Openbravo On Demand FAQ
 | This document refers to a service that has been discontinued. Please check the Openbravo Cloud service |
What is Openbravo On Demand?
Openbravo On Demand is a partner exclusive deployment option available for both Enterprise and Professional editions that allows Openbravo partners to offer a yearly subscription to the Openbravo Commerce Platform and Openbravo ERP Platform as a service, with monthly billing based on named users and POS terminals.
Customers are registered with the Openbravo On Demand platform, which then automatically provisions a dedicated, professionally managed Openbravo instance in the cloud on a virtual server. Customers are billed monthly for their usage, based on the number of named users (and number of POS terminals, in the case of the Openbravo Commerce Platform) that are active in the system during the monthly billing cycle.
Click here for a comparison of all Openbravo deployment options.
What does a customer get exactly with Openbravo On Demand?
Openbravo On Demand is a full service web-based solution, which includes:
- A dedicated, preconfigured instance running on a virtual server in the cloud
- An elastic architecture that transparently scales the system capacity based on monitoring of usage
- A Commerce Platform or ERP Platform subscription activation key (depending on which product is chosen) that is automatically installed when the instance is provisioned
- Secure HTTPS connection to the On Demand Platform and Openbravo instance
- On line system backup
- Technology stack updates
- Access to the server
- Second level support of the partner by Openbravo:
- Enterprise Edition SLAs (response time in hours) for system availability issues (the system is down and not accessible)
- Standard Edition SLAs (response time in business days) for the rest of issues
What is the Openbravo Commerce Platform and how does it relate to Openbravo on Demand?
The Openbravo Commerce Platform is a complete and modular multichannel retail solution that takes the cost and complexity out of retail operations, from the back office to the point of sale. Openbravo on Demand provides an extremely compelling deployment option for retailers with these common requirements and challenges:
- Highly distributed scenarios, e.g. multiple stores and mobile requirements
- Easy to integrate Web POS with existing back office through a single, secure web services based integration point in the cloud
- Seasonality aspects, along with the typical retail HR challenges (many part time employees or peak times require ability to cost-effectively scale up or down on demand)
- Quick up-and-running for new store openings, due to back office being implemented as a managed cloud service
- IT staff reduction or time invested in higher value activities
- Big Data influence, being able to access to more powerful servers offering higher analytics capabilities at a lower cost
Who provides the hosting behind Openbravo On Demand?
We have partnered with Stratus5 to deliver the Openbravo On Demand service. Stratus5 uses OVH & Hetzner for hosting (Specific hosting behing the service may change if required for service quality reasons).
What is the price for Openbravo On Demand?
Openbravo On Demand is priced according to its corresponding edition, either Enterprise or Professional Edition. Additional users, terminals and modules can be subscribed. See here for a description of its price for the Commerce Suite and here for the Business Suite.
What are the accepted payment methods for Openbravo On Demand?
Openbravo On Demand must be paid by credit card. Platform currently accepts Master Card, Visa and American Express. PayPal support is coming soon--it is technically supported by the platform, but is awaiting approval as a SaaS product by PayPal.
How to buy Openbravo On Demand?
Ask one of the Partners in your region or let us help you to match your needs with the most appropriate partner by filling the Customer Contact Form.
Billing is based on active named users. How are they measured exactly?
Billing takes place monthly on the customer registration date (which is the billing date) and customers are billed for usage of the system in the subsequent month based on the number of users and POS terminals active in the system on the billing date
- For example (in €, base fee of 295€, additional users at 59€): - March 10 - new customer - March billing: 295€ - March 25 - 10 users created in Openbravo - April 10 - April billing: 885€ (base fee + 10 users)
Openbravo usage parameters are re-calculated daily and are available in the On Demand Home Page.
Note that the Openbravo on Demand platform provider makes an invoice available for electronic download via the Openbravo On Demand platform.
What is an active named user?
An active user is a user with valid access credentials to the system. They are counted as active regardless of whether they actually log into the system. Named users are counted across all Clients Openbravo instance has. A given named user id is only allowed one active session at a time, preventing use of the same user id by more than one person at the same time. Newly provisioned Openbravo On Demand instance comes with one active named user - standard Openbavo user.
What is an active POS terminal ?
An active POS terminal is a terminal registered in the Openbravo (POS Terminal window). Each POS terminal is counted as active regardless of whether it is used during the month or not. POS terminals are counted across all Clients an Openbravo instance may have. Newly provisioned Openbravo On Demand instances come with zero active POS terminals.
Note that a given POS terminal is only allowed one active session at a time, because one terminal is one physical device. A terminal cannot be shared across physical devices; however, each physical device can be shared across users, with multiple simultaneous user sessions fully supported.
Is there a minimum contract duration commitment?
Yes, one year. Openbravo On Demand is a yearly subscription with monthly billing.
Is there a maximum number of users / POS terminals with Openbravo On Demand?
No, customers can have as many users and terminals as they want. The elastic architecture allows to scale to significant numbers.
Can I access the server to web services with Openbravo On Demand? Is there a fee for that?
Yes, web service access is enabled for Openbravo On Demand. In case of Enterprise edition you have unlimited web service access included. In case of Professional edition it includes 500 web services call per day and you can buy additional web services calls
Are there any additional limitations of Openbravo On Demand usage?
Openbravo On Demand service fee includes 3GB of disk space (AWS EBS) per each named user. It is more than enough to cover most of the cases. Similar to the above usage of the additional disk space is a question of the additional charges.
Does Openbravo on Demand include support for Development and Testing environments?
Each Openbravo On Demand environment must be provisioned and paid for separately, regardless of purpose (development, testing, production). Of course for test and development, you would normally maintain a much smaller number of active named users.
Development and testing environments can also be deployed and maintained on another platform (out of On Demand). In this case off-platform usage limitations apply.
If production instance is using On Demand platform it is recommended to have testing instance also hosted there. Development instance is normally outside of On Demand because it usually runs on the local developer machine.
Openbravo on Demand Roadmap contains Feature Request to automate creation of testing clones from production environment and with a possible special pricing for it.
Can we use our On Demand activation key in "off platform" development/testing environments?
Yes, any Openbravo On Demand activation key can also be used "off platform" for development and test purposes only, with limitations noted here. This allows the option to limit use of Openbravo on Demand for production only (to take advantage of the professionally managed IT services like off site backups, elastic hardware. etc.), while leveraging the same Openbravo Edition license on your own hardware for less critical development and testing--at no extra cost.
Can I install additional modules with Openbravo On Demand?
Yes. Openbravo On Demand provides each customer with a dedicated Openbravo instance and they can install there any module they want, including commercial modules.
How do I purchase commercial modules for Openbravo On Demand?
At the moment, the purchase of commercial modules remains separate from the On Demand subscription, and can be done contacting your Openbravo partner as it is normally done with a standard deployment. In the future, we plan to enable the acquisition of modules directly from the On Demand platform.
Can I customize an Openbravo On Demand instance?
Yes. Openbravo On Demand provides each customer with a dedicated Openbravo instance and they can customize it as they customize any Openbravo Commerce Platform or Openbravo ERP Platform instance. As a reminder, we recommend to always implement custom requirements as modular extensions and never as core code customizations.
What if the Openbravo partner I started with does not work out for me, can I transfer the Openbravo on Demand service to another partner?
Yes, while this scenario is rare, it can happen--you may change the partner who is providing your implementation and first level support services.
Where are the Openbravo On Demand servers located?
For the customers that pay in EUR (European customers) Openbravo instances are provisioned with the hosting service from Hetzner. For the rest of the clients the hosting service from OVH is used (Both is subject to change if required for service quality reasons).
How do backup and recovery work?
Nightly functional backups are taking for all Openbravo On Demand instances. There is no service interruption during backup procedure. Backups are kept for one month. The backup system used is the one also included in the Openbravo Appliance.
Self-service restoration is possible for the most recent 7 nightly backups as documented here.
Older backup files up to one month can be requested via Support.
How much downtime is scheduled for system maintenance, and how are customers notified of schedule downtime?
From the Openbravo On Demand Terms of Service:
1. Service availability levels
a) Service Availability: We endeavour to provide 24/7 on demand service. We will try to avoid scheduling downtime during normal work hours or peak usage hours for the Service.
b) Service Reliability: We guarantee 99.9% uptime of the Service Platform on a yearly basis, except scheduled outages and force majeure. Scheduled outages will be below 4 hours per month, not to exceed six (6) events/month. We will provide at least 48 hours notice of any scheduled outages
c) Service Maintainability: Unscheduled outages will be resolved with 6 hours from the notification of any outage, unless otherwise notified to Customers, in particular in the event of force majeure.
Is Openbravo On Demand a "SaaS" solution?
It depends on how you define SaaS, but our position is that it is not, at least not a "pure play" SaaS offering. A loose definition of software as a service is a business model where there is a symbiotic relationship between the software provider and the customer, wherein the more the customer uses the software the higher the benefit for the provider. According to this definition, the Openbravo Commerce Platform and the Openbravo ERP Platform, with its subscription pricing, is a SaaS solution, regardless of the deployment option.
A stricter definition of software as a service is a software solution that limits access to the technical architecture, with updates pushed automatically to the customer. Openbravo Enterprise or Professional Edition, even in the On Demand deployment mode, always provide full control over software updates and upgrades, as well as full access to the server and the database for deployment, configuration and troubleshooting. In this sense, Openbravo On Demand is not a SaaS solution.
We consider Openbravo on Demand to be a "hybrid" SaaS model that introduces the best elements of software as a service, without leaving behind the strategic benefits of the traditional on premise model. The software is made available on a "pay as you go" basis, but each customer gets their own instance that they can configure as required--and subsequently extend, adapt, and update based on business needs. Additionally, Openbravo allows an Openbravo on Demand instance to be migrated to another (cloud or on premise) deployment option, transparently to the end users--a freedom not offered by SaaS-only providers.
Is it possible to move a customer instance from Openbravo On Demand to a different hosting system?
Yes. In keeping with our long standing tradition of no-vendor lock in, we allow Openbravo On Demand customers to move to a different hosting provider at any time. With a full access to the system through SSH, customer instances can be moved to any other server at any point in time. If the customer wishes to continue using an Openbravo Enterprise or a Professional Edition, it will need to acquire a new subscription license to operate the system based on concurrent users.
Where can I find additional information?
Openbravo On Demand documentation set is available in Openbravo wiki.