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Back to work!
We hope you all had a good summer break. Here in the East of England we have seen some reasonable sunshine, if not quite the "BarBQ Summer" incautiously forecast by some.
 Twitter
If there is one thing that has been hard to avoid this summer, it’s "Social Networking". Love it or hate it, or like us, somewhere in between, the concept has certainly been generating a lot of comment.
While not subscribing to the view that the whole world is interested in what we did at coffee break, we are seeing that Twitter can be a source of interesting and even useful information, alerting us to events and possibilities we may not have otherwise been aware of, at least, not with such immediacy.
So, Asckey Data Services Ltd, is inviting you to follow us at www.twitter.com as Asckey. We hope that some of our tweets will be useful to you!
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 Hosting Services
So far, this year has seen a big increase in our Hosting Services. This is largely due to the increasingly stringent requirements for application hosting by the NHS Connecting for Health authority, although our own non NHS client community has also been a contributor, with both DM Software and Words Bureau Systems extending their hosted servers to provide new services. See below for how Words Bureau Systems have been extending their hosted applications
 However it has been the secure hosting for the NHS N3 network that has seen the major increase in interest. Our original select collection of NHS Trusts running our Eclipse-fm® application and the Department of Health’s efm-information data collection application have expanded to cover a number of third party organisations in need of a home for applications serving anything from clinical research to general multi-Trust administrative needs.
In the last 12 months the number of physical servers we are hosting on line has doubled, while the number of "logical" (i.e. virtual) servers has more than trebled, with more to come. This has been much to the delight of Dell Corporation, who are now actively recognising our specialist hosting services in this particular NHS context
Our bandwidth requirements have also increased, and look likely to continue increasing over the next few months. But with a fibre optic cable pretty much all to ourselves, this is not a problem!
All this has resulted in a considerable increase in our range of services. In addition to our specialist VDF Web Application Server and Electos Hosting we can now provide Server/Application Access via
- VPN
- VPN with token access
- MS Sharepoint hosting
- Remote Application hosting as well as remote desktop.
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 Words Bureau Systems
Words Bureau Systems, the event registration bureau and software house, currently use two shared servers hosted at Asckey Data Services and are now looking at using a third.
We chose Asckey following poor service from a well known ISP (!) and our first shared server service started in 2006 running Perl, PHP & MySQL.
Asckey worked hard to help us out of a tight spot and get us up and running. Once the initial teething troubles of getting our existing scripts up and running on the new server had been resolved, any minor faults since have been dealt with in a lot quicker than our previous ISP!
This server provides us with close to the 24/7 service we need for running registration payment sites for major conferences and events worldwide.
The second server we have with them is a virtual Windows 2003 server running a VDF 15 WebApp*.
This very specialised WebApp is designed to keep a master database up-to-date across multiple sites using an internet connection with its semi-reliable nature. The solution is based on web services and our own specialised VDF code, allowing servers ’in the loop’ to ’go local’ and enable synchronisation once the connection is re-established.
We are now looking into a third type of shared server to host some custom built websites for clients based on the Electos CMS system and in due course our own site!
 *For more information on the Visual DataFlex Web Application server, click here.
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 Dynamic AI
In our last Newsletter (May) we previewed the next release of Dynamic AI, our much loved Business Intelligence (BI) reporting system that we use every day as part of our business.
Dynamic AI has always been a BI system that was particularly suited for small business usage, being much easier to get into than others that we know of. The new version of Dynamic AI is even better, with the new Automated Intelligence® feature doing all the hard work that you might need a data analyst for. One click of the mouse can generate "Intelligently" created data analysis reports, even including a dashboard of suitably chosen graphical summaries of the data.
Customising these even further is also very non-technical - drag one report onto another (say, Orders onto Clients), and Dynamic AI will work out how to display the results (grouped, totalled and even graphed by Client) without writing any code or doing any manual specification. And if you don’t like the result, just "Undo", always available as a safety net making even the wildest of experiments harmless! Great for really exploring your data, and remembering that this is in a web page, such drag and drop features are very impressive..
So what do you use Dynamic AI for?
Custom performance reporting
We have built Dynamic AI into our standard task management system, particularly for monitoring responses to support tasks. This has allowed us to automate our quality management statistics, with instant insight into particularly our Service Level Agreement performances.
Previously we laboriously maintained various spreadsheets, and spent considerable time preparing summary details for periodical reviews, so this has been a big benefit. Much more constructively, it takes seconds to look at the data and spot anything that might be going wrong, perhaps a support task that looks like it might be in danger of being overdue. The result - 100% conformance to our SLA promises because we can see incipient problems before they become real ones!
Of course, you need the data to analyse, but this kind of scenario applies in many areas of production, sales and logistics operations. The data is there, but standard "in the box" reporting often provides only fixed, retrospective "month end reports". On line "right now" reports do make a huge difference.
Research
One area we are beginning to see to be of importance is research. Combining the flexibility of Dynamic AI’s report building, ability to relate different data tables and sources on the fly, and powerful "Top10/Bottom10" results display, and the potential for spotting trends or correlations becomes significant. "Show my 10 best customers by value" can be easily evolved into "Show my 10 best customers for each of my sales staff (or region, country, category of business, etc), " sorted by sales person (region, etc).
If you can "play" with data analysis in the way that Dynamic AI allows, you can uncover all sorts of interesting insights that you probably were not aware of, or maybe half suspected but couldn’t prove.
Costs
Most BI tools start at several multiple of £thousands. You need to be pretty convinced before spending that sort of money. Dynamic AI starts at well under £1.000, comparable to less interactive, fixed desktop reporting originating in restrictions of the "paper layout", but with the full flexibility of the Dynamic AI web page based display, and Automated Intelligence®. This means that the Production Manager, Sales Manager, Contracts Manager, etc. can gain the full benefits of BI reporting at very low costs, then upgrade to a full server, multi-user system once the value of BI is established.
And, if that is still too expensive, download the Personal Edition and try it out. Just remember to come to us for a proper licence when you start really putting it to work.
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Remote Application Hosting
Over the last few years we have serviced a growing number of clients who have chosen to have applications hosted by us rather than operate them as either individual PC installations, or via Terminal Services from their own IT resources. In the former case this means that we, as the service provider, take care of all of the application maintenance for you, the big benefit for businesses that do not have in depth IT support, or where that IT support is over stretched and the out-sourcing of a specific application can provide welcome relief.
In the NHS world, third party application developers are increasingly using our N3 accreditation to provide a home for health care applications that need an accredited hosting site.
Up to now, access to hosted applications has been through the provision of a Remote Desktop requiring users to open a Terminal Service session which becomes a separate entity on their Windows Desktop, with subsequent switching between Local and Remote desktops being a potential cause of confusion.
"Terminal Services Remote Applications", to give it the full name, in contrast is completely seamless to the end users. Users do not need to open a Terminal Service session in order to access remotely hosted applications. Instead, Terminal Services RemoteApp provides the illusion that the applications are installed locally. Both can be represented as no more than an Icon on the local desktop, and a user would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them.
What this means for you is that you won’t have to spend time training users on how to access hosted applications, because users typically won’t even realize that the applications are hosted other than for a (one time only) login request when the terminal device is first started up.
For the narrow single application usage, such as for our Eclipse-fm® application users, just having an Eclipse-fm® application icon rather than a new Desktop with just Eclipse-fm® on it makes access a lot more intuitive. Actually, it makes it as it really should have been all along, but sometimes you have to wait for technology to catch up!
For a large scale conversion of all applications to remote application operation the fact that hosted applications can run alongside locally installed applications means that you can make the transition to application hosting gradually. You don’t have to move all of your applications over to a hosted environment overnight (or at all for that matter).
Improved Printing Services
The Windows Remote Desktop could provide for some problems in matching locally available printers to the printers recognised by the remote desktop. RemoteApps puts an end to this with the new (Windows 2008 server) Terminal Services Easy Print.
This feature enables users to print from a Terminal Services session to the local or network printers that are configured on the client computer without the need to install drivers on the Terminal Server. The Easy Print feature uses the drivers installed locally on the client system resulting in no differences between local and remote sessions. Testing this does indicate that printer mismatches will be a thing of the past.
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Application Deployment - Time for a rethink?
Traditionally, business use PCs have been full specification machines, with applications loaded locally, this in turn dictating that full specification - disk space, memory - to run the applications. Each PC needs individual attention to keep malware out, and when new software versions come along, every PC needs an individual update.
Fine for a two person business, but not so fine when it comes to hundreds of PCs in a big business. For this reason many large organisations have already moved to the centralized Terminal Services or Citrix model of centralized installation and remote access - even if "remote" is only to the next room.
Now, with Terminal Servics RemoteApps all the parts of the jigsaw are in place for the smaller business to look at central installation, remote access.
Hardware
Power and Performance
Servers are now powerful enough to handle the needs of running the software applications for lots of users, and cheap enough to make replacing multiple PCs with a server the more economical choice.
Costs
Dedicated "terminal devices" will be cheaper than even a cheap PC, and because they are not running the applications will not need to be upgraded to keep up with application evolution. They also use a lot less electricity, not something to be dismissed with today’s emphasis on "Carbon Footprint". Fewer or no moving parts means a longer life.
Existing PCs may not even need replacing, and certainly not just because they have run out of disk space, memory or OS upgradability. Just run the applications as RemoteApps!
Application installation will be a one time exercise, saving expensive IT support time spent on updating individual PCs
Working methods
Hot Desking.
Used insensitively, this is an unloved practice. But used to allow flexibility of operation - just login from anywhere on any available PC be it your own desk or the training room - and it becomes a very useful capability.
Reliability
When the PC breaks, nothing is lost. Most of us know that feeling when the dreaded blue screen of death turns up. No problem, just plug in the spare and carry on. Data, and even application state will all be just as when it broke. (You will need to sort out your server backup strategy though!)
Any place, any Time
With the right components in place, users can access hosted applications from their laptops while traveling, from their home computers, or even from a Windows Mobile device. With the emphasis on Applications rather than a Desktop full of Applications, access to only what is relevant to traveling, or to home access becomes much easier to define.
Branch Office management
Terminal Service RemoteApp is ideally suited to organizations that have branch offices, but who do not have a dedicated IT staff in those branches. Using Terminal Services RemoteApp allows administrators to maintain all of the applications from the corporate headquarters, so that the IT staff does not have to make a trip to the branch offices to perform routine application maintenance tasks.
Multiple Software Versions
An overlooked benefit of the Terminal Service RemoteApp allows for the coexistence of otherwise incompatible applications. For example, Microsoft Office is designed so that only one version of Office can be installed at a time. If you have a need to run multiple versions of Office, because hosted applications are not actually installed on workstations, it becomes possible for users to run multiple versions of Microsoft Office, (hosted on different servers) or to run otherwise incompatible applications.
The Future of your Computing
For all but the smallestof businesses we think the days of individual PC s running locally installed software are numbered. The flexibility and lifetime costs (purchase, maintenance, updates, electricity) of the centralized install, remote access model have reached a tipping point.
Even more, for those with reliable Internet connections, the possibility of unloading all IT management to a remote hosting provider will become more and more attractive. Costs, convenience and flexibility are all pointing in that direction.
Unless you are an IT business, do you need to have IT skills. Most of us don’t get oily fingers maintaining our company cars these days, we just drive them - why persist with the unpredictable hassles of running your IT hardware when you could just using it?
We could help you with this - call 0845 2707747
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Reporting Options and Internet Development
A free briefing at our next VDF Sig event
Our VDF SIG meetings are usually focussed on specialist development subjects, but the Agenda for our next one is shaping up to include two subjects of more general interest.
"Reporting" is undergoing change. From roots in the limitations of Line Printers and then mostly as A4 formatted "pretty printing", we now see a divergence between the relatively simple needs of "paper based" reporting, and the new opportunities for more dynamic and interactive data exploration via Web browser presented "Reporting".
This subject will be looking at the options now emerging that allow us to exploit this distinction and extract much more day to day management information from our application data.
Software as a Service - SaaS and Cloud Computing
How we develop and deploy software applications is constantly changing, and there is a sea change under way from the desktop deployment that has been mainstream since PCs first emerged to a more centralised and easier to manage model based on the Internet, and which is just as appropriate, if not even more so, to the provision of "multi-user"" applications within the company Intranet.
Two important factors to reckon with here are Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud computing. Eddy Kleinjan, a highly experienced consultant in this field from Data Access Europe will be discussing "best practices" for SaaS application development, sharing practical experiences that the consultants at Data Access have made common practice. Cloud computing is a related topic. Don’t miss the step by step demonstration of how to setup your own workspace "in the cloud"!
We would welcome any of our clients as guests to this meeting, which is currently planned for the Marriott Hotel in Huntingdon for November 24th 2009. Still to be confirmed is a full day training on Wednesday 25th on one or other of these topics.
If you are interested, please email us - sales@asckey.com, or call on 0845 270 7747 and we will keep you up to date as the event gets closer.
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 For expert business application development, using virtually any database format, specialist web site and web application development and hosting -
Talk to us! 0845 270 7747
Your individuality drives our excellence
Church End Farm
Warboys Road, Pidley,
Cambs PE28 3DA
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