What happens to your ERP when the internet goes down? A South African business guide

QuickEasy BOS eases the admin burden. (Image: QuickEasy Software)

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As a South African business owner, it is highly likely you already use the cloud for at least one service (like e-mail, storage or ERP). If you run your ERP in the cloud, it follows that you need an internet connection to access it. So when your fibre goes down, as happens from time to time in South Africa, it can be pretty disruptive. Which leads us to the all-important question: what happens to your ERP system when the internet is down? 

For a South African manufacturer, engineering company, printer, packaging business or other operational SME, your ERP system is where all your stock, purchasing, production, sales, finance and customer data sits. If that goes down, how do you work?

At QuickEasy BOS cloud-based ERP for manufacturers, we get it. The risk of business interruption is real. The important thing is to understand where the risk sits, what happens during an outage, and how you should prepare for it.

• QuickEasy BOS can be hosted in the cloud on Amazon Web Services in Cape Town.
• Your internet connection is simply how you reach the system. So if your fibre goes down, QuickEasy BOS will still be running normally in the cloud.
• If that happens, your team may lose access for a while, but your ERP has not necessarily gone down.
• Your data does not disappear if your internet connection drops.
• Cloud and local hosting work differently. Cloud hosting relies more on internet access, while local hosting relies more on the server and IT set-up at your own premises.
• QuickEasy BOS supports both options. The right choice comes down to what works best for your business, your sites and how reliable your connectivity is.

Skip ahead: Show me QuickEasy cloud-based ERP.

ERP, or enterprise resource planning software, brings the main parts of your business into one system.

With QuickEasy BOS, you get accounting, inventory, procurement, production planning, CRM, sales and live dashboards and reporting all included, all in one system. So, instead of different departments all working in isolation from one another on separate spreadsheets or disconnected systems, everything (and everyone) is brought together in one safe, secure, unified environment.

You can store that information in two ways: on a physical computer or server at your office, or in the cloud. When you choose the cloud-hosted version of QuickEasy BOS, QuickEasy hosts the BOS environment remotely, and your users use a password to connect to it securely from wherever they are in the world.

That works really well for companies with staff or teams who work remotely or in different locations. Your accounts team may sit at head office while production happens at another site. Your warehouse team may need access to the same stock information your buyers and sales staff use. Management may also need BOS away from the office. The trade-off is straightforward. If BOS is hosted in the cloud, your users need connectivity to reach it.

Related: Use Business Software? Here’s How to Keep Your Data Safe

So, this is often where things get a little muddled. Your business uses the internet. Your business system is hosted in the cloud. So which internet are we talking about here? Well, they are two different things.

• With QuickEasy BOS cloud hosting, your ERP runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Africa.
• Your company's fibre (like Vumatel, Frogfoot or Octotel) or internet service provider (like Webafrica, Afrihost or Vox) is how your team gets onto the internet in general.

So, if your local ISP has an outage, QuickEasy BOS doesn't automatically go down with it. It is still running normally on AWS even if your office, factory or warehouse has no internet connection. A staff member at another location with a working internet connection will still be able to access your BOS ERP.

In cases like this, a backup connectivity option is often useful. If your cloud-based ERP is available but your main fibre connection has failed, you can switch to your mobile data or a different internet connection to access your system.

Internet disruptions are a semi-regular thing for business owners in South Africa, and there are several reasons why they do.

• A local fibre route can fail.
• An ISP can experience a network problem.
• Wider infrastructure can also be affected by cable faults, cable theft, power failures, cyber attacks or problems further upstream.

Short answer: very. For a deeper dive, we’ll get a little technical, but hopefully you’ll see how stable your business operating system in the cloud is. QuickEasy BOS cloud hosting runs on Amazon EC2 in the AWS Africa (Cape Town) region. AWS operates the underlying data centre and cloud infrastructure, while QuickEasy manages the QuickEasy BOS environment hosted on it. Amazon’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) is 99.5% monthly uptime. That means your ERP will be online, available and secure for you to use over 99% of the year.

The risk of business interruption is real. (Image: QuickEasy Software)

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Consider this when you weigh up the risk of cloud ERP against keeping your own server at your factory or office. Cloud infrastructure can still experience faults, but you’re no longer relying on a physical ERP server sitting in your own premises, with your team responsible for its hardware, power, maintenance, security and recovery.

Nothing happens to QuickEasy BOS. But, if the internet connection at your premises fails, people using that connection may lose access to QuickEasy BOS until the service returns or they connect another way. The hosted BOS environment is still running normally. That means your admin and office staff can either use a different way to connect, like mobile data, or go to a place where the internet is working – like a coffee shop.

The good news for dispersed teams is, if one factory or office loses connectivity, another site with a separate working connection will still be able to access the same hosted BOS environment. Before someone reports that "BOS is down", you can establish whether the problem sits with QuickEasy, the cloud, your local network or your internet provider.

A local server is a perfectly good choice. Does it remove risk? No. It just changes the risks you need to manage.

If QuickEasy BOS runs on a server at your premises, users on your local network are less dependent on the internet to access it. That can be useful in a location where connectivity is genuinely unreliable. Your business then takes responsibility for more of the infrastructure behind the ERP.

• The physical server needs to be maintained.
• You need appropriate backups and recovery processes.
• Theft and physical damage to the server are real risks.
• The server and network need reliable power.
• Outdated software leaves open doors for exploitation.
• Weak server passwords and poor login rules make your system vulnerable to attackers.
• Hardware failures also become your problem to resolve.

With cloud-hosted QuickEasy BOS, the main ERP server sits away from your premises.

• A computer or server failure inside your office won’t bring your company to a standstill.
• Regular software updates, backups and robust security are part of the deal.
• Your business carries less responsibility for maintaining the main ERP server itself.

So, neither set-up makes every risk disappear. The better choice depends on your premises, your connectivity, your internal IT capability, how many locations need access and how your business uses BOS each day.

That is also why QuickEasy supports both cloud and local hosting.

Losing your local internet connection does not mean you have lost the data stored in your cloud-hosted ERP. Your connection gives you access to the hosted BOS environment. The data itself does not travel away simply because your fibre line stops working.

There is, however, a practical point your users should know. If someone loses their connection while they are in the middle of processing something in BOS, check the transaction when connectivity returns. Confirm whether it completed before you capture it again. That simple habit can prevent duplicate work or uncertainty after an outage.

For QuickEasy cloud-based ERP, QuickEasy BOS also maintains backup and recovery provisions for the hosted environment. Those protect against a different type of risk from a local fibre outage, but both belong in the wider continuity picture.

If you want to modernise your business operations to improve efficiency and profitability, then the best start is to bring your business into a single-system environment like QuickEasy. The results will be almost immediate. The question of where you store that data – on a server at your office or in the cloud – depends on how your company actually operates.

If you have reliable business connectivity, need access from different locations and would prefer not to maintain your own ERP server infrastructure, cloud-hosted QuickEasy BOS can make a lot of sense. If you operate from a site with poor connectivity and limited backup options, locally hosted BOS may deserve a closer look. There are also businesses that sit somewhere between those two ends. That is why QuickEasy would rather understand your operation before telling you which route to take.

Speak to the experts. Tell QuickEasy about your business, your goals, your needs and how you operate. The company can show you how QuickEasy BOS will ease the admin burden across accounting, stock, purchasing, production, sales and the rest of your operation, then help you decide which hosting set-up suits your business.

If you are looking for one ERP that can support the way your company actually works, talk to QuickEasy and book a BOS demo.

Losing your local internet connection does not mean you have lost the data stored in your cloud-hosted ERP. (Image: QuickEasy Software)

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