TAM to TAMOnline

[Andy]

For those considering migrating to TAMOnline, what are some of your questions?

We might have something in the works where your questions will be answered!

Ask away!

[brinkerdana]

Hi Andy.  My agency is already on TAMOnline, as was my previous agency.  All other hosted TAM locally.

Questions I can imagine agencies asking:

1.  Who hosts email?
2.  Will I have access to my TAM databases?
3.  Scanning & attaching-how will it work?  Emailing attchments to myself?  Is there a cleaner way?
4.  If I opt out of TAM Online, will I have access to my data?
5.  Will I have any input as to when upgrades are done?

I'm sure I'll think of others, but it's time to go get ready for work.

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

What is the SLA?  Google Apps and the Microsoft equivalent are 3-nines (99.9% availability)

*99.9% = 43.2 minutes per month

[Andy]

SLA?  I googled it (as I am not a techie) ... Service level agreement?  Are you asking how often TAMOnline is up (or down for maintenance)?

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

As far as a contract - services, like ASPs (or the new trendy "Cloud" nomenclature) often include some kind of SLA stating that "sure you pay us $$$$/month and we guarantee you will have access to our services 99.9% of the time, or else we... (insert clause indicating what the service provider will do if they cannot meet the SLA requirements).

This ensures that you are getting the service you are paying for.  Google Apps originally had a 4-nines SLA, but could not meet those requirements and backed off to 99.9%

Without an SLA in writing, clients are left with little recourse should said service have a bad day.  I would be very wary of any Cloud service that is offered that does not have or agree to a written SLA.

[Andy]

While I do not have a contract handy ... so I do not have SLA info ...

TAMOnline is avaliable 99.98% of the time, not counting regular maintenance windows. This means TAMOnline is down about 1.8 hours every three years.

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

To me (dunno about anyone else) discounting maintenance windows creates a loophole - I mean, maintenance window or not, if I want to access a service I'm paying for and it's not available, it's not available.

Imagine your cable company, or ISP, or telco going down for XX hours per week for a maintenance window.

The whole concept of HA (high availability) is that everything is redundant, so I can down 50% of my hardware, perform maintenance and the service is not interrupted.  Then I bring those services back-online and repeat for the remaining gear.

Still 99.98% does indicate that you are doing a good job of avoiding the unplanned outages.  Do you know what that is measured from?  For example, when I was hosting AU on-prem I'd have to measure availability from a couple points outside b.c. everything up to the layer 2 device connecting me to my ISP and the layer 1 (cable) physically running to the demarc would be included in my area of responsibility.  Once the packets are on the ISPs network, that's no longer within my control.  So an SLA needs to establish that criteria - if a backhoe digs up the fiber in front of your building, well, that's not your fault.  Of course that brings up the argument of redundant feeds...

[Paul Dodgson]

While I do not have a contract handy ... so I do not have SLA info ...

TAMOnline is avaliable 99.98% of the time, not counting regular maintenance windows. This means TAMOnline is down about 1.8 hours every three years.

I am pretty sure TAMonline went down for 2 days continuously at least once Andy if you look back in history.

[Hans Manhave]

That redundancy is most significant.  The TAMOnline system can be located in Florida, Dallas and San Francisco, but if my T1 is dug up in Dallas, I am still down.  Of course, theoretically I have a 4 hour restore time for T1.  All the phone equipment in my closet could be hit by lightning (happened last year) and the phone company may not have all the needed stuff in town.  Not Applied's problem, of course, but still a problem if I were using Online.  

I do want to know the answer to the database question though.  Would my databases be part of an aggregate database?  Somewhat in the way that I have an agency/branch/department structure in house and maybe the OnLine system has one or more umbrellas over that?  Can I use Access to get things out of TAM or some MS Query at all?  This was a class at TENCon once, not sure if it still is.  Just figured I'd ask the accessibility question.  Won't be attending any webinars on TAMOnline though.