Castle Zeek Systems - Frequently Asked Questions

I know my small business needs Web Technology, but where do we begin?

We don't have a website yet. Can Castle Zeek build us one?
- Yes, Castle Zeek can help your business establish a "web presence". More importantly, we can help you make informed choices about how your business pursues Information Technology. Castle Zeek is able to get you moving in the right direction with technology and provide consulting along the full continuum of your organization's growth.
  This is a key reason you want to go with Castle Zeek. There are many outfits who can build you a basic website, but very few of them have senior business systems analysts or enterprise architects. Basically, the minute you are ready to take your technology investment to the next level, they won't be much use to you anymore. You don't want to find yourself back in a situation without the benefit of senior IT expertise, and any mistakes you make will be much more costly. This is an unfortunate yet common pitfall that small businesses repeatedly get bitten by. Cheap outfits that crank out websites do so with a "launch & forget" attitude. Those outfits do not contribute to the essential Business Process that Information Technology is. That said, with a basic website from one of them - you will not reap the full potential of that first IT investment, and you will not have a strategy to proceed beyond it.
  With Castle Zeek as a partner to your Business Solution Team, you will have an IT resource capable of expertly addressing all your technology challenges at any level. But it all starts with a basic website. Let Castle Zeek be your first right step onto the web, and your senior guide through the universe of Information Technology.
We already have a website, but it needs rework. Can Castle Zeek help?
- Yes. This is actually one of the most common cases we help small businesses with and something we are very good at. A majority of small businesses have taken care of getting their online presence established early on. However, as stated previously - many times that first website is created by someone convenient who "knew a little HTML", or else by a web outfit that got you started, but who is not working out so well anymore.
  In these cases, we are able to take over the website for you - reengineer it if needed - and do what it takes to keep your web presence stable and proceeding effectively. Once your site is managed by Castle Zeek, you will enjoy the benefits of our "Subscription Service" which will ensure your website does not languish. Successful websites require ongoing expert attention to stay effective. That is a service Castle Zeek offers, and you will then also have the benefit of senior business systems analysis that ensures your IT investment stays aligned with your business.

What makes Castle Zeek different?

How Castle Zeek's senior IT expertise helps smaller businesses.
- The power of the Internet to help your business is obvious, but it is very common that smaller businesses are not effective in leveraging IT. In fact, many businesses perceive their single IT investment, their website, as a "thing" and not a "business process".
  When you imagine and treat your web technology investment as a frozen-in-time "noun", instead of an essential, ongoing business process, it will always under-perform. A website is simply an instrument of that process.
  Castle Zeek can help you establish and internalize the processes that make your web presence effective. Our IT seniority also ensures that we can assist you equally well if you have progressed beyond just a basic website, to where you think more in terms of comprehensive IT solutions.
  What distinguishes Castle Zeek is that we work with clients at the start of their IT processes, and have the expertise to continue guiding IT processes to any level of advancement and complexity. Indeed, should your small business grow to be a multi-billion dollar Fortune 500, you will find that Castle Zeek still commands IT with authority even at this level. However, we think that the toughest challenge is getting IT beyond the incubator correctly. If you read our "SMB Focus" page - then you know that SMBs are our passion.
What practices make Castle Zeek effective for Small & Medium Businesses (SMBs)?
- IT providerships at Castle Zeek's level overwhelmingly focus their attention to servicing the Fortune 1000. It is quite common that these service providers can truly not engage a client having less than one hundred thousand dollars to spend per project.
  The reasons are rather straight forward: It is very expensive to put ten to twenty senior consultants on a permanent payroll. They are typically allocated in teams of 2 to 4 per project, which means that there must be about five major concurrent projects going at any point in time, plus a pipeline of dozens of prospective projects working in the wings. The actual structure of the IT service provider is an intrinsic aspect to "how big it must grow and how it must feed".
  Castle Zeek is structured fundamentally differently for the purpose of servicing SMBs. We do not keep dozens of very expensive consultants on a permanent payroll, nor do we need to feed a pricy flock of super salesmen to continuously lobby all the Fortune 1000 CIOs for the next "mega-project". Castle Zeek's "secret" is how it has established itself as a world class IT Process Innovator. Castle Zeek spent nearly a decade constructing configurable "code factories" with which we established a whole new vision. This is how Castle Zeek is able to do the work of a dozen senior consultants with only a few. The standardization of our processes also enables us to maintain a much looser federation of specialists who can be brought in as needed.
  Why did we do all of this just to open for business? Because Castle Zeek had a vision and a hunch - and we were right. That we could carefully architect our business structure and processes in such a way that we could successfully and profitably offer SMBs very advanced IT solutions that none of our would-be competitors could survive.
  Castle Zeek isn't just passionate about serving the IT needs of SMBs, we're custom built for it.

What are Castle Zeek's technical capacities?

What specific strengths does Castle Zeek offer in its four Engagement Levels?
- 1. Level 1 Engagement Strengths
    At this level, Castle Zeek is able to ensure your initial steps onto the web are focused accurately toward your business goals. There is a huge difference between mere "design" and understanding where your business needs to go. Please understand that Castle Zeek has access to a bevy of world class designers that we can place into service for you. Now, please consider - should this not be a strong indication that Castle Zeek is MUCH more than simply "how your site looks"?
  2. Level 2 Engagement Strengths
    At Level 2, you are one step closer to better understand the extent of Castle Zeek. At this point, your company has grown to where your web/system needs are beyond the capacity of a simple "web design firm". Quite simply, they are totally out of the picture and are of no more use at this point and beyond. And now is about when most companies that engage with Castle Zeek wish they had called us first. It takes some "growing up" to get to where you recognize your first web-service provider was a mistake, or you simply outgrew it.
    Castle Zeek's unique strength at Level 2 is that we can recognize the momentum of your IT infrastructural needs, and how your IT will survive the next decade. If your needs are at Castle Zeek's Level 2 -and- you are still talking to "web designers" at this point, you may not survive.
  3. Level 3 Engagement Strengths
    At Level 3, Information Technology is a core component of how you do business. You are now a full-fledged 21st Century company and you no longer use the simplistic term "website" to describe your technological footprint. No. The descriptor at your company is "Business Systems". At this point Castle Zeek is a core component of your "Business Solutions Team" that helps you realize your mission with the right suite of technologies at every level.
  4. Level 4 Engagement Strengths
    At Level 4, you are now at a point where the crux of your national or global strategic advantage is largely predicated on the capability of your systems. At this point you will come to understand that Castle Zeek truly did "come from this place" and has been waiting for you to arrive. At Castle Zeek's Level 4, your IT infrastructure has very sophisticated needs - and you will commemorate the day you found Castle Zeek for having anticipated your IT trajectory.
    At Level 4, our speciality is understanding how to integrate your core systems heterogenously with a backbone of clustered ZeekEngines. Large scale IT typically involves islands of specialized software components and middleware that focus on solving specific problems across the enterprise. Clustered ZeekEngines can tie it all together.
Are there specific kinds of technical directions Castle Zeek does not pursue?
- Yes, we have to focus just like any technical specialist does. However, our suite of technical abilities is specifically chosen to serve the great majority of SMBs. However, there are some types of projects that we will likely not undertake ourselves, such as:
  1. Dynamic Media Transformation Solutions
    These are systems designed to do sophisticated "on the fly" digital transformations to rich media. This is a bit of a contrived example, but should get the point across: Imagine a website where you could upload all your digital camera pics, tracks from your CDs, MPG2 Movie files, etc. and then have it magically "Munged" all together into a finished DVD disc image ready for download and disc burn. Viola! Instant rich-media montage. Even if you actually do have the two million dollars this will cost you, Castle Zeek recommends you find a service provider that specializes in this very specific type of application.
  2. Video On Demand Systems
    Again, this is a very specific type of media application for which there are companies who do nothing but VOD solutions.
  3. Web Telephony/Teleconference Solutions
    There are already many products out there that do this. If you want to personally compete with "Skype", you may want to ask them if you can borrow their programmers for a year or two.
  4. Venture Funding
    This is where Castle Zeek is approached with a "business idea" instead of by a business needing an IT solution. There is a big difference. This sort of affair typically also involves the proposition that Castle Zeek should waive any fees in favor of instead accepting some percentage of the as-yet-unrealized landslide profits. This is what Venture Capital Investment Firms are for.
  5. Product Research & Development
    Castle Zeek does not create commodity software. That is a very different discipline than web integrated business solutions.
  6. Help Desk/Operations Support
    Castle Zeek has a limited warranty for its own systems, and our subscription service is quite specific to our own developed software. Castle Zeek will not support your LAN, take calls about printer ink outages, or any other "help desk" activities at your organization.
What open-source technologies does Castle Zeek have expertise in?
- Castle Zeek has expertise in the following open technologies, tools and approaches:
  1. Struts
  2. MySQL
  3. Tomcat
  4. Log4J
  5. Jakarta Commons
  6. Image Magick
  7. GlassBox
  8. Apache Server
  9. Linux
  10. Quartz
  11. Prototype Javascript Framework
  12. AJAX
  13. JBoss Cache
  14. Eclipse IDE
  15. Subversion
  16. Xinha
  17. Lucene and Solr

Castle Zeek Affordability and Value

Is Castle Zeek a "Low Cost Leader", or comparably very cheap?
- No, but that's not what you want, either. We are also not the most expensive, but what needs to be pointed out is the specific value of doing your IT engagement with Castle Zeek.
  If you are a small business, you could perhaps find a very cheap way to launch your first website. However, it will not perform for you. Your "Cheap-O-Matic" providership will not have the senior consultancy experience to help you progress beyond your first step on to the web. If you are wondering "what is there after launching a website?" - then this is exactly the kind of "in the dark" results you will dwell in without having a senior organization around like Castle Zeek.
  We are not the cheapest because we offer much more than just a few lines of HTML code rendered in your favorite colors. If you understand there is more to making IT effective than the mere code, then you will appreciate that Castle Zeek is much more than just the code. If you mistakenly think managing IT is a "walk in the park" - then you will make repeated, brutally expensive mistakes. Once you have blown through a crippling waste of cash and time, you may be ready to understand that Castle Zeek could have helped you avoid the hurting.
  We are not the cheapest, but we are indeed priced "right" for SMBs. Besides, what you truly can not afford is getting this stuff wrong.
Is my first website built by Castle Zeek going to cost a ton of cash all at once?
- It does not have to. Castle Zeek realizes that SMBs typically must approach new costs in a way they can sustain. We understand that you are likely budgeting from a monthly perspective. When Castle Zeek constructs your first website, we offer a Subscription Service contract that ensures your website will have the ongoing management it needs to be successful and aligned to your business. We are also able to spread out the payments of your initial development costs over a portion of the Subscription Service duration.
  This is a critical difference that many other service providers are not able to do for you.
Are there things I can do to help reduce costs for Castle Zeek to build my first website?
- Yes, there are things you can do that help control costs. Your specific case may provide additional opportunities to control expense, but here is a general list:
  1. Preparing Your Own Text Narratives
    Castle Zeek has an expert narrative writer with a brilliant command of language, and you will get the benefit of an "editors pass" if you provide your own text narratives. The cost benefit to you in writing your own textual narrative content beforehand is that you will become much more engaged in how your site will convey your message to your web audience. The closer you are able to get, the less specialist hours are needed to create the finished narratives.
  2. Segment/Divide the sections of your intended website
    We are not asking you to overnight become a web designer, however you are the person most intimately aware of your own business. If you spend some time beforehand, you are likely very competently able to think of how many pages there will be on your site and what they will each generally contain. By doing this, the web design progresses much more quickly and helps reduce cost.
  3. Read articles on effective web color usage, and think about the colors for YOUR website.
    Effective use of color is essential for how a website comes across to visitors. There are literally thousands of web articles on the subject of good color usage for websites. You don't need to read all of them, but we certainly hope you will have briefed yourself about good color usage guidelines, and what colors should be used to brand your business. By getting educated a little bit about color usage and knowing something about what you want for your own website, we can control costs during the web design phase of your project.
  4. Read articles on "Usability Mistakes" commonly committed by unskilled web builders
    Castle Zeek has deep expertise in software usability. The reason we ask clients to first do some studying about website usability and related common mistakes is: The more you know about it the more money you will save. A very common phenomenon with clients who are new to web technology is that they will ask for "features" that are actually usability mistakes. What happens then is an interesting and awkward balancing-act Castle Zeek must do between "The Client Is Always Right" versus "Save the Client From Themselves!".
    The more you know about website usability, the less often Castle Zeek has to intervene in the design process to curb/redirect risky requests. Now, Castle Zeek is more than able to turn these cases into learning experiences, but really though - the more it happens, the more you have to hear "Perhaps we should reconsider that..." from Castle Zeek. We think you will have a more enjoyable project the less that happens. The more you know about website pitfalls, the less you will bump against our "project guard rails" that are there to protect you. This saves you money because your vision of what you want will be a much straighter shot that we can build for you with fewer course-corrections.

We are in a state of "IT Crisis!", can Castle Zeek help?

We have a website and we lost our Web Master, how can Castle Zeek help?
- If your basic website has been left in a lurch, here are some questions Castle Zeek will ask you:
  1. Do you own the registered name of the site? Is it registered in the name of the Webmaster?
    Sometimes when new business owners get a convenient friend, or "Cheap-O-Matic" webmaster to setup their initial site, the business owner makes the mistake of never getting engaged in that "Nasty Black Art" of web technology. This hands-off approach can easily result in a case where the name of the website URL was actually never in the business owner's own name. Other times the business owner may have no idea what the status of the site is. We hope this has not happened to you, and would just like to remind that this sort of thing does not occur when you do business with Castle Zeek.
  2. Do you have server access, or did the Webmaster hand you discs with the website?
    If you can answer "yes" to either of these questions, at least then Castle Zeek has access to your source code. There may still be the issue of the website URL (the reserved name) as described above, but with the HTML source code accessible, relaunching/refactoring/redesigning the site can begin while the issue (if any) of the reserved name is pursued.
  3. Does your website have any "extra" functionality, like shopping carts, login features, etc?
    When a website has additional functionality, there will often be more "underlying plumbing" to get the site relaunched, or else separated from the previous Webmaster with minimal interruption. If your site accepts payments through various means, or has any other server-driven capabilities, Castle Zeek will need to know these things to completely assess how we should progress.
We run our own site, but we are not Webmasters. Can Castle Zeek help?
- Yes, we can assist you in getting your website management under professional control. If your organization is getting to a point where your own technical skills are not quite keeping the website management situation under control, Castle Zeek can help. It is well worth your effort and expense to make this professional transition, since if you are at the brink of losing effective control of your website, please consider that the effectiveness of the site itself and how it benefits your organization has therefore been under-performing for a while now.
We need a website REALLY FAST! How fast can Castle Zeek launch a website for us?
- Well, first lets review the "Absolute Truth Rule" of web application development:
  Do it GOOD, Do it CHEAP, Do it FAST... Pick TWO...
  So, you need a solution yesterday? Well, there are two variables left to deal with: cost and quality. Please also consider that when Castle Zeek encounters cases being pursued in such an "adversely reactive" way, our radar gets tuned for detecting "management by crisis".
  Castle Zeek is resistant to "The Crisis Virus", no matter how infectious a situation may be. Our approach to these cases is to continue advising as professionally as possible, but bear in mind that emergency care is always cost-prohibitive, and Castle Zeek does NOT skip steps.
  Yes, we can help - pending immediate availability. However, the rigor of our business methods will not be circumvented under any circumstances. Please review our terms of service to get acquainted with how we execute quality solutions.
  Castle Zeek is about excellence and innovation, and we want to ensure that whatever we do - we can be proud of immediately and always. So, of the two variables left "Quality and Cost" - you can probably figure out that Castle Zeek has a preference for Quality. We do want to help your organization out of a tight spot - but Castle Zeek will actually be more interested in what occurred prior that put you in a desperate situation.
  From Castle Zeek's perspective, a client that "desperately needs a website right away" feels less like a "website engagement", and more like a "Management Consulting Engagement". If you agree, then you will understand that Castle Zeek is able to provide much more advanced services than a mere "HTML Factory" website shop. They might crank out your site in a hurry, but only Castle Zeek can figure out where it all went wrong that backed you into a corner in the first place. Big difference.

What Non-Development, "IT Consulting Only" services does Castle Zeek offer?

What are the following "Pure Consulting" services for?
- The list following this item comprises our general consulting areas offered as standalone services that do not specifically include a "development component" where Castle Zeek is writing code for your business, whether a basic website or a ZeekEngine. Our consulting services are an effective way for your to figure out how to move forward from where you are now. In fact, sometimes the smartest "very next thing to do" is to just have all the coding immediately stop!
  In most cases, the following consulting services lead to development-oriented engagements with Castle Zeek. However, it does not always have to be that way. Other times, we perform the following consulting services so that our client can discover that they need a very highly specialized service that Castle Zeek may not actually offer - but that we sufficiently understand to be your liaison to engage such specialized services.
  In these cases, you can think of Castle Zeek sort of as your "IT Primary Care Physician" who has discovered your need to see an "IT Super Specialist". We know how to assist you through such a highly-specialized engagement to ensure your more business goals are always in focus, in addition to our ability to assess that the deepest technical requirements are met during such engagements.
  Please know this: Castle Zeek would rather respectfully refer your highly specialized needs to other excellent professionals if we ourselves are not the right fit. Our philosophy is that if we can help you this way, then we have still provided you a valuable service. We know that helping you become a more discerning consumer of IT services will make you more appreciative of Castle Zeek over time.
IT Infrastructure Assessment
- Castle Zeek has assisted small businesses to assess their overall information technology situation. We have often provided this service when smaller shops are having IT pains that they are not able to put their finger on exactly.
  Castle Zeek has experience with micro-IT up to very large scale IT. Our years of seeing what works and what does not work can be very useful to you. However, our ability to see more subtle patterns of adversity may save your business.
  If something feels "off" and you are starting to wonder if there are invisible cracks in your essential IT function, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Web Technology Assessment
- Castle Zeek has helped organizations when they got themselves into a web technology project and it just feels like no one has their hands around it. Castle Zeek specializes in breaking down web technology situations to make it understandable to your executive staff, and more importantly - charting a clear way forward.
  There are common cases where a project can start to have multiple players, and the intrigue gets out of control. Cases where the "managers" of the situation can not actually make things happen, and everything devolves into a reactionary and slippery situation.
  Although these cases may seem completely intractable, Castle Zeek has experience bringing order back to this sort of IT storm for small organizations. If you have a web technology project that seems to be going haywire, you will deeply appreciate how we can bring it into perspective for you. Our ability to quickly understand the dynamics of how web application technology projects can go awry will be your most valuable asset to understand it well enough to pull a recovery.
  In other cases, the project is over - but the system it produced is a many-headed monster that threatens more harm than good to your organization. Castle Zeek knows how to fully and quickly comprehend such systems and help you chart the way forward in a way that the decision-makers of your organization will value highly.
Creating Requirements Documents and Technical Specifications
- Castle Zeek is highly expert at soliciting business requirements for the purpose of laying the foundation for new, complex IT projects. If you have a project you are needing a solid foundation for, Castle Zeek can create the critical documentation that goes very far to assuring project success.

Can I use my own Web Designer or other Third-Party Specialist?

Can I use my own Web Designer?
- Yes, you can. However, we ask that you read our Terms of Service to ensure you understand our stipulations about how Castle Zeek interacts with any third party specialist service providers.
  Castle Zeek is not a "Web Design" firm per se, and so - if you have a brilliant "digital artist", then it certainly makes sense to use such an excellent resource. Castle Zeek also knows a bevy of world-class digital artist talent that we know we work well with.
  Before you engage Castle Zeek on a project with a third party web designer, please ensure your third party and you are fully aware of how we manage this.
Can I use my own database designer?
- This only comes into effect in cases of Level 3 and Level 4 engagements. We will want to meet your database specialist so everyone is clear on our stipulation that we only create ZeekEngines when we control the details of the schema design. Highly trained database experts brought forth by clients are able to assist in general terms toward how Castle Zeek does data modeling. Our relational schemas are Domain-Key normalized with a level of rigor typically not seen outside the ranks of senior DB2 architects among the Fortune 500. As such we can typically engage your database specialist in a manner that is more about disclosing our design precepts than adapting them to external input.
Can I use my own user interface specialist?
- This is possible for simpler Castle Zeek systems. However, for our Level 3 and Level 4 engagements, the level of UI skill needed to participate in the required Javascripting does require some advanced skills. These are the minimum skills your UI specialist must have to participate in our functional UI development:
  1. Prototype Framework
  2. Prototype Framework extensions including control.modal, etal.
  3. Advanced AJAX
  4. Advanced object oriented design and development with Javascript
  5. Mastery of Hierarchical MVC2 design pattern in user interface functional design
  6. Mastery of all browser event models and event-based user interface design patterns
  7. Mastery of XML DOM manipulation
  8. LINT verification
  9. Asynchronous debugging using Venkman
  10. Multi-window Javascript intercommunication patterns
  11. Object serialization techniques
  12. Use of namespace objects
  If you do have an individual with the above-stated skills, then we welcome their contribution to assisting your user interface functional components under our guidance.

Intellectual Property: Who owns the code?

Do we own the finished code of our system?
- What you will have is a non-transferable, indefinite license for your own organization's use of the system for its stated purpose. This is essentially as much freedom to do with it what you will, except that we do expressly forbid any organization to replicate our technology for any purpose. We must necessarily retain ownership to enforce this.
  We employ a formidable library of code we call "The Framework" which allows us to deliver systems quicker and more economically to you. This code library has been the exclusive inhouse development project at Castle Zeek for nearly a decade that has given us the ability to bring you the robustness of large scale IT into a range of affordability for SMBs. Castle Zeek owns this library. Please consider that If a prior client had insisted they should own it (and we had "given it all up") then it would no longer be ours to leverage for the benefit of our next client: YOU.
  We have indeed heard before that: "Well, we [the client] must own the code because you guys could disappear one day." We agree in principle that no client should be put at risk for any service provider "disappearing one day". However, there is a logical reductive fallacy in the argument wherein the "ownership" of the source code is spuriously bound to having access to review and modify it.
  Nevertheless, Castle Zeek offers the option to use a third-party software escrow service for this purpose. In the event that Castle Zeek were no longer able to service your code for reason of bankruptcy or as specified by our license agreement, you would have recourse to recover it from escrow. Please note that the use of such an escrow service is a material cost to the project. The frequency and extent of refreshing the escrowed system artifacts are also cost drivers to these material expenses, and there are limits to these provisions that Castle Zeek offers.
Are our developers able to work on the system however they want?
- Certainly, however you must understand that there are caveats to your developers having unfettered ability to modify the code. The most significant one is that our Level 3 and Level 4 systems auto-detect the instant the code is modified by any other than a Castle Zeek senior analyst. At that moment, if you are still in the 30-day Limited Warranty period - the ZeekEngine "knows" that you have voided your warranty - and so will we. Don't worry - the system will continue to operate normally (unless you break it, obviously).
  To date, in every case we have ever been called with "Uh oh, we broke it...", it was always a case where the client's developers were attempting to do something specifically contraindicated. Another caveat to altering foundational code is that your developers will likely have their modifications eradicated by a subsequent system patch. Making alterations to the foundation code is as needless as it is risky. For these and other reasons, we suggest you fund specialized training for your developers with Castle Zeek so they will understand where we expressed the forethought that client developers may need to work on our systems. Otherwise, their experimentations and curiosity will cost you far more than our training.

What is Castle Zeek's "Subscription Service"?

Level 1 Subscription Service
- Level 1 websites are typically only HTML/CSS/Javascript. Our Subscription Service for these websites provides status/uptime checking, Search Engine Optimization, traffic metrics reporting, and a "purchased minutes" plan wherein blocks of developer time are pre-purchased according to your expected need for ongoing minor site changes. We issue a monthly report to you so you can see everything that has occurred with your site for the last thirty days. We also make recommendations for your consideration around items that will keep your website working effectively for you.
Level 2 Subscription Service
- Level 2 sites include the provisions explained for Level 1 sites, but we also provide more thorough review of the web content management functions. These capabilities have many more moving parts than a basic Level 1 website - and so our technical oversight factors that increased complexity into the service offering.
  Since this type of site also collects data from your visitors, Castle Zeek has Subscription Service provisions to ensure the data quality is maintained, and that the data-collection mechanisms work effectively for their stated purpose.
Level 3 Subscription Service
- A Level 3 site entails a ZeekEngine, which expands the service set Castle Zeek offers to make sure your business engine is tuned and effective. Castle Zeek offers training for your chosen developers to master this amazing technology, and although such training is typically a separate consultative cost, there are many aspects of the training that can be rolled into your Subscription Service. This give you the benefit of a steady, reinforcing regimen to build your inhouse knowledge to help keep costs down.
  Your Level 3 Subscription Service can have two different manifestations, depending on if you have chosen our "Server Delivery" option, described below. In such cases where your hosting server is behind your firewall, Castle Zeek could conceivably be prevented from servicing the ZeekEngine remotely and securely. We advise against this, since onsite visits to effect the needed attention is largely less effective and cost prohibitive. Your alternative would be to have sufficient inhouse knowledge with your own analysts. If you think this may be the direction you must go, we will discuss it very early in the project to ensure you get the coverage you will require to maintain technology at this level of sophistication.
  The other option Castle Zeek offers for ZeekEngine deployments is to place the system on a dedicated host supported by a third-party hosting service. These colocation fees are not covered under the Subscription Service. When Castle Zeek is able to manage a remote system like this for you, we provide all the required back-ups and tending of the data tier, monitor application performance, help you ensure client accounts are not abused, and ensure the ZeekEngine configuration continuously adapts to provide the highest effectiveness.
  This level of support also introduces our "Patch Distribution System" which ensures that any errant behaviors are addressed and corrected using our innovative automatic self-corrective architecture.
Level 4 Subscription Service
- Level 4 systems have a Subscription Service that is a superset of the Level 3 Subscription Service. This class of ZeekEngine may be clustered, which entails a further degree of management expertise. Level 4 ZeekEngines typically also have inter-system connections/communications with external systems, which must also be monitored, managed, and optimized.
  Systems of this complexity require highly expert strategy to ensure they maintain top performance. With this kind of engagement, Castle Zeek will formulate a Subscription Service plan that will ensure your own analysts have the specific support and resources they need to handle anything that occurs. These kinds of systems are highly custom, and so we expect to evolve the post-production support strategy with your architects during the course of the engagement to ensure it is precisely fitted to your needs.

What does Castle Zeek's "Server Delivery" mean?

Does Castle Zeek really deliver a physical server?
- Yes, in cases where the client intends to host their own web application developed by Castle Zeek. We offer the option of "Server Delivery" for Level 3 and Level 4 engagements. Castle Zeek will procure the physical hardware and develop the system to that machine. We typically do this on a Linux platform, or Solaris 10. We do NOT provide this service using any Windows operating system.
  Please note that the hardware costs, needed modifications, and setup fees are additional material project expenses. This delivery option has the potential to save clients ongoing colocation fees, which can easily surpass $500.00 per month. One thing Castle Zeek has specifically learned is that its ZeekEngine's do not tolerate the constraining parameters of "virtualized" J2EE/Servlet containers. Specifically, ZeekEngine's will occasionally exceed the alloted RAM and CPU constraints that render such "virtualized" and subdivided environments absolutely inapplicable for production situations.
  This is another topic that Castle Zeek addresses during the early requirements process with you. We will identify if this is the right option for you very early in the engagement.

What is a "ZeekEngine"?

From a Business Owner Perspective
- A ZeekEngine is a "core" software system that is very flexible and can be adapted to your specific business. The basis of a ZeekEngine is a database driven web application that models your business. By capturing your business process architecture into a ZeekEngine, Castle Zeek is able to offer you a system that is "imprinted" with the way you do business.
  Small businesses typically evolve to a point where the ability to verbally instruct a small team starts to break down. It is at this point (roughly a head-count of 8 to 12) that management methods must begin to formalize. It is also at this crossroads where the seeds of small mistakes become crippling later on. A ZeekEngine is how you can encapsulate best practices into a logic machine that will enforce your business mission around the clock.
From a Business User Perspective
- The people in your growing business need to communicate with each other, report to managers, and interact with your clients, and other business contacts. As your business starts to gather momentum, your workers start to encounter many forms of systemic resistance to working effectively and efficiently.
  At first, you will typically get a "computer guy" with nominally sufficient skill to permit your workstations to work together, or at least share files. However, this in itself is NOT the process of "modeling your business". Instead, this IT next-step often produces a kind of "files junk-drawer" that brings its own whole new set of problems.
  A Zeek Engine introduced at about this time will instead provide your workers with a simple and intuitive system with which they can efficiently carry out the business processes that drive your business. Instead of having to bombard your hurried workers with myriad new rules that they perceive as "changing all the time", they will instead have a system that enforces complex business rules in a transparent manner. They will not be required to memorize "ten thousand things" just to make it through a single day. The ZeekEngine will embody all the workflows that comprise the right way to do things. The result is a workforce that gets to spend proportionately more time doing things perfectly with minimal difficulty.
From a Technical Resource Perspective
- ZeekEngines practically fly themselves. We also strongly suspect that your ZeekEngine will be the single most thoroughly documented artifact in your entire business. A ZeekEngine permits a young organization to gain the benefit of a very advanced system without having to hire a platoon of senior J2EE developers. A key requirements of its original development was that it should NOT need anything approaching the "Senior IT Staff" to have one yourself as it took to create it.
  Our intention was to provide your own technical resource(s) a very user friendly system. This lets you to keep your IT head count from getting top-heavy in proportion to your core business direction, which is probably NOT Information Technology.