GreatSoft

GreatSoft offers Cloud Solutions

Welcome to GreatSoft's Podcast Episode 2 on Cloud Computing. With us today, we have our senior developer, Mario Felix.
Tell us about your recent projects, deploying applications to the cloud.
Well, the most recent project in terms of cloud computing has been with Windows Azure.  We had support from Microsoft; they invested in us to get our web application into Azure, which we did successfully.  And in doing that, we realised the benefits in utilising cloud computing.  We have approached some local (South African) vendors, such as RSAWEB and Cyrex to provide us with a cloud hosting platform as well.
Ok, let’s get back to basics.  There are so many buzzwords today in I.T., can you explain what Cloud Computing is?
Well, in layman's terms, cloud computing is essentially taking what you've got on-site, your server and network infrastructures and putting them in a data centre somewhere with a third party vendor.  And the benefit of that is, you don't need to have that massive investment up front in terms of  hardware, and licensing and I.T. staff.


What challenges do small businesses face regarding data security and bandwidth?
Most small businesses don't have a dedicated I.T. team on-site; they normally use a third party vendor for their I.T.  They also utilise ADSL - and in South Africa, ADSL is very fledgling technology, so in terms of reliability and availability, that's where they [small businesses] struggle the most.  What cloud computing provides is that security and reliability - your software and services are sitting in the cloud somewhere utilising infrastructure from a large data centre with a huge amount of manpower in terms of I.T. staff.  So, from that point of view, its more advantageous for them [small businesses] to utilise a cloud computing platform.


How does this technology benefit accounting practices?
The one major benefit is the upfront cost of investment for accounting practices.  The next benefit is that the accounting practices can focus more on utilising their software to grow their business  rather than ensuring that systems are running at 100%.

GreatSoft's Development Technologies

GreatSoft is an independent software vendor that specialises in practice management solutions for time based professionals such as accountants, auditors and consulting engineers. Our fully integrated practice management solutions are designed around our clients’ requirements to automate key administrative processes.
With us today, we have our development manager Andre Coetzee.

Tell us about the technologies you used to develop the products:
We have adopted the latest technology, using the .NET Framework, which Microsoft has provided for developers to produce software and allow us to leverage from that technology to give our clients all the functionality and security they need in the applications.
One of the things we looked at as we went forward is a product called e-Docs, which is a GreatSoft application for our clients to deliver their electronic statements and invoices to their customers through email and/or printing.
What features in .NET did you leverage to help?
One of the key features for the e-Docs application that we used is the Windows Presentation Foundation functionality that allows us to quickly develop unique interfaces for our clients.  Now, the .NET 4.0 Framework is not only for windows applications – we also use that to deliver our web applications.
We have unique features that we had to bring in and one of the things we looked at when we developed the application was what the clients wanted from the application and the requirements from a legal point of view – from the VAT acts and electronic communication acts.
One of the focal points we had with the generation of the documents is to enhance the user experience as far as design and configuration of the document layouts.  The consultants have to sit and plan the document with the client, understand what the client needs and how he’s going to send out the documents.
What was cool about the tools that you used to make your life easier?
Microsoft has provided us with Visual Studio 2010 that really allows us to capitalise on the designer surface with the visual effects and visual architecture, for instance the Windows Presentation Foundation designer surface is part of the application now where it was not in the past.
One of the key things built into the concepts of the Windows Presentation Foundation application is what we term as the “Model View- View Model” architecture.  What this really means is  we separate the coding effort from the user interface side and from the business logic and the data, so we have the data sitting somewhere in the background, we have logic built around that data and validation rules and that sits in a different layer – and then we have the user interface that has to speak to this layer.
The way that we do that – in the old days much of the windows logic was embedded in the windows form itself; it was very difficult to pull them apart – whereas with the “Model View- View Model” design, you really draw a line between them and you understand them and build a view model or model that presents all the logic and everything and you can plug any view on top of it, so much so that with Windows Presentation Foundation being built on the XAML technology, we transport that back to Silverlight –same XAML technology but with a smaller footprint – so it is easier for us to actually say we’ve done that windows application and we can take all the screens and plug it into Silverlight which is a web application.
It makes our applications so much more transportable and easy from a development’s perspective to deliver it on a wide-range of technologies.
How does this technology benefit accounting practices?
That is a very good question because from all this mumbo jumbo I’ve just uttered, it is possible to say that’s all technical stuff: and how can it possibly have an impact on the end user?
Well, the answer is simple.  The Microsoft .NET Framework is a very secure, and a very well-supported framework.  And because we are Microsoft Gold Partners, we get first level support so from that perspective, our clients can have the reassurance that when we deliver a product based on the .NET framework they have a sound, secure and very reliable product that they can live with.