On Demand

Common questions as you consider moving to an on-demand ERP model

Q: What is the process for moving objects/code through different environment landscapes (Development, Test, Production)?

A: At a high level, the process is not unlike any other standard QAD implementation. The change management activities are started from the point of object/code origination in the development environment, then approved for transfer to the next environment for user acceptance testing and then, after approval, are finally promoted to the Production environment for live end user access.

Through a Change Management exercise with the project core team, these approval points and process flows are created based on the business needs and requirements for each project. At this point, control of the movement of code from one environment to another is agreed to and the process is put into effect.

In an on-demand environment, QAD will fill the role of Change Management Administrator (CMA) and will handle requests for code movement. If a customer chooses to continue with the CMA role and follows the process already identified, that may help to maintain consistency within their organization.

Q: How are external systems integrated with the hosted application? For example, how would we interface Gentran to hosted QAD? How would we utilize Active Directory for user authentication?

A: The network itself could be transparent to the corporate data center, so that it will look like the QAD systems are installed on the physical LAN however; they will be hosted in our secure partner-operated facility. We work with each customer to integrate this network and ensure there are no issues with contention of areas such as server names and IP addresses.

In the case of Gentran, this system could be hosted as well through our on-demand hosting offering and that would ensure that the two servers would be physically next to one another. Regardless of their location, there is no difference in the method in which these servers would communicate to one another.

The security model would be no different than it would be if all servers were on the customer's internal network and are always limited to what each application can handle when it comes to LDAP (Lightweight Data Access Protocol) authentication.

Q: What is the best method to connect to a remote data center?

A: The options here are many and will vary with each customer situation, but considerations include:

• Are all my ERP users already connected to the existing network?
  


• Do I have a need to have outside users (sales reps) connect direct to the remote data center or do I want them to VPN into our existing network first?
  


• How many users do I have that are connected concurrently to our ERP systems? This will determine the amount of bandwidth that will be required.
  


• The connection options can range from dedicated MPLS T1 access directly to our secure hosting facility to VPN access over the Internet through shared managed bandwidth. QAD works with each customer through these considerations and provides guidance to identify the best solution.

Q: Do my users contact our existing help desk first or do we go directly to QAD?

A: What we have learned is that if a company has an existing and functioning help desk that the users are already familiar with, it makes sense to have that help desk take first level calls. This allows the customers help desk to quickly triage the issue and determine if the call is relating to the QAD systems or another application that may still be supported in-house. This helps alleviate the frustration that an end user may experience when they go direct to QAD on a non-QAD issues. They may be asked to go back to their IT department to solve the problem.

Learn more about the QAD On Demand Offering.