Numerex Corp. [Nasdaq: NMRX], a single-source provider of secure wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions, today announced the availability of the first Open Platform as a Service aimed at the M2M market. The platform utilizes virtualization of hardware resources and unlimited system scalability, which is a model often referred to as “cloud computing.” A central element to this architecture, Numerex FAST™ (Foundation Application Software Technology), is delivered as a web-service and sold as a hosted service, and exploits the benefits of cloud computing and large scale, relational database technology to solve technical and cost barriers to deployment of advanced device management and smart services.
Numerex’s open platform, along with other similar cloud computing initiatives in other industries, modifies the traditional business model. The upfront investment by M2M customers will be considerably reduced, since costly servers and related services do not need to be purchased. The Numerex open platform transforms what was once a fixed capital expenditure to a variable operational expense. With a lower total cost of ownership and less risk, the M2M customer can concentrate on genuine innovation.
Beyond direct financial benefits, Numerex believes its new platform provides tangible technical advantages. An M2M innovator no longer must be concerned about building systems that can meet peak demand periodically, while keeping them underutilized most of the time. Numerex’s web-based management, with alerting mechanisms, allows rapid and effective response to peak requirements in real-time. At the same time, business continuity and disaster recovery issues are now in the hands of ISO 27001 (information security)-certified Numerex, which maintains fully redundant systems.
Openness is at the core of Numerex’s Open Platform as a Service, which rests on the flexibility, adaptability and interoperability of Service Oriented Architecture. Numerex provides scalable Linux-based hosting with the pre-installed applications, ranging from development to fully-developed production-quality virtual servers. In addition, Numerex FAST is built on top of the leading open source database server, mySQL. Also, the Numerex GPS tracking application was built with Ruby on Rails, which is itself an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language. All Numerex FAST customers get full access to the Rails source code to make any necessary modifications.
