I think the point is that if it runs on your server or runs on my
server doesn't make much difference from the software management
perspective, but it plays a big part of business continuity. I'd
imagine most people on a MRC-based billing\OSS platform would migrate
to a new one, but doing it over a few months because you can vs.
tomorrow because you have to makes a big difference.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From: *"Simon Westlake" <simon@sonar.software>
*To: *af@afmug.com
*Sent: *Tuesday, October 17, 2017 5:39:43 PM
*Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
And I would be amazed if a major vendor went out of business in this
industry and all the competitors didn't scramble to build tools to
create a seamless transition. We already have one click tools for most
of our competitors to import their data into Sonar, and we're working
on the rest. The challenging thing is that a lot of systems don't
enforce good data consistency, so there is junk to clean up. But if
push comes to shove and you're willing to clean up what you got, it
can be done very quickly.
I think you also have to weigh up these worst case scenarios against
reality. There has yet to be a billing vendor in this industry that
has stopped operating in the 7 years I've been part of it, let alone
close up shop in a 24 hour period and leave everyone in the cold. Is
it worth using old software that doesn't have the features you need
because it offers some modicum of protection against an unlikely
event? That is up to you to balance, but these doomsday scenarios are
pretty unlikely, and if it's costing you a lot of efficiency and
potential revenue, then my personal feeling would be that it doesn't
outweigh the consequences. But everyone has to make their own risk
assessment.
I think you will just see acquisitions occur if a vendor gets to the
point that they are struggling to operate. It would be silly for them
to just disappear into the night.
On 10/17/2017 4:15 PM, ch...@wbmfg.com wrote:
Been through this many times in my life. Done it both ways.
Several times.
Prefer the new vendor to do onboarding for me.
You get what you pay for.
*From:* Nathan Anderson
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 17, 2017 3:11 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
Not true. It doesn't matter what the file format of the export
is: you still have to take the time to figure out how to shoehorn
data from one schema into another. As talked about earlier, maybe
you'll get support from your new vendor with that, maybe not.
There will be mistakes made during that process, and some of it
will have to be re-done. You also have to hook the new product
into all of your authentication systems and then test that to make
sure it works and doesn't suddenly break people's connections.
Then there will be the mistakes that come from actually using the
new software that you are unfamiliar with, and/or cajoling it to
do what you need it to do and which you already knew how to do
with the old software. People will get billed wrong for a while
and then you'll have to sort out that mess as your customers bring
the billing mistakes to your attention. Some people that need to
get billed won't be...others will get double-billed. Pro-rates
will get miscalculated. The system will on-hold somebody by
mistake that shouldn't have been. And on and on.
If the software is locally hosted, you can learn a new system and
transition over to it on your own schedule, instead of being
pushed into the deep end of the pool on day 1.
-- Nathan
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *ch...@wbmfg.com
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 17, 2017 2:04 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
Export backups as CSV and you can re-import it into any database.
You will only be screwed for a very short time.
*From:*Nathan Anderson
*Sent:*Tuesday, October 17, 2017 2:13 PM
*To:*af@afmug.com
*Subject:*Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
I have to say that I'm partially with Matt on this one.
It's really not about access to your own data, although that can
certainly be a component depending on how things are designed. It
sounds like perhaps Sonar has no problem giving you reasonable
access to exports of your data for you to backup yourself, and for
the moment, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this.
I don't think I have to convince anyone how critical billing
software is to an organization. If it screws up or stops working,
you are losing money, and fast.
The SaaS model has some clear benefits to both parties (developer
and user), but it has an equal number of new downsides as well.
One big-E-on-the-eyechart one is what happens if the product is
discontinued, either because the parent company/developers go out
of business or for some other reason.
In the traditional software licensing and hosting model, where you
use your own computing resources to execute the code, if the
development company goes out of business one day, the software
that you still possess a copy of does not suddenly become less
useful to you. Sure, you won't get future upgrades and fixes to
the product from the vendor, but at least you have some time to
figure out what your options are and how you want to proceed, and
you can migrate to a new platform on YOUR OWN timetable, not
someone else's. And in the meantime, your business operations are
not negatively impacted.
In the SaaS model, it doesn't matter if you have a complete,
unabridged, and up-to-date export of the data: when the product is
discontinued without warning, and the company shuts down the
software servers, YOU ARE SO SCREWED. That data export does you
zero good if you don't have product to process and interpret and
act on it. In the case of billing software, this means you are
not collecting payments for service from your customers, which is
a big problem. Even if you could find a suitable replacement for
the software the next day, you still have to figure out how to
massage the data export you do have so that the new software can
import it, work through the inevitable imperfections of that
import (certain fields from the export that don't map cleanly to
fields in the new product), learn a new piece of software from
scratch, and figure out how to get by or work around issues
resulting from "feature X" that you depended heavily on in the old
software but which no longer exists in any form in the new one.
Things WILL be complete chaos for a while; there's no way around this.
We are actively looking for a new billing platform, and in the
meantime we have been running a piece of software that we bought
and implemented back when it was in active development but which
has now been discontinued for years. The reason that this is even
possible is because it is self-hosted. Back when this product was
being developed, it was very popular and sold very well. Nothing
is "too big to fail".../nothing/. Heck, Google has shitcanned
their fair share of services over the years after deeming them
inviable, leaving devoted users of them high-and-dry.
That we have personally experienced having a billing software
vendor go belly-up gives us great pause when it comes to
evaluating our options in the hosted/cloud space. This is not to
say that we would never consider billing-in-the-cloud, but it
would have to be /awfully/ compelling, and I think it would
greatly help if there were certain guarantees in place. One
example would be if the developer held the source code of the
software in escrow, to be automatically released if a "dead man's
switch" were tripped. I suspect this is what Matt has in mind
when he talks about "contracts" -- they are not just about
protecting the seller, but about protecting both parties.
-- Nathan
*From:*Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Matt Hoppes
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 17, 2017 11:37 AM
*To:* af@afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
Local install.
On Oct 17, 2017, at 13:32, Josh Reynolds <j...@kyneticwifi.com> wrote:
Good luck with that. Any company could close up shop today,
and if they are bankrupt, they are bankrupt.
On Oct 17, 2017 12:27 PM, "Matt Hoppes"
<mattli...@rivervalleyinternet.net> wrote:
It also means at any point they can just close up shop leaving
my data and my customer information high and dry with no recourse.
On Oct 17, 2017, at 13:24, Josh Reynolds
<j...@kyneticwifi.com> wrote:
They provide enough value to avoid locking you in a
contract that would otherwise retain your business when
they don't continuously earn it.
Others are NOT the same.
On Oct 17, 2017 12:22 PM, "Matt Hoppes"
<mattli...@rivervalleyinternet.net> wrote:
No contract? That's frankly beyond scary.
On Oct 17, 2017, at 13:06, Adam Moffett
<dmmoff...@gmail.com> wrote:
Sonar is strictly per user with no contract, so if
you haven't migrated any users in yet then you pay
the minimum.....which I think is $100/month.
------ Original Message ------
From: "Matt Hoppes"
<mattli...@rivervalleyinternet.net>
To: af@afmug.com
Sent: 10/17/2017 9:16:46 AM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
Fail.
On Oct 17, 2017, at 08:54, Lewis Bergman
<lewis.berg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Many of them start charging you regardless
if you are on their system yet. Once you
sign the contract, you start paying.
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 6:00 PM Nathan
Anderson <nath...@fsr.com> wrote:
I can understand this if the product
in question is purchased/licensed for
a one-time upfront fee. However, if
you have a SaaS model with recurring
revenues, it seems like it would be in
your best interest to help the
customer move existing data over to
your product cost-free, and thus get
them to be a paying customer ASAP.
-- Nathan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:*Af <af-boun...@afmug.com> on
behalf of Lewis Bergman
<lewis.berg...@gmail.com>
*Sent:* Monday, October 16, 2017 3:36 PM
*To:* af@afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Sonar
Yea, this seems to be a common
practice in the software industry.
What they all should really say is
that they help you convert. I am going
through this with ECi at the moment.
We paid several thousand for them to
convert our database. What it really
was was a half hearted gesture at
putting the DB into an excel
spreadsheet that they spent zero time
checking for sanity. They expect us to
do all that.
It seems that most software companies
expect their customers to have a whole
team of people doing what seems to be
the software companies job. Not saying
Sonar fits the description, just that
that seems to be the rule not the
exception.
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 5:24 PM
Sterling Jacobson
<sterl...@avative.net> wrote:
Taking forever to migrate from
Platypus to Sonar.
I was told conversion was free,
but they didn't tell me I had to
do all my own conversion from Plat
to Sonar, so in my mind that's not
free.
I paid Spender Lambert to move
some initial data to their format,
but I've been on a hold with Sonar
since last month.
Super excited to get going with a
'modern' billing system, but so
far the process has been a total
snoozer.
--
Simon Westlake
Email:simon@sonar.software
Phone: (702) 447-1247 US / (780) 900-1180 CA
---------------------------
Sonar Software Inc
The future of ISP billing and OSS
https://sonar.software
