On Demand & Hosted (Cloud Platform)

Retail Express is hosted at the ICO Corporate Data Centre, based in Sydney.  A Data Centre is a professional facility that hosts and manages all of the Information Technology services, so you don't have to do it yourself!

The ICO Data Centre is an $85M facility that ensures the uptime, safety and security of the software and data.

Retail Express is a web-based software solution residing on our secure servers- it's the secret to your 24/7 business control, no matter where you are.

You can constantly keep your finger on the pulse, and see what's happening in your business anytime, anywhere. And the high-speed availability of information exchange between your store locations and head office ensure your operations run smoothly, and as they should.

Security is state of the art for your company data protection. Eliminate the need to backup the data yourself, as Retail Express does it for you. And forget spending thousands of dollars on I.T hardware and support each year, because our hosted solution does it all!

• 99.99% Network Uptime Guarantee
• Redundant Telecommunications (Telstra & Optus)
• Firewalls, Intrusion Detection, Threat Analysis
• On-Site Engineers 24/7
• Redundant Hard Drives (using RAID)
• Disaster Recovery
• Constant Data Backups
• Fireproof Rooms
• Redundant Electricity Power Supplies
• 24/7 Server System Monitoring Services
• 24/7 On-Site Security Guards

Our servers reside in this corporate facility to provide state of the art technical services, uptime, security and maintenance of the application.

• We host both the main retail application, plus your webstore (if applicable)
• We provide a unique IP address for your webstore (if applicable)
• All your data is constantly 'mirrored' on multiple hard drives.  This means that in the event of a hard drive failure, another drive with your data 'kicks in' automatically, without you even noticing
• We perform complete data back-ups of your database each night.  These backups are stored on a separate drive to the main servers and are also copied to tape and couriered over-night to the sister data centre in Melbourne.  In the event of a major Data Centre catastrophe, the sister Data Centre can restore and be live with your system within 4 hours
• Redundant Telecommunications Network Services.  This means that, if say the Telstra connection into the Data Centre went down, the Optus connection would kick in automatically
• Comprehensive Firewalls, Intrusion Detection & Threat Analysis
• On-Site Engineers 24/7 (Degree Qualified & Certified).  In the event of hardware failure, the onsite engineers to whatever it takes to quickly resolve the issue, or replace hardware components (spare parts are stored on premises)
• Complete Disaster Recovery facilities
• Fireproof Rooms
• Redundant Electricity Power Supplies, with a Diesel generator being on premises in case of power failure
• 24/7 Server System Monitoring Services
• 24/7 On-Site Security Guards (& 24/7 Video Surveillance
• Server Maintenance, Windows Updates and Patches
• Software upgrades.  Client data is backed up prior to new upgrades being released.  After hours, we roll out and release your upgrades directly to your database
• Retail Express uses SSL encryption to ensure the security and safety of data being transferred to and from your premises to the Data Centre
• The physical security at the Data Centre is 'extreme', to ensure no unauthorised people can access the facility
• We keep your data secure via the use of the very latest industry-standard data encryption and data security protocols. It would take literally a super computer to hack into the data centre (which is 1000 times more secure than the level of security that most retailers could maintain themselves within their own environments.
• Retail Express ensures your data is kept strictly confidential and safe on the Servers, and we agree never to disclose it to any third party, under any circumstances, unless agreed to in writing by the other party. 

We have dedicated server clusters under service level agreements with ICO.  The facilities at the Data Centre include:

$80M Sydney Data Centre

• 24/7 @ 365 days – Engineers on Site
• 7000 square metre ultra-high security
• 99.9% Guaranteed Uptime
• Tier II data centre Full N+1 failover systems that meet mission-critical standards

Completely Unrestricted Bandwidth

• Dual ethernet feeds and separate power feeds go to each ICO security cage
• 2 x Dual  1GB pipes  redundant high-speed internet links
• There is NO limit to bandwidth going in or out of Data centre

Enterprise Equipment

• Enterprise Firewalls with Internal GB LAN to server
• Redundant multiple Tier 1 Internet connections wired through two identical $3 Million Cisco 12000 series switches
• In the event of the failure of a connection or switch, the other is designed to take over (without losing a connection) in 26 seconds

Serious Backup

• Constructs pointers that map files and directories to specific disk blocks. That process is often called copy-on-write technology for the Windows environment. The snapshot freezes the view of the drive as it is backing it up.
• ICO guarantee ICO will be able to read a backup.
• ICO guarantee ICO will restore it for you.
• ICO guarantee that ICO can restore a complete, working server to different hardware.
• An in a best case scenario, ICO can restore a full server, operating system and all, in less than an hour.

Monitoring and Alerting

• Network Layer
• Data Centre
• Security
• Processes and Services

Full Power Service

• Dual mains electricity supply feeds come from Energex Australia (one from the north, the other from the south) and terminate at the sub-station on site.
• There are separate transformers and mains switch boards that feed to multiple Inverter/UPS units.
• The fully redundant 6000KVA Inverter/UPS system has automatic multi-point failover feeding to fully redundant multiple power management modules.
• Backing up the Inverter/UPS system are multiple 2.5 MW Caterpillar diesel generators. Every diesel generator is tested for forty minutes into a full 2 MW resistive load once per month.
• There are two high capacity diesel fuel tanks on site with enough fuel stored for 48 hours. There are priority fuel delivery arrangements with seven suppliers.
• There is a fully redundant Carrier air conditioning system, consisting of  multiple refrigerant-cooled units. No water problems from cut water mains, no water danger to servers below. 

On-site 24x7 Network Operations Centre

• There are 24 x 7 security guards on site at all times.
• 160 video security cameras, inside and out, record every part of the building and its grounds.
• Entry for authorised personnel is only through security portals (handprint, picture ID, magnetic card).
• There is a fully integrated building management system for smoke, fire and water detection, electrical and air conditioning