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Future-proofing

We invest heavily, and work tirelessly on your behalf, to ensure your system investment is "future-proofed"

An IT system needs to be properly managed and maintained. Touchstar offer hosted services to look after your software and maximise its effectiveness, leaving you to focus on building your business and maintaining a competitive edge.

A hosted solution requires less in-house technical expertise, reducing the cost of managing your infrastructure and providing guaranteed levels of security, availability and resilience. It also offers a single point of contact, so you can rest assured any issues can be quickly and easily resolved.

So when thinking about future-proofing software, it’s important to find a partner that is willing to listen and understand your business. Most importantly, the vendor should offer an adaptable and flexible solution to help you address the only constant in business – change.

Here are some examples of the additional investment, in terms of both money and resource, we’re committed to ….. in order to achieve high quality results for our customers.

GDPR

The security of data has always been a prime consideration and the introduction of GDPR regulations has elevated this to an increased level. The issue of data security is greatly assisted by the adoption of Cloud based processor power. The advantages of the cloud are that resource can be stepped up and down automatically and removes the requirements of a customer server – this eliminates cost as well as ceiling capacity on the in-house server implementation. The security of the system is enhanced as the suppliers of Cloud based computer processing adhere to the strictest regulations.

Security Fixes

To satisfy GDPR and other information security issues, we continually monitor and implement security fixes. On request, additional Pen (penetration) testing of our solution can be undertaken to ensure maximum security levels.

OS Updates & Security Patches

The advent of Android has dramatically improved the functionality of mobile devices. It is an open system and has now been adopted on a large scale. The system is continually evolving, and a new Android Operating System is released every year (previous Operating systems major releases were typically several years apart). Constant review of our application software is therefore necessary and, accordingly, extensive resources are maintained in this area. As a widely used and accepted Operating System, Android also issues monthly security patches which are tested, implemented, and rolled out to the devices.

Update of Associated Systems

The more sophisticated solutions become, the more demand is placed on communications protocol performance. Whilst not associated strictly with the Operating System the need for continual enhancement and integration of communication protocols is essential for performance. A recent example is the communications within the Android system moving from FMS to SignalR. This type of enhancement benefitted the ‘industrial user’ and enhanced communications speeds, reliability, and performance.

Comprehensive & Thorough System Testing

The Touchstar software suite has become more of a standard (but still highly configurable) product. This undoubtedly brings the benefits of increased functionality to the customer but also increases the need for greater in-depth testing prior to any release. In previous times test procedures were simplified on a customer-by-customer basis. In subsequent years, Touchstar have developed a dedicated in-house resource, to monitor processes and manage the control of software releases. Furthermore, the expansion of the company has seen the recent (February 2021) appointment of additional process driven test engineers to ensure continued product reliability and functionality, prior to any release.

Managing Obsolence

Windows CE is no longer adequately supported by Microsoft. Some security updates are still maintained until an extended date of April 2021, but this is un-sustainable as a business-critical operating system. Touchstar made a strategic decision, well in advance of Microsoft’s declared obsolescence deadlines, to move to the Android development platform. Android is a fully maintained operating system with regular security updates by Google.