Schulz Consulting

Consulting and Upgrades

Sage 100 ERP Hosting

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hosted_cloud

 

Are you considering hosting your Sage 100 ERP software someplace other than your company servers?

Cloud computing involves deploying (or more commonly renting) groups of remote servers and software networks that allow centralized data storage and online access to computer services or resources.

Clouds can be classified as

  • public  (Amazon EC2, Rackspace Cloud) – cloud infrastructure operated for the benefit of many groups, typically you share servers and computing resources
  • private – cloud infrastructure maintained solely for the benefit of one organization, typically dedicated servers and computing resources
  • hybrid – a combination of public and private – typically using more than one service provider

 

Some of the benefits of hosting Sage 100 outside of your company include:

  • Backups are  included and performed automatically for you
  • Power and facilities are managed and usually have some level of redundancy
  • Access your data from any web connected computer
  • One price for all licensing, maintenance and management
  • Improved security

What To Look For In  A Sage 100 ERP Cloud Host

Unless you have a very basic need for only the core Sage 100 ERP modules you’ll probably want to consider:

  • Does your host allow you to run not only Sage 100 ERP but also common add-ons (Starship, Scanforce, Crystal Reports, etc) – the most basic hosting providers, including Sage themselves,  may not?
  • Does your host have experience with setup and configuration of Sage 100 ERP – as well as the most common add-ons?
  • Does the monthly price include your Sage 100 ERP licenses and maintenance?
  • Who performs the Sage 100 ERP upgrades? Some hosts  include this while others may request  you use a separate consulting firm to manage the upgrade
  • How many other users will be on the server (if not private)? The less resources on a shared server the slower your accounting software may operate.
  • What is the contract commitment (if any)?
  • What is the guaranteed response time to restore important files – both on a routine  and emergency basis
  • Is Microsoft Office included in the hosting price? If not how much extra is the productivity tool per month?
  • How long as the provided been hosting Sage ERP products?
  • What other products are being hosted on the same server(s)?

Prior to moving your Sage 100 ERP off-site you should also consider the stability of your office internet connection. If you have a connection that is unstable or very slow you may  find  cloud hosting won’t work for you. Since most companies have fairly reliable (and fast) internet connections  there is seldom a concern about connectivity except for in the most remote of areas.

How Much Will Sage 100 ERP Hosting Cost ?

Prices for hosting vary. On the very low end you could pay as little as $ 25/mo (Amazon) for a “bring your own Sage 100 ERP ” setup which includes a desktop with remote access but you install and configure Sage 100 ERP yourself. Pricing for the Sage’s own hosting starts at $159 though Sage hosting does not allow for any customization of your ERP and few (if any) third party integrations. What Sage’s hosting does allow for is an inexpensive bundle of the Sage 100 ERP licenses along with hosting. For this reason the Sage option is usually best for smaller companies who don’t need customization and have 3 or fewer users.

Moving outside the “do-it-yourself” host (Amazon) and Sage’s basic hosting – expect to pay $ 150 – $200 per month for each user depending upon how the software licenses are initially acquired.

Limited Time Offer:

2 MONTHS FREE ENTERPRISE HOSTING SERVICE
NO OBLIGATION
NO SET-UP COSTS
Includes
· Receive 2 months FREE Cloud Hosting & Setup
· 30-days of platinum level hosting support during business hours
· Provided as a trial and no hosting contract required
Offer Includes:
· All Production Servers and Storage required with 1 recovery and 1 fail-over environment
· All Network Hosting Support
· All Microsoft licensing included
· On-boarding, education, testing and go-live support

Cloud hosting services includes Silver and Gold Hosting Support Plans for 1 and 3 Years.
Please contact DSD Business Systems for pricing details at media@dsdinc.com.

 

 

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Sage 100 ERP Cloud Hosting

 

 

Sage 100 Online vs Sage 100 Hosted By a Third Party

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Are you considering whether to usage Sage 100 ERP on-premises (traditional) or would you like more information about having a third party such as Sage or an independent host provide the general back-end maintenance and server hosting?

Here’s a great summary PDF which provides you with information on what your Sage 100 cloud hosting options are. Especially impressive is the detail which this document goes into when describing the Sage hosted option vs a third party hosted option.

Both of these methods of hosting Sage 100 ERP in the cloud get you to the same destination. Whether you choose to have Sage host or a third party seems to largely depend upon how many users you’ll have (Sage seems to win for under 5 user implementations) and what modules (third party hosts win when you need to access non-framework modules or perform other tasks such as email statements from paperless office).

 

Download a copy of the guide – Sage 100 Hosting Options. You may also visit the official Sage 100 Online page here.

MAS90 Online: Pre-Release Information, Pricing

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Last week Sage sent around a pre-release guide to their upcoming MAS90 Online offering. Expect this to become available in October 2011 and MAS90 Online to be a competitively hosted version of MAS 90 aimed at companies in the 1 to 5 user range.

MAS90 Online modules will include:

Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Bank Reconciliation
Bill of Materials
Business Insights Dashboard
Business Insights Explorer
Electronic Reporting
General Ledger
Inventory Management
Library Master
Paperless Office*
Purchase Order
Return Merchandise Authorization
Sage ERP MAS Intelligence*
Sales Order

 

Important Notes:

1. Upgrades have to be done by the partner and by downloading the data and then uploading the newly updated/converted data. This means Sage doesn’t upgrade the customer automatically — and the customer still had the expense of having a partner (or themselves) doing the upgrade. This sort of baffles me but I guess at least the hosting saves some complexity.
2. Crystal Reports have to all be designed offline (I think this may have more to do with licensing)
3. No credit card processing
4. No SageCRM integration
5. Phone  support is additional/optional (maintenance is mandatory ).

6. Business Insights Dashboard and Business Insights Explorer will be available within the Sage ERP MAS 90 Online service.

Sage ERP MAS Intelligence (SMI) is under evaluation for compatibility at this time.

7. The following Modules and Functionality are NOT Available:
• Bar Code
• Batch Faxing
• Credit Card Processing
• Custom Office
• eBusiness Manager
• eBusiness Web Services
• FAS Integration
• Federal and State eFiling and Reporting
• Job Cost
• Payroll
• Sales Tax powered by AvaTax
• SageCRM
• Timecard
• Visual Integrator
• Work Order

8. No outbound email server for Paperless Office

9. No third party integrations

10.

MAS90 Online Pricing

Sage ERP MAS 90 Online pricing will offer customers a suite of business management software applications hosted by Sage, accessed over the Internet, for a monthly subscription fee. A minimum requirement of one full concurrent Sage ERP MAS 90

Online user license for one year is required to access the software, with optional add-on user licenses and services available for additional fees. Included in the monthly subscription fees are: the secure backup service, up to five Sage ERP MAS 90 Online companies, one gigabyte of personal storage, and one free named user license of both Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Discounts will be offered for multi-year contracts and pre-payments.
Sage ERP MAS 90 Online user licenses ($169*) are concurrent licenses and can be used by a pool of users.

In addition to Sage ERP MAS 90 Online user licenses, Sage also offers optional Remote Concurrent Access License (RCAL) for an additional monthly fee ($75*). RCAL licenses allow user access to Sage ERP MAS 90 Online system ─ but differ from Sage ERP MAS 90 user licenses, because they are named Citrix users.

Sage ERP MAS90 Roadmap Updated – Installed MAS 90 Customers At 45,000

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Sage just issued a public roadmap for their Sage ERP MAS 90 and MAS 200 brand of accounting software.

What’s interesting about this map is that it’s the first we’ve noticed they’ve put a count on the number of customers that use MAS 90 or MAS 200. This count, 45,000, seems to match up with the assumptions that we’d been making from about two years ago.

Other interesting items of note:

– Expect a hosted MAS 90 Cloud Deployment in 2H 2011
– Cloud deployment features only modules that are at framework (no payroll/manufacturing, visual integrator, custom office)
– Hosting provided through Sage and ultimately at QTS Atlanta Metro Data
– Sage ERP MAS 90 Hosted is SAS 70 compliant

– First look at Sage ERP MAS 90 v5 – including new auto-update feature!

Sage MAS90 Roadmap May 2011

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