EASY SOFTWARE AG

Outsourcing, "OnDemand" and "Software out of the socket" services are more than just a fashionable fad. An increasing number of enterprises prefer outsourcing their company software and leaving system maintenance and operation to external specialists in the computer center. This saves their own resources and increases system security and availability.

In the Hosting/Outsourcing business unit EASY ENTERPRISE SERVICES (EES) has a broad range of offers for partners and end users.

Infrastructure ("Infrastructure-as-a-Service", IaaS)

When outsourcing IT subprocesses from their own company, midsize organizations in particular are frequently faced with the question of sufficient net connections to guarantee ideal operation of the (partially) outsourced IT infrastructure.

With its excellent connections to carriers and infrastructure providers, EES can perfectly accompany your outsourcing projects, also completely detached from the Archive/DMS market.

The same is true of providing computer center capacities. Whether providing rack space for your own hardware or running virtualized server systems, EES also provides tailored offers here. Regardless of ECM platforms, of course. Depending on your requirement, we will provide high-availability systems or low-cost midsize business solutions "out of the socket". Only in highly secure and certified computer centers, of course.

Pre-installed, supported EASY systems

Based on the infrastructure core services described above, EES offers completely supported operation of pre-assembled EASY product building blocks for the end user in the secure computer center as platform services ("Platform-as-a-Service", PaaS). Here, for instance, an automatic guarantee is given that current operating system versions and patches as well as the latest versions of EASY products are installed. This will give you maximum security to run your software system, including, of course, state-of-the-art virus protection. Moreover, in doing so EES will look after the status of your EASY system every day: Log files are monitored, backups are carried out, and space will never be too short. The contractually guaranteed availabilities are customized to meet the end user's individual needs.

This offer is based on the classic EASY license model; so standard products are charged via server and client licenses. Existing licenses and maintenance contracts are provided.

Such services are offered, for example, for EASY ENTERPRISE.x, for EASY ENTERPRISE.i and for EASY DOCUMENTS as pre-assembled standard building blocks.

The system environment is dedicated to end users, which means that each customer will receive their own "private" environment which, completely isolated, can also be completely customized according to their own requirements ("customizing").

So, customer-specific adjustments are performed as usual by the EASY partner or the EASY Consulting team; only the systems are now located in the computer center.

Managed services, supporting in-house systems

Here EES manages (monitoring and basic administration) the individual EASY customer systems, which in most cases already exist for end users. The servers can either be located on-site in the customer's computer center, or in any other computer center. On the EES side, these systems are supported via remote maintenance.

Here EES also looks after your EASY system status every day: Log files and storage space are monitored, and backups are carried out. Countermeasures are immediately taken in case of disruptions. The contractually guaranteed availabilities are customized to the end user's individual needs to enable providing a cost-efficient offer.

Often there is the need for a company to provide select parts of company data saved in EASY systems to third parties for read-only access.

Formerly resolved using "independent archives" on a DVD, implementing the corresponding external data deployment via Internet technology is obvious in the age of "CloudComputing".

Of course, the special focus here should be on security for your data. EASY ENTERPRISE SERVICES (EES) provides the corresponding service for EASY partners and end users. This service is rendered on the traditional, KPMG-certified EASY ENTERPRISE.x platform; hosting your data is performed in exclusively certified computer centers within Germany, including guaranteed service availabilities.

The records to be deployed are specifically extracted via selection and exported from the source system. EES imports these records from your system, providing it via a central and secure EASY ENTERPRISE.x system via Web client through secure HTTPS protocol. To protect the records against unauthorized read access, EES will provide dedicated logon/password combinations which you can pass on to people you want to be able to access the data externally.

Of course, only one read access is possible here. Added value functions allow accessing people to conveniently search in the deployed data; the records found can be downloaded or printed by the end user. Any number of search accesses to the data are possible within deployment time.

Your data is deployed via a minimum period of three months, after which the service can be canceled on a monthly basis. Longer deployment times imply the corresponding discounts on the monthly deployment fees.

This charge is on a monthly basis, dependent on the volume of the data deployed for you. Setting up this service requires one-off setup expenditure at a fixed price. Please contact us for an actual offer!

CloudComputing, OnDemand models, and "software out of the socket" are more than just a fashionable fad. An increasing number of enterprises prefer paging software functionalities to call their exact scope as needed. This works on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Software as a Service

The great advantage of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is that it allows enterprises without their own infrastructure to use the offered services. Moreover, on-site maintenance staff is not required, nor are software licenses. To end users SaaS offers maximum transparency and cost control because services are billed at calculable fixed costs on a monthly basis.

Special partners serving end user markets

Now partners and end users can benefit from the extensive experience of EASY ENTERPRISE SERVICES GmbH (EES) in building and running Software-as-a-Service models in the ECM environment. SaaS solutions for end users are only offered via specialized partner channels.

These SaaS offers are based on simple use-oriented pay-as-you-go charges model, i.e. used volumes such as memory, imported documents or records, or OCR runs are usually charged. You'll only pay for what you need, nothing more. However, this also implies that existing licenses and maintenance contracts can no longer be valid, because this service is billed alternatively.

The hallmark of "genuine" SaaS environments

SaaS platform system environments are always shared, i.e. multiple customers ("clients") are sharing a server to edit their data. In doing so, of course, "private" data management with strict data isolation is set up for each customer, and all data protection standards are adhered to.

The work environment, however, is the same for all customers/clients; only limited individualization for individual customers/clients is possible. Better use of existing system resources enables significantly leaner pricing models than with dedicated systems, which are allocated to individual customers. As opposed to dedicated systems, monthly operating costs are therefore heavily reduced for the end user.

Partner model versions

• ECM functions for SaaS platforms

Here EES provides ECM and archive added value functions for providers of existing Cloud platforms.

• Datastorage-as-a-Service (DaaS) as certified Cloud data storage

Here EEX provides secure storage for compliant long-term data storage in the Cloud. "EES bridges the gap between Cloud flexibility and cost advantages on the one hand, and legally secure data retention of sensitive data (tax-related, people-related, medical, etc. data) on the other."

Benefits for end users

Low monthly fixed costs, no separate administrator required, high availability of the solution, high security through automatic backup copies and certified computer centers (including fire protection, etc.), access available from any Web client.

Benefits for the SaaS partner

In this model, the SaaS partner benefits from a special licensing and pricing model, because EES enables common operation of an EASY server for multiple customers or clients side by side.

Manufacturers of software for mechanics, freelancers and small or medium business sizes (SMB) must always be capable of solving the problem of legally compliant long-term archiving of digital documents and data.

Under the name of "Embedded Archive Storage" (EAS), EASY ENTERPRISE SERVICE (EES) provides revision-proof and compliant archiving of any digital data as a functional component for precisely such manufacturers (ISVs) of business software with a separate standard product. Of course, this includes a KPMG certificate.

What's new?

EAS is a library building block that ISV integrates with their own software. An independent, separate Archive/DMS server is not required. This allows dramatic reduction of end user expenditure with regard to setup and operation of the digital archive. The archive is simply deployed as a new feature with a software update by ISV in their distribution channel.

In this way, software manufacturers sell the Embedded Archive (Embedded Archive Storage - "EAS") within their own standard product range in their own name and on their account. The Embedded Archive can only be sold to customers in combination with the embedding solution. This allows adding the valuable archiving technology to be added to the ISV's existing product suite to give them a clear competitive advantage.

Prospects

To the end user, of course, data storage in an embedded archive is not a deadlock. With increasing requirements on the side of the end user with regard to other DMS and workflow functionalities, EAS can simply be extended to full EASY ENTERPRISE versions without expensive data migrations.

In this model, software manufacturers will benefit as EASY Embedding Partners from the specific licensing and pricing model specifically customized to the Embedding Partner's target market or the pricing model of the embedding business application.

Distributed infrastructure (EIB)

In larger ECM projects, integration of multiple software components from different manufacturers and networking remote locations is always a great challenge. Customers expect turnkey, highly integrated process solutions on such heterogeneous platforms. Special focus should be on transaction-proof data transfer and continuous central monitoring in such processes.

In ECM projects situations where different process components must interact from decentralized locations frequently occur. Simple examples are decentralized scan scenarios, while more complex examples emerge, for example, in invoice processing and mailroom process chains where the individual technical process steps need to be performed neither in a single location nor by software packages from a single manufacturer.

Useful networking of such process components can be ideally performed through a BUS system, with all modules connected to it. EASY ENTERPRISE SERVICES (EES) offers such a BUS system for the ECM market as an integration platform.

Why a new BUS system?

"Enterprise Information Bus" (EIB) is extending the ESB idea with configurable data models, so not only status & messages, but also metadata and content (important to ECM) can be processed by using other standard components. Thus, different archives can be merged or decentralized data be loaded into processes via different servers. The Bus concept ensures that transaction security, scalability and client enabling are added in a simple manner. Additionally, Cloud concepts such as private-Cloud or hybrid-Cloud can be augmented, where the security of transmitting and saving the data is guaranteed. Central monitoring provides an overview of all components, their current operational state, but it also provides detailed maintenance information.

Based on modern, service-oriented software architecture (SOA), the key strengths of centralized control through EIB are the following:

• Uniform and extensive data structure,
• Continuous backbone for all components and building services,
• Uniform policy for cross-system description of data models of all clients and their applications,
• Uniform design, interface and communication behavior of all components,
• Uniform maintenance interface, central control of scaling and load behavior of various components.

Integration with the EASY suite

A bus needs bus stops, without which no-one can board or leave it. In our scenarios these bus stops are replicated through the connectors to software modules from the familiar EASY suite. For simple, decentralized scan scenarios, connectors to EASY CAPTURE (data source) and to EASY ENTERPRISE.x (data storage) are available. To replicate more complex Invoice scenarios, connectors for extraction engine (EASY EXTRACT) integration, posting connectors to ERP systems and passing connectors for release workflows are added.

Core functions such as continuous transaction security and central monitoring have already been "integrated" through the platform technology.