• Alleviates shortage of IT employees. With the ASP business model, you don't need to worry about hiring and keeping scarce -- and expensive -- technical people. An ASP will provide all the necessary technical support and maintenance.
  
  
• Low up-front investment.
  
  
• Under the ASP model you don't have to make large up-front payments for software licenses and hardware. Instead, you'll pay a monthly subscription fee and spread your IT costs over time.
  
  
• Access to high-end applications that you might not otherwise afford.
  
  
• Guaranteed performance and uptime.
  
  
• More flexibility.
  
  
• Reduced initial capital costs.
  
  
• Faster implementation.
  
  
• Security.

Can any application be delivered through the ASP model?
No. While it is the case with most Internet applications like portals and online billing that are natively ASP enabled, many of the traditional client/server applications are not ASP enabled.

Currently, many vendors are trying to ASP enable their applications so that they can be delivered through the ASP model. Enabling them in this way is sometimes a difficult task.

Another important issue related to ASP enabling of applications is guaranteed availability. The remote delivery of applications imposes completely different requirements for availability, fault-tolerance, performance under unusually high loads and other issues. The application and its infrastructure should always be available around the clock, seven days a week. You should insist on an SLA.

What is an SLA?
SLA stands for service-level agreement. It's a contractual obligation between an ASP and its clients, spelling out the details of service -- such as allowable downtime, connection speed, application access and security issues. It also contains penalties when these levels of service are not met. An SLA can also include performance monitoring and reporting options.

99.9% - What does it mean for me
For total system uptime:

Availability	Downtime	Typical application
90.0% (one nine or less)	>1 month	Desktop systems
99.0% (two nines)	3.5 days	Intermediate business systems
99.9% (three nines)	8h 45m	Most business data systems and workgroup servers
99.99% (four nines)	50 min	High-end business systems and your friendly neighborhood telco
99.999% (five nines)	5 min	Bank Data Centers and Telco Data Centers, some ISPs
99.9999% (six nines)	30 sec
99.99999% (seven nines)	3 sec

How are these statistics achieved?
High availability in the ASP environment is achieved by carefully engineering the solution, taking into account a number of areas. First, there is the application itself. The application must be robust, able to scale, and should be built on industry-standard open platforms that have been tested in large enterprise applications. This is especially true of the database portion of the application.

Second, the server architectures should also be properly engineered for scalability, reliability, and fault tolerance in order to protect against a hardware failure taking out access to the system. Third, the transport network should be as redundant as possible. Although the nature of the Internet is such that not all things are under our total control, steps can be taken to ensure survivability, such as having redundant Internet access from separate providers.

Properly selecting and balancing the architectures behind the applications, databases, servers, transport, and other factors can mitigate much of the risk associated with delivery over the Internet. Companies that have taken these steps can then offer these kinds of SLAs.

How does the FieldDispatch.com architecture fit into this?
FieldDispatch.com has been engineered from the ground up for large-scale enterprise applications, so is very robust and uses the best open standards technology and methodology. In a nutshell, FieldDispatch.com is basically built using Java and XML over IBM Websphere's Java Application Server, with Oracle 8i Enterprise as the database. There are a number of other 3rd party applications, such as Xerox's DocuShare that we have embedded into the product, but each application has been specifically selected for its support to our corporate architectural standards, which remain very high.

Application Architecture
FieldDispatch.com has a portable design, allowing it to operate on various computing platforms. It currently is supported on Microsoft NT/2000 and standard versions of UNIX. The FieldDispatch.com software was designed using object-oriented methodologies and is written in Java.

FieldDispatch.com is deployed on a Java Application Server and has excellent scalability and performance attributes. It makes use of the right combination of Java clients and DHTML clients (created by Java servlets and JSPs) to ensure the best possible performance and user experience.

The FieldDispatch.com product architecture is completely standards-based, and is platform independent. All code is written in Java and deployed on a commercial Java Application Server. Modules deployed on the Web are also written in Java and deployed as servlets or Java Server Pages. Most of the application frameworks are based on XML, as is the integration framework.

All external interfaces conform to the standard APIs, where such standards have been published. The Voice Portal uses VoiceXML, an emerging standard, to communicate with the voice server and generate voice sessions with the end-user.

Server Architecture
The FieldDispatch.com architecture is server-centric. Its n-tier architecture consists of:
- Database servers
- Java application servers

FieldDispatch.com uses IBM ' s WebSphere as its Application Server (WAS). These Application Servers can be deployed as a single virtual server, providing improved performance, fault-tolerance, and fail-over capabilities.

Application Servers are available to clients through a corporate Intranet, or over the Internet. The IBM WebSphere Application Server is used with the IBM HTTP Server and can be deployed in various topologies depending on the client's volume and activity, to allow maximum performance.

The servers reside on fault-tolerant server clusters specifically engineered and configured for high-availability. We use Veritas cluster server to ensure that a hardware failure does not result in a service outage. Likewise, the data is mirrored using Network Appliance RAID-4 Snap Mirror technology.

Portal Architecture
The Service Portal, combining content and product information, serves as the hub of all service-related operations. It provides a central point through which service can be obtained or delivered, supports the formation of service communities, provides access to all systems, and provides advanced capabilities such as publish/subscribe, proactive alerts, and search facilities.

The Service Portal is based on the information repository that unifies all content under one meta-model and indexes documents, data, queries, reports, and web pages. Therefore, users can immediately obtain access to both the correct information and the appropriate applications. The Service Portal also serves as the entry point to the enterprise, whether access is provided for employees, customers, or business partners.

The user may customize every feature of the Service Portal, and a sophisticated profile is maintained for each user of the portal. The architecture uses a combination of pull and push elements supporting alerts, notifications, and queries - all within the singular Web front end.

Elements of the User Interface
The FieldDispatch.com user interface is based on a various technologies:

_DHTML pages: most of SH functionality uses dynamic HTML pages
generated by Java Server Pages (JSP).

_JAVA SWING: configuration tools such as the Workflow Editor and the APIS
Service Definition Tool use JAVA Swing components.

_JAM: the "FieldDispatch.com Client for Windows" is a client-server application
written in JAM.

We have made every effort to ensure that all of the FieldDispatch.com interfaces are consistent. Therefore, the Web interfaces include not only forms, but also dynamic tables, trees, and so on. The code is based on HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, and Java applets (where necessary). The web pages are very lightweight (all applets are smaller that 20K), and function both in Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Where the browsers differ the code is differentiated, so that instead of writing to the lowest common denominator, the Service Hub web pages offer the best user interface possible in each browser.

Finders - The concept of a " finder " has been adopted based on the Macintosh finder concept and Microsoft ' s Windows Explorer Finder. Finders help users find objects, including products, sites, calls, contracts, processes, or any other business object.

What about Security?
FieldDispatch.com maintains User ID and Password sign on for all users, with different security levels/controls for authorized access to functions defined by each customer. Authorization is an application level issue that is fully supported using user access control, group privileges, and screen modes.

All of our security features - both on the Web and the mobile gateway revolve around SSL. We can run all traffic under SSL, that it is 128-bit encrypted as well as inferring an authentication process in the setting up of the encrypted traffic.


User identification is usually through username and password although we have in the past had customers that used authentication codes, which were given out to the users by system administrators so that when the users first logged into the portal they were identified as belonging to a certain groups and received their privileges this way as opposed to user-based definitions.

What wireless devices does FieldDispatch.com support?
We are device and transport agnostic. Because of the advanced architecture of our mobile gateway, FieldDispatch.com is available on most commercial mobile devices, including Palm OS and Windows CE personal digital assistants (PDA), Symbol devices with built-in barcode readers, Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) phones -with the Wireless Markup Language (WML) based user interfaces, and I-mode phones.

The application functionality is identical for all devices, although different devices will have different presentation formats depending on screen size and on-line/off-line operation. As a general rule of thumb, if you can get the Internet on your wireless device, you can get FieldDispatch.com in the on-line mode. Even if you can't get the mobile Internet, you may still be able to use FieldDispatch.com in the store-and-forward mode with uploads happening whenever the device is cradled.

How is this significant?
This is important for two reasons: First, many of our competitors have the wireless equivalent of client-server applications, in that they have a rudimentary client that will only run on certain hardware and the user is constrained to this limited view and functionality. We take a different approach by making a number of different views and access methods available to the same user. For example, a technician could check his jobs on his home PC before leaving the house in the morning, use a wireless Symbol barcode reader on the job, wear a pager on the weekends, and even check into the system via telephone, all with the same results. Our competitors can't do that.

Second, since we have a true wireless gateway, we can send more than just job information out to the wireless devices. We can send technical documents, KPIs, and things like spreadsheets, which can interface with other applications resident on the PDA, such as MS Outlook.

Do I have to buy my wireless device from you?
Absolutely not. You can purchase your wireless devices from us, one of our partners, a commercial store (CompUSA), or even use the devices you already have that are capable of reaching the Internet. This allows you the flexibility to use those devices that best suit your business, or for that matter, any number of different devices. The same holds true for whatever network vendor you choose.

Okay, I'm convinced. What's next?
We have developed a comprehensive and interactive web demo capability that will allow you to explore how FieldDispatch.com can help you solve problems, eliminate paperwork, improve productivity, and, best of all, increase both customer satisfaction and profitability. Since we are a web-based solution provider, you and your company decision makers can sit in the comfort of your own offices as take you step-by-step through the system and highlight the features and functions that are most important to you. You'll be driving as we take you through scheduling and dispatch, warehousing and parts, contracts and entitlements, and the many other service optimization capabilities available with FieldDispatch.com.

You'll see for yourself how our web and wireless portals make building and growing a community around your service business quick and easy. You'll see how our web interface has been specifically designed to be simple, intuitive, and very user-friendly. You'll see that vast amounts of industry-specific information has been brought into the system and are available to your technicians and engineers real-time whenever and from wherever the job takes them. How we can track and audit every task, capture every expense, produce reports on all the time and materials used by each technician, on every job, for every customer. So if you're ready to explore how we can help, it's time to time to take a test-drive with FieldDispatch.com. To make an appointment to, simply contact us or any authorized partner or agent.