Cloud
Computing
Equinox offers various forms of cloud computing.
Cloud or hosted computing offers many advantages like convenience, portability, security, uptime,
compliance and lower costs to name a few.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
MS Exchange (email) and MS CRM are examples of
hosted enterprise applications Equinox offers in this environment, but there are many more. This type of cloud computing
delivers applications across Internet through a browser or other client software using a multitenant architecture.
For the user this means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing. Long term, there is no real estate lost to housing
servers or worries about how to secure them, there are no maintenance or support fees for hardware and no cost for the
electricity to run them. Cloud based servers are redundant with fail over protection providing over 99.9% uptime. Overall
costs are low compared to conventional computing.
Platform as a Service
Another SaaS variation, this form of cloud
computing delivers development environments as a service. You build or use your own applications that run on cloud
based (hosted) servers and are delivered to your users via the Internet. Again you gain all of the advantages listed above
but are able access your own applications anywhere, any time from a secured/encrypted environment. The technologies
offered by Equinox can make a virtual desktop available to you. This means your applications need not be browser based,
giving you the ability to run almost any application you care to use accross the Internet. Some users have employed the
virtual desktop to run their office applications on their iphones!
Compliance/Security
The cloud based environments used by Equinox are
compliant with state and federal regulations. Data is encrypted and mirrored on secured redundant servers and backed up.
These platforms are used by doctors, lawyers, retailers, financial institutions and other professionals that are subject
to government regulation and compliance.