Track Forever GPS Tracking Control Center Specification

Transcription

1 Track Forever GPS Tracking Control Center Specification Invincible People, Invincible Technologies & Invincible Solutions We develop solutions that reach beyond physical boundaries using state of the art internet, intranet, GSM, GIS, GPS and related technologies. 1

2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction Purpose Scope GPS Tracking, Fleet Management and Control Center GPS Tracking Fleet Management Control Center Core Functions Datacenter Considerations Minimal Datacenter Setup Recommended Datacenter Setup Hardware/Software Requirements Track Forever Enterprise Software Major Components of Track Forever Enterprise Software Track Forever Enterprise Server Track Forever Enterprise Administrator Track Forever Enterprise Website Track Forever Enterprise Client Track Forever Enterprise Core Database Track Forever Enterprise Web History Database Track Forever Enterprise Archive History Database Shared Vs Dedicated Control Center Tracking Device Independent Software Conclusion

3 1. Introduction This document explains how to setup a vehicle tracking control center in general. This will also explain hardware and software requirements to get started. Later in this document you ll find details how this can be achieved using Track Forever Asset Tracking Software Suite from INVINCIBLE TECHNOLOGIES (SMC-PVT) LTD Purpose The purpose of this document is to help companies understand: Core operations of vehicle tracking business and how these can be addressed using a right software and hardware? How to Setup Vehicle Tracking Control Center & Datacenter? Hardware and software requirements for the minimal or recommended Setup. What are the benefits and consequences of a shared and dedicated control center? How Track Forever Enterprise Asset Tracking Software helps? GSM/GPS tracking device selection and the importance of device independence on software side Scope This document addresses following areas: It focuses companies interested in GPS Vehicle Tracking or Fleet Management setup or services. It is intended for the decision makers to help them understand basic vehicle tracking operational requirements to get started. 2. GPS Tracking, Fleet Management and Control Center In this section we ll briefly explain GPS tracking, fleet management and its core functions and in later sections we ll expand it to the more concrete forms of operations, practices and deployment scenarios GPS Tracking When we speak of GPS tracking it means GPS location reporting of an asset (like vehicle) through some communication channel like GSM/GPRS. It is very easy to track couple of vehicles carrying GPS tracking devices (or GPS trackers) on a mobile phone but if you need to track more than five, fifty or thousands of vehicles and also distribute responsibility to respective people and generate different reports then this can t be done in simple way. You need a fleet management solution Fleet Management It is a GPS information management system that helps in monitoring moveable or immovable assets (like vehicle, ships, person etc) to carry on a business process smoothly. 3

4 Radio technologies have changed the way fleet management is done these days. If you want to keep pace with the modern world of logistics then you must learn and adopt automated ways of doing fleet management using GPS and GSM technologies. You can save a valuable share of your earnings on account of un-authorized trips, un-justified fuel costs and maintenance expense. A comprehensive fleet management solution will help you not only track real time location of your vehicles but will also produce useful reports that might have not been possible otherwise Control Center In order to track a number of vehicles you need some mechanism to automatically track vehicles, process alerts and generate variety of reports and that can only be achieved through some highly accurate and efficient system consisting of hardware, software and right people as together they all make a vehicle tracking control center. The more efficient is your control center the more productive you are Core Functions Normally, every vehicle tracking control center should be able to perform following core functions smoothly to offer their customers a high end service experience. Customers and their vehicles record keeping Data organization in groups and branches Ability to manage user logins by their roles and restrict them to their work User logs management for later auditing Security mechanism to strongly resist any breach effort Vehicle configuration and managing problematic vehicles Vehicle zones management and geo-fence reporting Automatic alerts reporting and alerts history keeping Ability to communicate with vehicles either through SMS or GPRS Mechanism to visualize the SMS and GPRS traffic load on the system GSM operators and their SIMs management GPS coordinates storing and mechanism to continuously upgrade Ability to visualize GPS locations over Map Customer complaints management system Website for customers to login and see their vehicles location or status Database backup and recovery support in system This list may be incomplete but gives a comprehensive overview of the functions of a Vehicle Tracking Control Center so that you realize whether your software and hardware enables you to perform above functions. 4

5 3. Datacenter Considerations The datacenter is at the core of running GSM/GPS vehicle tracking service. From vehicle tracking perspective, it is a network of computers and devices linked together to perform automated GPS tracking. The more comprehensive datacenter you have the more productive you can be. We ve divided this section into 2 parts. First part explains the minimal operational setup required to start vehicle tracking service while the second part explains the recommended setup to start with confidence. However, you can start with minimal and expand later as per requirement and business growth Minimal Datacenter Setup The minimal datacenter setup requires at least 4 server machines. Normally we do not recommend maintaining all of the data including history on the single machine rather we distribute it to a separate machine and take offline backups of both the core database and the history database. Refer to following diagram for further discussion. 5

6 In minimal datacenter configuration you will require following components: Track Forever Enterprise Server Track Forever Enterprise Web Map Client Track Forever Enterprise DB Track Forever History DB Track Forever Enterprise Administrator Track Forever Enterprise Client In this mode periodical database backups are scheduled and are stored on separate machine or on a hard drive. You may also add up backup servers and replicate data for high data availability Recommended Datacenter Setup This is more comprehensive and the recommended configuration for the vehicle tracking datacenter. Please refer to the following diagram for further discussion. 6

7 In this configuration you will require following components: Track Forever Enterprise Server Track Forever Enterprise Web Map Client Map Publishing Server Track Forever Enterprise DB Track Forever Enterprise Web DB Track Forever History DB Core Database Backup Server (Optional) Web History Database Backup Server (Optional) Archive History Database Backup Server (Optional) Track Forever Enterprise Administrator Track Forever Enterprise Client Different database backup strategies can be applied in this configuration, you may replicate your data on optional backup servers or you may still want to take periodical backups on separate machine. 4. Hardware/Software Requirements This section will elaborate hardware required for the establishment of a vehicle tracking control center. Please refer to the following table: Sr. No Application Hardware Minimal Recommended 1 Track Forever Enterprise Server (Application Server) Server Scale Machine With 2GB RAM, 800 FSB, 2 x 1Gbps Ethernet Interface, 2 Serial Ports, Hardware based Raid Controller Equipped with 4 Hard Drives. 2 Track Forever Website (Web Server) Server Scale Machine With 2GB RAM, 800 FSB, 2 x 1Gbps Ethernet Interface, 2 Serial Ports, Hardware based Raid Controller Equipped with 4 Hard Drives. 3 Map Publishing Server (Map Server) with 4 Hard Drives. 4 Track Forever Enterprise DB Server (Core Database Server) with 4 High Speed Hard Drives. 6 Track Forever Web History DB Server (Web Database Server) with 4 High Speed Hard Drives. 7

8 7 Track Forever Archive DB Server (Archive Database Server) with 4 High Speed Hard Drives. 8 Enterprise DB Backup Server with 4 High Speed Hard Drives. Optional 9 Web History DB Backup Server with 4 High Speed Hard Drives. Optional Sr. No Application Hardware Minimal Recommended 10 Archive History Backup Server with 4 High Speed Hard Drives. Optional 11 High Speed Ethernet LAN 16 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch 12 GSM communication 2 Serial Port GSM/GPRS Modems With Kbps speed. (Wavecom) 13 Internet Connection For Application and Web Servers 2 DSL connections with 1Mbps 2Mbps speed. 14 Static IP for Application and Web Servers At least 2 static IPs for Application Server and the Web Server 15 CSR, TECH, GIS and other Staff workstations At least 8 workstation PCs (Laptops are recommended to save power and UPS cost) Note that above table is not absolute and final but should be used for reference only. An intelligent network infrastructure may reduce this cost. You may also consider server virtualization. Machines specification can vary keeping in view the number of vehicles and the traffic loads. It is possible to replace server machines with high end workstation machines running Windows and or Linux servers where possible to reduce cost. 8

9 5. Track Forever Enterprise Software Track Forever Enterprise Vehicle Tracking Software is a GSM/GPRS and GPS based vehicle tracking and fleet management software solution. It enables both the vehicle tracking companies and the independent fleet owners to manage and monitor their vehicles in efficient way. From a tracking business point of view the software focuses on the following key areas: 1. Customers Management 2. Web Accounts Management 3. Complaints Management 4. SIMs Management 5. Vehicles Management 6. Tracking Vehicles 7. Alarms Management And Processing 8. Commands and Replies 9. User Logs Management 10. Vehicle Maintenance Logs Management 11. Managing Not Responding (NR) Vehicles 12. Managing Geo-Cities 13. Managing Landmarks 14. Managing Zones 15. History Management 16. Reports Further, it enables tracking business to publish their customer s assets (vehicle etc) location over the website protected by web account (username/password). Using website a customer can perform following actions: 1. View Vehicle(s) Registration Information 2. View Vehicle Current Location Over Map (Google (License ), Yahoo (License ), OSM (Free), etc) 3. View Vehicle GPS History 4. View Alerts History 5. Launch Complaints 5.1. Major Components of Track Forever Enterprise Software The Track Forever Enterprise Software consists of following group of software each capable of performing dedicated function as per requirement. These include: 1. Track Forever Enterprise Server 2. Track Forever Enterprise Administrator 3. Track Forever Enterprise Website (Customers) 4. Track Forever Enterprise Client 9

10 5. Track Forever Enterprise Database 6. Track Forever Enterprise Web History Database 7. Track Forever Enterprise Archive History Database In this document we ll only provide brief information about each component of Track Forever Enterprise Software. The detail regarding each component will be provided in a separate document Track Forever Enterprise Server This is an essential component of Track Forever Enterprise Software. This software component has the capability to communicate with vehicles either using SMS and or GPRS mediums. It also allows users (CSR, TECH etc) to do their routine work using Track Forever Enterprise Client and or Track Forever Enterprise Administrator. It also performs other complex tasks like maintaining vehicle sessions and processing the data received from vehicles and storing it in database. Track Forever Enterprise Server is scalable and has the capability to support any vehicle tracking device unless in some special case that may not be possible. You can check with us about device support. New device integrations are also possible software up gradation charges apply Track Forever Enterprise Administrator This software component works with Track Forever Enterprise Server and allows us to do enterprise wide system configuration. For example here you can manage system user logins, groups, branches etc Track Forever Enterprise Website This software component allows your customers to login and see information about their vehicles. Your customers can see their vehicles on map, generate reports and also can launch complaints as if they require Track Forever Enterprise Client This software component works with Track Forever Enterprise Server and allows CSR, TECH and other staff to communicate with vehicles, find faulty units, generate reports etc Track Forever Enterprise Core Database This is core enterprise database (Ms-SQL or My-SQL) that keeps all of the core information required to manage different operations in the system. This is an essential database part and must be deployed with all other software components Track Forever Enterprise Web History Database This is history database (Ms-SQL or My-SQL) with limited history records like recent 1 month so that the customers can see their vehicles history over website with as much as less performance issues. You can keep data more than 1 month but trimming your database to a limited size will certainly increase your customer website experience. 10

11 Track Forever Enterprise Archive History Database This is the archive database (Ms-SQL or My-SQL) here all of the recent history records are kept. It grows very fast depending on the vehicles volume and their reporting configurations. 6. Shared Vs Dedicated Control Center These days many companies offer shared vehicle tracking service solution. This might seem cost effective and less headache initially but it creates more problems and is not a tracking company type of solution. You yourself a tracking company and buying tracking services from other people relying on a username and password from some website or desktop application really does not sound good. This way neither you have control on your data but also carry a risk of losing customer and customer information with device as well. Moreover, in this mode internet connection is required to connect to the central server or to access website. This means you ll not be able to get any information if you are unable to connect to the internet. If you re using some kind of username password from some website to track your vehicles what interface you re going to give your customers. Don t you want to introduce your brand to customers rather of someone else from whom you re getting hosted services? Dedicated control center have many benefits over shared, in fact shared mode have no control center at all. In dedicated control center you have your own datacenter this means you re the actual owner of your data and no one has access to this information without your permission. You setup your own website for your customers with your branding and all within your premises. People sitting at your control center have high speed data access via LAN and they don t need internet connection to connect to the vehicle tracking server. Data security over internet is more critical but in case of dedicated control center all you have to do is to secure your LAN network and you re good to go. 7. Tracking Device Independent Software When buying vehicle tracking software you should make sure that it does not work with only one device of the same company you re buying software from. If it does then please be far from that otherwise you ll be in a big problem. You will be limited in choice of device selection i.e. you cannot switch to any other device if you re not satisfied from its performance. You should buy a vehicle tracking software that is scalable and virtually device independent. The tracking software should be able to support different devices so that tracking companies have choice to select device as per customer needs and their own demands. 11

12 8. Conclusion In this document we tried to highlight how to setup a vehicle tracking control center and the major hardware and software components required to get started. This document primarily focuses toward control center setup and does not focus on software functions in great deal. We ll focus software and its components with better insight in another document. However, if you ve any questions please feel free to send us your queries at info@invincibletec.com or visit our website 12