AMS Private Cloud
AMS Private Cloud
Arts Management Systems has a Private Cloud Network option to assist clients with hardware needs related to the Theatre Manager database and online sales.
Private Cloud Package provides the needs for:
- Database Servers with streaming replication for live backups
- Redundant TM Web Listeners
- Redundant high availability NGINX Servers
- Comprehensive backup strategy
- Dual SOC2 compliant server locations (Montreal and Vancouver)
Venue Responsibilities
When using the cloud, the venue is only responsible for providing workstations for the employee to use and sufficient internet bandwidth to access the data in the AMS cloud. Users can access their data from anywhere.
AMS Private Cloud Data Centres - Montreal/Vancouver
AMS Private Cloud Data Centres - Montreal/Vancouver
Each data centre consists of high availability servers with a lot of redundancy. This is where all new cloud setup will reside.
- PCI Compliance
- All AMS Cloud Customers are automatically set to Schedule 'C' compliance. This means cards are never stored in the database (ever). TM detects that they are on the private cloud and sets the value appropriately.
- In addition, you can specify which workstations can accept credit cards or you can set so that none can take credit cards.
- Refer to the PCI Scope Diagram for AMS Cloud which may indicate that
- Schedule 'B' or 'B-IP' could be possible if using POS pin-pad terminals, or
- Schedule 'A' is using Moneris hosted payment page.
- Montreal Estruxture.com
- The AMS Cloud facilities are private co-located machines in our own rack space located in a SOC2 data centre
- First few pages of SOC2 Compliance report
- Vancouver Terago.ca
- Is also SOC2 Certified
- Connecting to AMS Private Cloud uses the procedures outlined on this page.
Implementing AMS Cloud checklist
Implementing AMS Cloud checklist
The following indicates the general steps and/or requirements for implementing or migrating a client to the AMS cloud. It has some key provisions
Sales Cycle
| Item | Notes | Responsibility | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 |
Consult with client and make sure that they are aware of their options for how they want to implement PCI compliance in the database. Options are one or more of the items below:
|
Sales | |
| 1.2 |
Make sure that their internet is of sufficient speed and robustness to accommodate web sales.
|
Sales/Support | |
| 1.3 | Identify if the migration is also including an upgrade in the version of Theatre Manager and/or migration of web pages. This will affect estimates | Sales | |
| 1.4 |
TLS Certificates:
|
Sales/Support | |
| 1.5 | If migrating to the AMS Cloud from an existing client, identify the prospective date for conversion, with alternates. | Sales | |
| 1.6 |
The client will lose the ability to sell tickets or make changes to their database for a period of time. If an guesstimate is needed, it can be derived as follows:
|
Sales/Support |
Prior to Migration
| Item | Notes | Responsible |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 |
Create initial settings in AMS cloud Server Database. This involves:
|
Development |
| 2.2 |
Set up Web Sales
|
Development |
| 2.3 |
Setup main web server with routing/TLS
|
Support |
| 2.4 |
Setup Web Sales
|
Support |
Migration Days
| Item | Notes | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1 |
Initiate change of your external DNS record CNAME for tickets.myvenue.org to point to myvenue.hosted.artsman.com.
we will create the DNS record for myvenue.hosted.artsman.com |
Support |
| 3.2 |
Start the backup an migration process for the database
|
Support |
| 3.3 |
Load up the database
|
Development |
| 3.4 | Make sure that the database has a unique DB USER SUFFIX specified in system preferences. If building a training database, also make a unique one for it by clicking the 'test' database option. | Development |
| 3.5 |
Upgrade database to latest version - always done on our cloud computers.
This occurs automatically when Theatre Manager Server started on the Sites Web Sales VM |
Support/Development |
| 3.6 |
Make sure timezone is correct on the system preferences and then update all performances to make sure the performance date time is set correctly for the timezone. In PgAdmin, use:
set timezone 'xxxx'; Update F_PLAYBILL set PB_PERFORM_DATETIME = null returning PB_SEQ,PB_PERFORM_DATETIME |
Support/Development |
| 3.7 |
Test the AMS login procedures with the info that was saved in Daylite.
When it works internally:
|
Support |
| 3.8 |
Start and test web sales, including:
|
Support |
| 3.9 |
Test Client's email server settings by making sure you:
If the client uses Facility Management, make sure the scheduling email and pop/imap server work. |
Support |
| 3.10 | Test Reveal Setup - have one of the employees sign in and view their Reveal Dashboards and see that they can see/create graphs. | Support |
| 3.11 | If the client has built services that rely on the REST API for their main marketing site, make sure that they are working. | Support |
AMS Cloud Backup Strategy
AMS Cloud Backup Strategy
The following lists the backup strategy for private cloud databases in Montreal:
- ONSITE at Data Centre
- Streaming Replication: every database transaction is replicated on a 24x7 basis to second database server on another machine so that latest transaction is always on second sever. This serves as generally instant-on response in case of total failure of one machine.
- 2 Daily Snapshots: are made and put on 3rd machine. The purpose is to provide redundancy in case the two primary master/slave machines die at exactly the same time. This allows restoration of a database that is no more than 12 hours old - and 30 daily copies are kept of snapshot backups
- 24 Month End Backups: The backup process is designed to retain at least 2 years of monthly backups at the data centre
- OFFSITE at another location
- 7 Days of Offsite Backups: 7 days of daily snapshots are saved at an offsite FTP server in 'live mode' (i.e. 14 backups). This is in case there is a physical unforeseen act of god at the data centre (eg fire, insurrection, etc).
- Recyclable NAS Storage: The offsite backups are also saved to a separate NAS box and stored until the device runs out of space and older backups start to recycle. This provides typically months worth of offline backups that take a little longer to access
- ** periodically, the offsite backup cycle may get reset and the storage retention start again as they are not the primary backup
- Customer Backups at location of their choice
- Personal Backups: Each venue, per contract, can have a copy of the database sent to them daily by FTP, they just need to make and ftp site. The venue can specify how many days they want to keep and we’ll delete anything older -- The customer can pick that retention period
Comparison of Web Sales with other vendors
Comparison of Web Sales with other vendors
This page is intended to show comparisons with Theatre Manager ticketing site and other vendors. If you notice something about the site changes, please keep up to date -- its valuable sales intelligence.
| Competitor | Sample Site | Comments Quirks or Additional Features | |||||
| Arts Man | tickets.artsman.com |
|
|||||
| AudienceView | calshakes.org | ||||||
| Choice Tickets | $1.50 fee $2.00 academic fee |
Kingsbury Hall | |||||
| OvationTix | colonytheatre.org |
|
|||||
| Patron Manager | orlandoshakes.org | ||||||
| Showare | mtroyal.ca | ||||||
| Spektrix | bardonthebeach.org | ||||||
| Tessitura | strazcenter.org | ||||||
| TicketFly | redbuttegarden.org | ||||||
| TopTix | vancouverfringe.com |
|