Derdack FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the delivery model of Enterprise Alert® (on-premise, SaaS or hosted service)?

Enterprise Alert is available as on-premise/private cloud software as well as on Microsoft Azure. This way it holds the best value for our primary customer group for various reasons: reliability, integration, security, performance.

If you are looking for a SaaS solution, we do have a brand-new (lightweight) alert notification solution – SIGNL4. Read more here

How is Enterprise Alert® licensed and what are my reoccurring costs?

For on-premise use, the license model is based on a perpetual license (no annual re-occurring fee except for support & maintenance).
For Microsoft Azure pricing is based on an hourly rate and per user. In general, pricing is determined based on the set of features
(product edition) and the number of users who receive and respond to alert notifications.

What's the major difference to other solutions?

Derdack’s Enterprise Alert is a highly flexible and powerful platform-like product. It realizes the automation of operational alerting in enterprise IT and OT (operational technology, like manufacturing assembly lines). The core idea is to fully automate the distribution of critical information. Unlike other solutions (e.g. Everbridge) which provide a web mask for manually assembling information and clicking a button to kick start the information distribution, Enterprise Alert fully automates the whole process based on codeless integration, distribution rules, HR scheduling and automated and dynamic information assembly, etc.

On top of automated alerting, Enterprise Alert provides a fully closed-loop approach by enabling anywhere responses and app-enabled remediation of incidents. This is unique in the entire industry.

In which verticals is Enterprise Alert® used and do you have reference customers?

Enterprise Alert is a horizontal solution and is used in manufacturing, utilities, retail, logistics, military, healthcare and many other verticals. For officially approved customer references, please click here.

Can I look at an evaluation license or demo environment?

We do offer both a free trial version for on-premise evaluations and an online demo environment. You can also try Enterprise Alert from the Azure Marketplace.

How do you integrate with 3rd party products?

Unlike many basic notification products which for instance use a POP3 mailbox to process critical events, Enterprise Alert integrates to 3rd party applications like IT monitoring or industry systems via specific 2-way, agentless(!) connectors. This leaves your existing infrastructure almost untouched and integration becomes plug&play.

It also makes integration much more powerful by enabling a more granular processing and filtering of information and the subsequent addressing of alerts. It also enables the feedback of notification workflow results into the event source, e.g. updating a status of an incident ticket if it was accepted by a user on a mobile phone. On top, Enterprise Alert provides a range of basic, open APIs like SOAP, XML file, SMTP, etc.

Which notification channels does your product support?

Enterprise Alert supports SMS text, instant messaging, email, voice with text-to-speech, fax, push and IP messaging. All communication channels are natively supported, i.e. Enterprise Alert directly connects to the communication endpoints. For instance, SMS texts can thus be directly sent into the GSM/3G network avoiding public gateway. All channels that are available out-of-the-box, can also be used in an escalation or broadcast way.

Which smartphones do your apps support?

We offer native apps for all 4 platforms in their most recent version: Android, iPhone, Windows Phone and Blackberry.

What are the technical prerequisites?

Enterprise Alert requires a Windows server operating system and a number of communication endpoints depending on the required alert notification channels. Voice for instances needs a SIP-enabled voice system and SMS text needs a public SMS gateway, GSM modem or direct SMSC connection.

The following section lists the minimum system requirements for installing and running Enterprise Alert®.

Software prerequisites:

  • Hardware/Operating System: Phys. or virt. Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher with 4GB RAM Microsoft SQL Server Database 2008 or higher
  • Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 or higher recommended. Compatible with Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Prerequisites for notifications & communications:

  • SMS text: GSM/GPRS modem via COM, USB or HTTP via Multitech Multimodem iSMS or direct SMSC or aggregator connectivity via SMPP or UCP protocol or Email2SMS services
  • Instant Messaging: Lync, OCS, LCS
  • Voice with Text-to-Speech: VoIP (SIP) and Lync. Works with VoIP PBX or public VoIP provider
  • Email: SMTP-enabled mail server
  • Smartphone: Windows Phone 7, iPhone, Blackberry (BES supported), Android
  • Fax: Compliant ISDN hardware or modem

Can Enterprise Alert® run in a virtualized environment?

Yes, absolutely. Most of our customers run it on virtual machines.

Does the product support high-availability scenarios?

Yes, Enterprise Alert supports a high-availability deployments and provides a variety of related features like server failover, communication channel backups, message queuing, persistent notifications and much more.

How long does it take to deploy the product?

Basic on-premise deployments take 2-4 hours, more sophisticated setups with multiple system and communication integration can take up to a couple of days.

Do you provide local support?

Derdack provides global support and deployments and serves customers in over 50 countries all over the world. Local support is provided through a network of integration partners, certified engineers and international 24×7 phone and online support.

Get Technical Support

Customers with support contracts, please contact us:

  • Email: support@derdack.com
  • Phone: +49 331 29878-20
  • Hours of Operation (Intl.): Mon – Fri, 09:00 a.m – 06:00 pm CET
  • Hours of Operation (US): Mon – Fri, 08:00 a.m – 05:00 p.m EST

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