It is pretty much impossible to avoid ‘cloud computing’ these days. Everyone is talking about it. Look behind all the hype and media frenzy, and cloud computing is being demanded by companies – large and small – when searching for new software applications to solve urgent business problems.
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This is reflected by the research (see left) which points to an accelerating trend of adoption and massive investment in this strategy by service providers. It is becoming accepted as an everyday option – and in many cases the preferred option. And there is no doubt that it is delivering some smart innovations and new thinking around the deployment and use of business applications. For example, the work being done in IFS Labs on the Touch Apps only makes business sense if delivered via a cloud infrastructure.
The architecture behind IFS 360 Scheduling products has always encompassed the ideas of reliability, high availability and scalability that underpin cloud computing. Workforce scheduling is mission critical for many organizations, as it impacts directly on customer satisfaction, and it is natural for us to offer our software both on-premise and in the cloud.
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IFS uses Windows Azure to deliver cloud computing to its customers and 360 Scheduling is leveraging this same infrastructure (see right). The on-demand scalability and robustness of Windows Azure is perfectly suited to the compute-intensive and variable workload nature of optimizing resources.
Running IFS 360 Scheduling in the cloud does not change any of the features available to you, or change the ease of integration to other enterprise applications. We also support hybrid deployments with part of the software ecosystem in-house on your own servers and the rest in the cloud. For example, you might use the cloud servers for disaster recovery, or to support peak workloads and periodic spikes in demand.
The same always optimizing features, the same benefits, plus the flexibility to do what is right for your business circumstances – on-premise or in the cloud.
You can find out more by requesting our technology data sheet.
