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OpCon Cloud
Why OpCon Cloud?
Reduce Infrastructure Costs and Save Even More Time
Eliminate the cost of expensive IT hardware, software licensing fees, and the need to hire additional staff to support your infrastructure. Our white-glove service provides you with everything you need—at a lower overall cost of operation. Plus, with OpCon Cloud, you’re always on the latest version, so you’ll save time on software upgrades.
Focus on Growing, Not Maintaining
Easily grow and scale as your business needs evolve. No more worrying about maintaining or upgrading your processing and storage capacity to manage increased workloads. We handle all of that for you, freeing up time for you and your staff to focus on more strategic work.
Improve Business Continuity
If you experience a natural disaster or other major disruption, your applications and data are securely backed up and protected with OpCon Cloud, ensuring you can continue running your mission-critical operations as normal.
Preserve All of Your Security Measures
With OpCon Cloud, your OpCon agents are still hosted on machines as needed—but the OpCon server lives in the cloud and connects to those agents wherever they may be via VPN. So, you can have peace of mind knowing your OpCon environment—and everything it’s connected to—is completely secure.
Get Up and Running in as Fast as 24 Hours
We don’t believe in wasting time, and we pride ourselves on getting you up and running fast. Once you gain connectivity, you can start using your OpCon Cloud environment in as little as 24 hours.
Drive Savings with OpCon Cloud
✓ Eliminate expensive hardware and software licensing fees
✓ Reduce the overhead costs for maintaining machines
✓ Save on costs with disaster recovery preparedness
✓ Give your department valuable time back to focus on more strategic work
"Implementation of OpCon Cloud was incredibly easy. SMA built out our environment, and we worked together to establish the VPN. Then, we jumped right into training, which was exceptional."
—Curtis Lewis, IT Project Manager at OUCU Financial
OpCon Cloud FAQ
Find the answers to all of your questions about OpCon Cloud by topic, so you can decide if it's the right installation option for you!
What’s included in the OpCon Cloud package?
Your OpCon Cloud package will include:
- One OpCon production system that’s accessible via the Solution Manager web interface
- Secure connectivity between your OpCon Cloud environment and business network via VPN
- Automated OpCon upgrades
- Operating system and database patching
- Built-in failover and disaster recovery
- Maintenance and support for your OpCon server and infrastructure
Why should we consider OpCon Cloud over an on-prem installation?
This will depend on your organization’s cloud strategy and long-term business strategy. If you’re already starting to move some of your critical applications to the cloud, then you should strongly consider moving your mission-critical automation environment to the cloud, too. With OpCon Cloud, you no longer have to manage a data center and all the operations and costs that come with it—allowing your organization to spend more time serving the needs of your members and customers.
How long would it take to get our OpCon Cloud system up and running after it’s ordered?
Your OpCon Cloud instance can be set up in as few as five business days.
How will we need to be involved in the installation process?
You’ll be responsible for assisting with the configuration of your VPN. If you’re an existing client, you’ll also need to make sure resources are available for providing a backup of the on-prem database, confirming the test conversion is good, and verifying that the final conversion is successful.
Where is OpCon Cloud hosted?
It’s hosted in Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform.
When do you plan to support OpCon on AWS and Microsoft SQL on RDS?
At this time, we haven’t decided to expand into other cloud environments and will remain focused on Microsoft Azure for the time being.
How is DR/BCP handled?
All the infrastructure resources used within Microsoft Azure to provide our OpCon Cloud instances are regionally redundant at a minimum and geographically redundant when available. Additionally, all databases are backed up every 12 hours with the last 28 instances being stored.
What firewall, port, and/or networking configurations would we need?
No special ports are needed for OpCon Cloud beyond what’s already required for an on-prem OpCon installation (i.e., 443 for Solution Manager, 1433 for Microsoft SQL, and 3100-3111 for OpCon).
Is the OpCon Cloud environment a multi-tenant or single-tenant installation?
Currently, it’s a single-tenant installation. Over time, however, we plan to introduce some multi-tenancy to various components as it makes sense to do so. When this happens, client databases will remain single tenant and won’t be shared amongst SMA’s clients.
Can we have a hybrid environment that includes OpCon Cloud and on-prem OpCon?
Yes! We can support this option.
Can we use OpCon Cloud for tests only?
Yes, OpCon Cloud can be used for your test environment only. Traditionally, however, we recommend that your production and test environment be hosted in the same manner to ensure all variables are the same and no issues occur when promoting jobs to production.
How will you calibrate OpCon Cloud infrastructure performance to our workload needs?
Microsoft Azure SQL Database performance is based on DTU (Database Transaction Units), which are elastically scalable based on the workload seen on the database. Additionally, the Virtual Machine instance used within the Kubernetes Cluster that runs the instance of OpCon can be easily scaled if performance requires it.
Will SMA help us implement our initial automation use cases?
Absolutely! Just keep in mind that consulting charges will apply.
Who’s responsible for creating new automation in the future?
Once implementation is complete, you’ll be responsible for creating and maintaining your automation. SMA is only responsible for maintaining the infrastructure and OpCon environment, not the automation running within that environment. We do offer Managed Automation Services (MAS) separately, so you can opt to have SMA manage, monitor, and add new automation for you if you’d like.
What does a migration from on-prem to cloud look like?
First, you’ll help us configure your VPN for connectivity. Then, we recommend consulting with us, so we can analyze your current application server to determine if anything needs to be changed before migration. For example, we’d evaluate if your current OpCon server is being used as a file server and if there are other applications that will need to be reinstalled somewhere else. Finally, you’ll need to supply SMA with a database backup, which will be used to restore your new server in the cloud.
How is user authentication handled?
User authentication for OpCon Cloud is handled via OpCon’s implementation of identity management that mirrors the on-prem solution. We’ll also be adding a single sign-on (SSO) option in early 2023.
What security certifications are currently in place (e.g., SOC1, HITRUST, etc.)?
Microsoft Azure holds multiple compliances globally, which can be found here for reference. Additionally, we’ll be working on SOC2 certification for OpCon Cloud in early 2023.
How is audit tracking handled?
The log files for OpCon Cloud are the same ones that are available with an on-prem OpCon installation. These log files are accessible via shared storage that’s attached to the Kubernetes instance.
What sensitive data is stored within the OpCon application?
Any information you enter into the OpCon application will be stored there, such as job configuration and authentication information for distributed servers and applications. All entered data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Traditionally, PII data isn’t used for job setup or configuration, so it’s highly unlikely that any PII data exists in the OpCon Cloud application or database.
What SLAs are provided as part of this service?
You can find our SLAs here.
How is product support handled with OpCon Cloud?
Here are the steps you’d take to receive an instance of product support:
1. Follow the standard process for opening a case via the OpCon User Community.
2. Provide us with access to your OpCon instance log files, so we can help troubleshoot any failures or concerns.
3. Grant us access to your OpCon instance database, so we can run queries and troubleshoot any issues.
If OpCon Cloud infrastructure-level issues arise during this process, SMA’s support team will escalate your case to the OpCon Cloud team for further assistance.
How does SMA handle upgrades and enhancements for OpCon Cloud?
We use a canary-style upgrade path. That means we try a few upgrades and enhancements with a small population of clients first and then roll those out to the rest of our clients once those upgrades are deemed stable. Currently, we contact clients manually to discuss upgrades and then schedule a maintenance window. In the future, we plan to have set maintenance windows for all our clients. So, we’ll have established agreements with a few clients that always want to receive upgrades and enhancements first. Then, the rest of our clients will receive them during their defined maintenance window(s).
Will SMA upgrade agents? If so, how many?
Other than the Windows agent installed in the cloud, you’ll be responsible for completing any agent upgrades or installations. If you’d like, we can help you with these via a consulting engagement.