Looking to increase the capacity and performance of your OpenTextTM RightFaxTM server? Is your organization growing and looking to increase the number of fax servers it deploys? Is redundancy and data integrity important to you? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then the RightFax Shared Services Module can help you achieve your goals. This module is crucial for organizations where faxing is a critical component of their communication with customers, partners, internal offices, etc.
What is the RightFax Shared Services Module?
The RightFax Shared Services Module connects multiple RightFax servers and allows them to share the same database and images. Known as a shared services environment, this architecture allows for:
- Increased workload: processing capacity can be spread out across multiple servers, which greatly affects server performance.
- Redundancy and availability: if one server goes down, other servers can step in to take over sending and receiving documents, ensuring your server is always running.
- Scalability: servers can easily be added to the database, meaning growing organizations can scale their fax solution as their needs and volume grow with ease.
How the Module is Structured
There are three major tiers of shared services environments:
- Application tier: anywhere from two to 12 RightFax servers can be added. This tier is responsible for rendering cover sheets, native document conversion, notifications and many other tasks. This tier is also where the client and remote services connect.
- Data tier: all servers in shared services environments share data, which is stored in the same database. The data is broken into three categories. The first is stored in the Microsoft SQL Server, the database of RightFax servers, and contains user profile data, fax history, etc. The second is stored on a shared network storage device, which contains the fax images. The third is stored on the Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ), which is used for job tasking throughout the system.
- Telephony tier: the DocTransport service that is connected to phone circuits and used by RightFax to send and receive faxes. These can be either local or remote and may have physical fax boards or use virtual fax boards (i.e. software).
Is the RightFax Shared Services Module Right for Your Organization?
This module is right for your organization if:
- You cannot afford fax server downtime
- You operate under strict compliance laws (HIPAA, SOX, etc.)
- Disaster recovery is important
- Your fax servers have heavy peak times throughout the day
- You are experiencing or expecting heavy growth and/or fax demand
- Your organization cannot function when fax servers are down