Grace Information Management offer an outsource solution to organisations who want to take advantage of the benefits of an EDMS solution without having to purchase highly specialised hardware and software.

As part of this service Grace will convert business records and files to digital images, create multiple index values under which document images can be searched, viewed, printed, faxed and emailed while auditing the processes to ensure 100% of the records have been captured into the system. Images are written to a SAN Storage solution to enable sub-second image viewing while a second copy is written to Magnetic Optical Disk as a permanent disaster recovery and archival quality backup.

Reports are produced to highlight records that have not been sent for image capture ensuring the business process is one of continual improvement.

The ASP solution is deployed using the customer's existing IT infrastructure and does not require any additional investment to support the solution.

The ASP solution is provided for one simple monthly fee while the cost of image capture is calculated on the number of documents scanned.

The vast majority of ASP solutions are deployed using Citrix N-FUSE software. This unique concept allows a user to establish a connection to Grace then launch and run the ASP solution.

The ASP solution consists of a number of load balanced Citrix servers to ensure users connecting to the solution gain maximum performance. Servers are configured with four processors, dual power supplies and the maximum configuration of RAM. The database for all of the index values of imaged files is Microsoft SQL while the operating system is Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional.

Image files are stored on a LSI Logic SAN solution, which is scalable to 18 terabytes. This rapid response storage facility in combination with Citrix software ensures a sub-second response time to view an image of a document whether the document is a single page file or consists of hundreds of pages.

The ASP solution employs an AIT-2 intelligent tape library to backup both the image and database files.

Citrix N-FUSE allows the image to be viewed on the user’s workstation without moving the image file across the network. The benefits of this approach are many but the primary implication is the ability to integrate Grace’s solution over the client’s existing network at no additional expense and without affecting the performance of the existing business applications that run on the network.

Workflow software can be introduced to speed up the process of distribution of images through a "human network" of processors. In the same way paperwork is processed by one operator and then passed to the next operator, workflow can distribute the one document image to several people simultaneously or as part of a controlled hierarchical approval process.