Presentation of the system
HotelTime is a booking and operating system for accommodation facilities (mainly hotels) which was launched at the end of 2002 and at present the third version is available. The basic idea of the system development and marketing is to provide users with a modern and user friendly system mainly for:
- complete administration of the general agenda of hotels and pensions of any size
- more flexible tools for checking and management
- widening the possibility of hotel vacancies sales
Unlike most other systems HotelTime is clearly an Internet application and can be used from anywhere with an Internet connection and on any computer or appliance (including e.g. mobile phones iPhone etc.). This is a significant advantage for management (a total hotel information check from anywhere), resident and sales management (vacancies and sales can be viewed from anywhere, including exhibitions, from a customer's, from home) and also marketing itself including on-line sales from, not only your website but from other websites or on-line connection to booking systems such as e.g. Expedia.com/Hotels.com or Booking.com. The application can be managed from an unlimited number of places by any number of users through a standard web browser.
Thanks to the Internet there are no problems and no expenses such as your own hardware (server) in the building and maintenance by an IT employee, regular data back-up and data security, usually underestimated problems. The system of course contains a user's license and data encryption which guarantee that each user (reception, manager/owner etc.) only has access to the designated data and functions.
Technical Solution
Technically the system operates on the hardware infrastructure of HotelTime, there are no investments in hardware or other software such as purchasing a new computer (server) or upgrading your computer (server) performance or new operating systems, SQL servers etc. You only need a computer and Internet access. For a hotel, a standard Internet connection (e.g. a DSL line) is sufficient; an alternative source of connection is recommended (WiFi, phone line, GPRS) without monthly fees. HotelTime can be also used on Apple MAC computers or with appliances such as Apple iPhone, in clever phones with the Windows Mobile System.
The hardware infrastructure is located in the hosting centre of the company Casablanca at Vinohradská 184, Prague 3. HotelTime, a.s. has its own Dell servers (main database server with a configuration Dell PowerEdge R710 - 2xQuad Core Xeon E5530 2.4GHz, 8M Cache, 5.86 GT/s QPI, Turbo; 32GB RAM 1066MHz; 6x 450GB HDD SAS 15k rpm - RAID5; High Output Redundant Power Supply - 2 PSU - 870W). The server is managed by our own employees and personal access, except limited electronic access, is through chip card access, personal documents and a security key.
The hardware is multi secured (duplicate servers, alternative source of electricity including diesel generators, 24 hour security). The data is backed-up every 30 minutes and also transferred to alternative servers in another geographical locality. Operations can be restarted in some tens of minutes if there is a failure in the main building because of the alternative servers. Communication between the user and server is coded by SSL protocol which was bought by HotelTime from Thawte and is regularly updated.
