Data Security: Questions car dealers should ask of their DMS provider

So, you are considering using a cloud hosted product or, already have one? You need ‘always on’ availability, without impairment of speed or compromise of security? Below, we will point out some key considerations and questions that you should be asking of your potential or current software supplier? Firstly, let’s consider:

Speed:  How fast is the service and does the provider have enough ‘head room’ to cope with busy periods and increased licences?

Reliability:  How reliable is the service, what is the guaranteed ‘uptime’ offered under the providers Service Level Agreement (SLA) and what is the contingency arrangement to deal with downtime?

Security:  How secure is the data center – is it just some keen amateurs working from their bedrooms?

So, the question becomes:

Where will my data be stored and what protection is in place to protect it?

When Dragon2000 used a smaller company to host its car sales software some years ago, over a 12 month period, we noted numerous denial of service attacks that slowed the service and, on occasion, caused the service to fail altogether.

We carefully researched the market place and offerings available and chose to move our operations to Rackspace, who are undeniably World leaders in Cloud hosting technologies. Having moved to Rackspace, over the following 12 months, our customers had no loss or interruption to services whatsoever.

• Dragon2000’s servers are hosted here in the UK, but backed up by the Rackspace global infrastructure
• All of our servers are protected by ‘latest technology’ 256 bit enterprise grade encryption as well as live data being constantly backed up, just in case!
• Rackspace’s SLA is unrivalled. They ensure that DragonDMS works for our customers, as it should, all of the time
• Rackspace directly employs 3000 plus Cloud engineers.
• Rackspace have over 300,000 business customers over 120+ countries
• Each data centre is accredited with PCI DSS, ISO27001 and ISAE 3402 Type II standards, ensuring that Dragon2000 applications are secured by the best processes and technologies available

An Important note about smaller hosting companies: Smaller cloud hosting companies seldom have their own datacentres, they simply rent space and bandwidth for their services within other companies data centres and either rely on 3^rd parties to operate their services or ‘self -maintain’ them. Therefore when something breaks or goes wrong, someone has to physically visit and fix whatever is wrong. Of course, all of this has a rather dramatic effect on the up-time of your garage software.

As with most things in life, not all software companies are the same and certainly, not all cloud hosted dealer management systems are the same.

Dragon2000 have been helping dealers and garages drive their businesses forward since 1995. Talk to our team today on 01327 222 333 or email sales@dragon2000.co.uk to find out how our dealer management system, car dealer websites and mobile apps can help your business increase profits and reduce costs.