Unlike the vast majority of our competitors, we offer two editions of our MIDAS web based room booking and resource scheduling software.
Some customers prefer to download, install, and run MIDAS from their own server/infrastructure, so that they have complete control over their MIDAS system – we call this our “self hosted” edition.
Other customers prefer a completely managed system hosted in the “cloud” so they don’t have to worry about installation and updates – we call this our “cloud hosted” edition.
You can compare the difference between these two editions here.
Access is key
We know that for our “cloud hosted” customers, maintaining 24/7/365 access to their booking information is crucial to the smooth running of their business operations. We therefore strive to make every reasonable effort within our control to ensure 100% uptime of our cloud servers and infrastructure.
However, as with any IT infrastructure, in the unlikely event that unforeseen circumstances arise which are beyond our control, 100% uptime can never be guaranteed. We are, for instance, reliant on external data centers and ISPs to provide us with infrastructure and services to then allow us to provide hosted MIDAS services to our customer. Our ISPs guarantee us 99.9% uptime of their infrastructure and services.
Active Monitoring
We actively monitor this to ensure that these high standards are met, and over the course of last year (2014) the combined total downtime for our hosted customers for the entire year was less than 10 hours.
That’s not a lot, and exceeds the 99.9% uptime guarantee we’re given. However, we fully appreciate that if any downtime were to occur at a crucial time of the day for our hosted customers, however brief, that this can cause implications for the day-to-day running of their operations.
That’s why, ever since we first launched MIDAS back in 2006, we’ve also offered all our hosted customers an optional “Emergency Access” addon.
With this optional addon, our hosted customers are provided with a secondary “Emergency URL” in addition to the primary URL used to access their hosted MIDAS system. At this secondary “Emergency URL”, a completely separate MIDAS system runs on a separate server, in a different data center, though a different ISP. Each day, the customer’s “live” system is automatically backed up to their “Emergency URL” to ensure that data in their backup system is never more than 24 hours behind their live system.
This means that should there ever be any issues affecting our customer’s ability to access to their primary scheduling system, with this addon, they’ll still be able to access all their booking and scheduling information via their secondary “Emergency URL”.
Emergency Access Improvements
Over the weekend, we’ve now improved our Emergency Access addon in the following ways:
- Data is now backed up in “real-time” from customer’s “live” systems to their secondary Emergency Access URL (with their global MIDAS settings backed up every hour). Previously, data and settings were only backed up once per day.
- We’ve invested heavily in new infrastructure for our hosted customer’s Emergency Access backup systems. This means significantly faster server performance, should customers ever need to access their Emergency Access systems.
The price for this Emergency Access addon is only £89/year GBP ($139/year USD, $179/year AUD, $169/year CAD, €129/year EUR*) and certainly worth it for the piece of mind it provides knowing you’ll still be able to access your data in the event of any issues affecting our primary servers/infrastructure.
What’s more, for a limited time**, we’re offering 10% off our Emergency Access addon to all existing customers with remotely hosted MIDAS system who don’t already have it! To take advantage of this limited time offer, please upgrade your MIDAS system today!
If maintaining 24/7/365 access to your room booking and resource scheduling information is paramount to your operations, you should certainly consider this optional add-on for your remotely hosted MIDAS system!
New customers can add the Emergency Access addon to their “remotely hosted” MIDAS system at time of purchase, or at a later date.
* Prices correct at time of writing, but may vary slightly day-to-day due to fluctuations in global currency exchange rates. Current pricing may be viewed here for existing customers, or here for new customers
** Offer ends 23:59 UTC on Sunday 5th April 2015 – EXTENDED UNTIL 30th APRIL!!
You may have heard that Microsoft are busy working on their successor to the widely criticized Windows 8 operating system; Windows 10 (what happened to Windows 9 we hear you ask? Well, apparently, Microsoft were worried that people would confuse it with Windows 95 or 98!)
Unlike the vast majority of our competitors, we offer two editions of our 
With this optional addon, our hosted customers are provided with a secondary “Emergency URL” in addition to the primary URL used to access their hosted MIDAS system. At this secondary “Emergency URL”, a completely separate MIDAS system runs on a separate server, in a different data center, though a different ISP. Each day, the customer’s “live” system is automatically backed up to their “Emergency URL” to ensure that data in their backup system is never more than 24 hours behind their live system.