Software as a Service (SaaS)

Wood provides a SaaS solution using cloud-based servers in Microsoft Azure. Access is provided via RemoteApp and our web app, IC-Web.

Location – Wood presently operates cloud hubs in UK, USA, SE Asia and Australia. We can stand up services in any Microsoft Azure data centre as required for clients with specific geographic restrictions on data storage.

Sign-on – NEXUS has the ability to authenticate users via Active Directory connection.

Availability – System availability is historically greater than 99.9%.

Downtime – Planned application downtime is required for server O/S patching. This is performed monthly and is typically performed out of hours. Non-routine downtime is scheduled and approved with client contact.

Response times & Latency – Tasks within NEXUS can take a varying amount of time (from milliseconds to minutes) depending on complexity. Increased network latency can degrade performance. Wood recommends <120ms latency for acceptable performance with RemoteApp and <300ms for IC-Web.

Backup regime – database backups are taken each business day and retained for 14 calendar days. Additional backups for longer term retention can be held by agreement or transmitted to customer. This may have a small cost impact.

Disaster Recovery (DR) & Business Continuity (BC) – There is no client side requirement for DR/BC. The hosted service is resilient to single server failures through the use of redundant Azure infrastructure and provides coverage in the event that a data centre goes offline. Wood replicates database backups to each of the Azure data centres that we use around the globe.

Privacy & Confidentiality – Data is stored securely in MSSQL Server and access is only granted to authenticated users.

Security – Access to data within NEXUS is controlled by in-built functional security. Logged in users are authenticated by SSO (where configured, or Username Password authentication where not). And each user is assigned security permissions. Security permissions can be defined at Group Level, or user Level. Security for the overall service relies on Microsoft Azure which meets a broad set of international and industry-specific compliance standards.

Scalability – the SaaS service can be scaled both horizontally and vertically for expansion of scope and increased number of users.

Additional Features

Because we have more ability to closely manage cloud instances of NEXUS IC than we do for instances deployed on client’s own infrastructure, we can offer some additional features:

  • Scheduled reports
  • Database maintenance
  • Infrastructure optimization
  • Database configuration management across regions
  • Wood users supporting your database will not consume a NEXUS license
  • Software update service, including early access to Beta releases

Pre-Requisites for RemoteApp

Client Operating System: Windows 8, Windows 10. x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit), Windows Server 2012 R2 (or higher) supported.

Windows 7

Note that Windows 7 is no longer supported. If you use it anyway, you will at minimum need to install the following Microsoft patches: http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2830477 and then update by following the Microsoft patch notes here: http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/2923545

IC-Web Supported Browsers

  • Chrome 54.0 or above
  • Microsoft Edge 79 or above
  • Safari 9.1 or above
  • Firefox 53.0 or above. 3D drawings may be slower in Firefox.

Internet Explorer is not recommended, and does not support 3D drawings.

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