Operating in the Cloud ….

For most business people running an application in the cloud means one or more of:

• Remote Access – you can run the app from any device from anywhere with an internet connection.
• Hosting – The Server and Networking Hardware is someone else’s problem.
• Subscription – One easily manageable monthly fee rather than having to invest in servers and an IT infrastructure – easy budgeting.

But, firstly a little explanation (or you can skip directly to the advantages of our hosting over other cloud offerings)

What is an Application?

Applications are either

• Web apps – written as a web page.
• Native apps – written to run on a specific computer system such as Windows, Android iOS etc

Historically web apps have been a bit clunky with a limited, somewhat slow to use front end, although this is much improved in recent years, with many web apps performing very well. Web apps, by their nature, always function via remote access, require remote hosting and using a subscription payment model, so there is no real choice if all of these criteria don’t fit your business model.

Native apps, in comparison, have the capacity for a richer and a faster user interface, though they usually require you to invest in an IT infrastructure to support the hardware and network requirements of the application.

New technology, though, now allows developers the possibility to produce what might be call “Hybrid Apps”. These are Native apps that are remote access aware, can be hosted and may be charged via a subscription model. These ‘Hybrid Apps’ provide the best of both worlds – all the convenience of a cloud experience but with faster, more interactive software, providing a more enjoyable user experience.

HireTrack NX can be used as a Hybrid App, giving you the convenience of the cloud with the superior user experience of a native app.

What is Remote Access?

Quite simply, the ability to work on a remote computer as if you were actually sitting in front of it (this is how web apps work).
This is not a new idea, and technology such as Windows Terminal Server allows a full graphical experience on almost any device.
Using this Windows technology, a hybrid app such as HireTrack NX, can be accessed remotely, so it doesn’t matter where you are or what device you are using, the look and feel for the user will be the same.
Remote access to HireTrack NX is within your reach and simple to organise so whether you are connecting via a browser in Bangkok, an iPad in Istanbul or a laptop in London, your experience will be no different to having a Native application installed on the machine in front of you.

Hosting

With standard Web Applications, you have no choice over who hosts your software and must accept the hosting provided.
With a Hybrid App such as HireTrack NX, you can choose to host the software yourself on your own server, use a third party such as Amazon or Microsoft, or leave the hosting to us via our ISO7001 partner.
We have teamed up with Virium Technology to provide a safe and secure hosting service anywhere in the world. Virium provide enterprise level service from clusters of their Hyper-V-Servers ensuring one of the best hosted remote access experiences possible, with the added benefit that each business has their own virtual server. This feature, unique to our hosted solution, ringfences your operation with an extra level of safety so that another customer’s catastrophic mistake will have absolutely no effect on your business.

How much will this cost ?

Although our native solution still requires you to purchase your initial HireTrack NX license, thereafter everything is a simple monthly fee which includes all updates, technical support and management of the server.

What are the advantages of Navigator’s hosted solution over a browser based cloud offering ?

There are a number of advantages of our hosted solution over standard cloud based rental management software:

1. The Navigator hosted solution gives you your own dedicated server, so another customer’s mistake or intense database operations will have no affect on your business’s performance.
2. Your database is your database, it’s not some gargantuan set of data shared across all cloud users, this means that if you want something as simple as one report template restoring from three day old data, we can do that for you, or a disgruntled employee deletes all of next month’s jobs, we can restore your database. With a traditional cloud database, everything is backed up together and a restore is only possible after a total catastrophic system failure, when everyone’s data needs to be restored.
3. You can choose when to run updates. With traditional cloud based software the vendor schedules the updates – you have no choice and if the new version is missing a feature you rely on, then tough, it’s no longer supported. With our solution, you tell us if and when you want to upgrade. If you want to stick with a specific version for another six months after an update has been released, that’s your decision. When you’re ready, we’ll run the update for you.
4. If you decide that the Cloud isn’t for you, with our solution you can just install HireTrack NX locally on your network and carry on using it, with most traditional cloud solutions there isn’t a local alternative.

What will the user experience ?

Although HireTrack NX will be running on a server, possibly on the other side of the world, the user’s experience is as if they’re running the software locally- even their local documents and printers are available within HireTrack NX*

Logging in to Navigator’s Cloud solution – once I enter my username and password, the Navigator’s Cloud solution offers me the programs I am authorised to run.

Programs that are available for me to run on Navigator’s Cloud solution.

Navigator’s Cloud solution fits seamlessly into the desktop giving the impression that the program is running on the user’s PC or Mac, rather than on the Cloud.
Here shown running remotely but integrated in to a Windows user experience.

Navigator’s Cloud solution fits seamlessly into the desktop giving the impression that the program is running on the user’s PC or Mac, rather than on the Cloud.
Here shown running remotely but integrated in to a Mac user experience.

* for security reasons not all local drives and printers are available when used via a web browser rather than the wavefire application