Here at Kobas we understand our responsibility to provide rock-solid in-venue EPoS and Cloud-based hospitality business management platforms. This document is a statement of the Kobas business continuity and disaster recovery plan. It covers both aspects of the Kobas platform: your venues, and your Cloud service.
In the event of any disaster situation, the best point of contact is to email us at support@kobas.co.uk. Our email helpdesk relies on Microsoft’s Office 365 and Amazon’s AWS platforms. If you suspect either of these is unavailable due to such an outage being reported in the press, please try to contact us using any of our social media or telephone numbers on our Contact Us page.
Kobas in your venue
While we appreciate that Kobas is crucial for your venue’s trading operation, all parties should be aware that it requires a stable power supply, a stable Local Area Network (LAN), and a clean and dry environment in which to function.
Kobas EPoS relies on a client-server architecture. It does not need a working internet connection in order to perform basic trade functions, though an internet connection is required for remote assistance, software updates, end of trade reconciliation and some loyalty functions.
In most circumstances it is recommended that dedicated server hardware or a server-till is located in a quiet, secure, climate-controlled part of the building. In small venues where there is only a single fixed till, it is recommended to use the till as both the server and the client to reduce points of failure. It is recommended that all Kobas devices, and all network infrastructure, is protected by Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS).
It is recommended that at least one client till per venue is of a specification strong enough for it to act as a server and client in the event of the dedicated server failing.
In the unlikely event of system failure, the venue staff should ensure all equipment is on, that all network apparatus is functioning correctly, and that all cables are securely in place. If problems persist, our support team should be emailed at support@kobas.co.uk. This is always the fastest way to obtain a response in an emergency, as messages are automatically relayed via smartphone push to nominated support staff.
Kobas venue servers are either high-performance EPoS units with dual disks, or dedicated computers specified to be industry standard, server grade machines from reputable manufacturers. To date we have only shipped Dell PowerEdge servers specified with dual hard disk drives in RAID 1 formation for ultimate data protection and integrity. Servers with more drives for further redundancy, redundant memory and redundant power supplies can be arranged if requested.
Kobas venue dedicated servers are monitored using a combination of CentOS standard monitoring software, and our own application specific tools.
Where there is no space for a dedicated server, or the reassurance of a server grade machine is not required by a client, a server/till combination model is available. This will also feature dual hard disk drives in RAID 1 formation for data protection and integrity, and will still benefit from the same hardware and application monitoring.
In the unlikely event of our support team being unable to rectify any issues remotely, and the diagnosis being total server failure, our procedure is to nominate another till to become the server until the original unit is replaced. This is a process that can usually be completed remotely within an hour. Kobas recommends that the nominated till is in the quietest location within the venue. Where this is not possible, the last resort is to fall back to pen and paper until we can have an engineer on-site with replacement hardware.
For more information about how we protect your data within your venue, please see our Service Level Agreement clause about backups.
Kobas Cloud
Kobas Cloud runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the eu-west-1 (Ireland) and eu-west-2 (London) regions. We’re in good company. AWS is of course ISO 27001 compliant. Kobas Cloud uses AWS automated data backup, web application firewall, vulnerability management, DDoS protection and intelligent threat detection features. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Multiple availability zone failover is in use for both database and compute services.
Recovery Objectives (RPO / RTO)
Kobas Cloud and EPoS have a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 24 hours, and a Recovery Time Objective of 24 hours. This means that in the event of a disaster no more than 24 hours of data should be lost, and that data backup should be restored and available within 24 hours of us becoming aware of the nature of the disaster event.
For further information about our commitment to business continuity, please see our general Service Level Agreement.
Thank you for using Kobas.