "private cloud" which can consist of one or more servers in a cloud hosting centre somewhere in the UK. You and your users access this cloud using a browser or a small piece of standard Windows software as you prefer.

What you see when you connect and log in is a familiar Windows desktop containing your Sage applications and anything else you have ordered, like Office or Outlook.

You get the same desktop from anywhere you log in: anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day and it will work quickly and reliably.

You do not need to use the same desktop or laptop and can even use handheld computers.

Usage of the system is not charged by time, so the set monthly hosting fee is the only cost you will see. Microsoft Software licensing is also covered by the fees, including entitlement to latest versions as they become available. Month after month: Year after year.

Simples!

SECOND LEVEL - A TECHNICAL EXPLANATION

Paradise offers two forms of private cloud for hosting Sage and Microsoft systems:

1. Paradise Server Farm

The first is in our own hosting centre at Althorp in Northants, and this centre is certified to ISO27001:2005. Our intention has been to provide highly competitive secure hosting for small to medium Sage users and we have achieved this using highly virtualised Dell servers (R900's) and EMC fibre SAN for storage. VMware provides a stable basis to run significant numbers Windows 2008 servers which we monitor through PTRG live display. Connection is by Microsoft Remote Desktop or Sonicwall SSL/VPN client. Our site is a single site and the Service Desk is open from 8:00am to 5:30pm each working day.

2. Rise Data Centre

Our second offering is in partnership with Rise (www.rise.co) the Microsoft Hosting Partner of the Year 2011. Here, we use their much larger infrastructure to provide a higher level of hosting service to medium to large customers. The principal is the same, in that we provide one or more dedicated virtual Windows 2008 servers to you, but these exist in a 24/7 centre and have full redundant backup. Load balancing and the ability to add processors, RAM or disk space on demand optimise resources.

Technical Profile

Your cloud domain is established on a group of one or more virtual Windows 2008 SP2 servers. The domain is private to you are as the virtual servers. Otherwise the Paradise Service Desk will monitor the servers on the domain and will patch and maintain them on a daily basis using PRTG to monitor health and detect issues before they become a problem.. This includes overall loading and critical issues including processor utilisation, RAM utilisation, disk space and bandwidth as well as server and service availability.

Internet connection is through shared enterprise firewalls and routers on large capacity shared internet backbone lines (typically throttled 100Mb pipes). IP addresses and VLAN configuration can be provided or modified on demand by the Paradise Service Desk. Virus and Spam defense is also provided at the firewalls.

All Microsoft licensing is handled on an SPLA basis, allowing user licences for Windows, SQL, Exchange, Office and so on to be added or removed on demand and optimising licence costs. This also entitles you to the latest version of any Microsoft software when you want it without additional licence costs, equivalent to Microsoft Software Assurance. Note that upgrade labour costs may not be included. Any non-Sage and non-Microsoft products can also be hosted by arrangement.

You can add, update or remove domain users through the Paradise Service Desk on demand, and authorised users can connect to the domain from anywhere on the internet at any time.

Backup is overnight each night to offsite storage.

THIRD LEVEL - FAQ