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Website powered by
Site System™ by
Sinclair Design
Hotel System™ is an advanced web application
No special hardware, software or networking is needed — just basic PCs or Macs with internet accessUnlike most property management software, Hotel System™ is an advanced web application that runs on a powerful and secure web server in London, as opposed to the PC that you are sitting in front of at the moment. You are reading this page using a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, but the browser is acting as a window to the server, which is connected to your PC via the telephone system. Think of it like the News at Ten: you watch the news in your living room, but the news reader is sitting in a London studio. The web server is like the studio and the browser is like your TV.
advantages and disadvantages of a web-based system:
two slight disadvantages...
Connection — Because digital information travels across the internet to the server and back again every time you click a submit button or change a page, a problem anywhere in that connection can lead to screen-refresh delays or even a loss of the display. Fortunately such problems are very rare and short-lived (lasting only seconds) because the internet is designed to heal itself by automatically re-routing around problem areas. But given how important the connection is, customers are advised to operate two broadband connections provided by different suppliers. The system also works from a standard 56k dial-up account if both ADSL connections should fail.
Browser — The other slight limitation to Hotel System™ is that even though most pages load in fractions of a second, a browser is not as 'instant' as software running directly on a PC or Mac. A browser has to be 'refreshed' to see the latest information so if one user enters a booking, another user will not see that booking until they refresh the bookings page (this can be automated). Also, data that you enter is not actually sent to the server until you click a 'submit' button, so simply entering a debit amount on a payment form (for example) is not enough — you must then 'submit' the information by clicking on the appropriate button. Most operators get used to this within hours of first use.
two major advantages...
Synchronisation — Anyone with the correct internet address, username and password can securely connect to the system from any basic PC or Mac with an internet connection, without the need for specialist radio links or expensive secure networks. All users in all hotels within a group will be accessing the same information on the same system at the same time. As one person creates a booking, so everyone else with access to that group's information sees that booking on the system no matter where in the world they are viewing it from — ideal for remote management of a facility.
Security — Hotel System™ runs on a fast, dedicated server running Linux and Apache. The primary server is housed in a top London datacentre, directly connected to a 100Mb unrestricted network. The server is expertly maintained and monitored on a 24hr basis by on-site technicians, and all databases are instantly replicated to a 'hot standby' server in a separate datacentre to offer environmental redundancy. A snap-shot (back-up) is taken of the primary server's main drive each night and a stand-by chassis is ready for rapid disk-swap if a serious problem occurs. So, with your valuable customer and booking data well protected, if your hotel's computers are stolen or damaged, the system is not affected. As long as you still have a basic PC or Mac nearby with an internet connection, you can be up and running again in as long as it takes to plug them in.