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Technical Requirements
There is a lot to benefit from an ASP business model but your organization must have the capabilities of using such a service. Firstly, you will require the bandwidth to maximise the opportunities of remote access, and at a reasonable fast speed. There is very little to gain if the connectivity was a dial-up line linking the business and the ASP - there is simply not enough scalability or capacity. Bandwidth must be scalable so it handles current and near future needs. If the business grows but the ASP can't then one function of your business is not working at its full capacity.
Powering the client application at the business side will often require hardware powerful enough to handle the service adequately. The ASP and its applications must be able to support your organization's hardware and vice versa. The hardware specification should also be investigated to check whether the current hardware can meet the guidelines to operate the system efficiently.
Data Management
An important remainder about outsourcing is the transfer of information to a third party. If they intend to be serious about information concerning your company eg financial details, then it is suggested that a data backup and recovery feature is implemented with the service. The high recommendation of data backup and recovery is due to unexpected disruptions and the protection against data loss. If data loss occurs, they can simply fall back on the backups.
Data backup should be done on a regular basis. If information is critical then daily backups can be expected while less important can be done on a weekly or monthly rotation. Also, the media used for the storage of data backups should be stored in locations with limited and authorized access only - preferably off site. Organizations worldwide lose billions of dollars each year on lost productivity and recovery costs.
Security
Protecting your confidentiality, integrity and availability of data is vital for any business organization. Determine the procedures in place to protect your business data, and the type of access control implemented. Do they limit access to business data? Who has access other than the business organization? It is important to find these matters out.
Read the policies and guidelines protecting the privacy and confidentiality of your business organization, the fine prints will determine who will have access and control of your business data. If you don't understand certain terms or agreements then hire a consultant or lawyer who does, this may save a lot of heart ache later on.
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