​ Communication description (Devices)

Communication description (Devices)

The system has been created to require a local server. This server should be provided by the client, and will be responsible for all communication to and from the devices.

The following minimum specifications are recommended:

• The server needs to run on a version of Windows, preferably Windows Server 2012 or higher.

• An entry level server with 2 vCPU and 4gb of ram, will be able to run the communication instance, but the higher the server’s specs, the faster the server can communicate with the devices.

• 50gb of hdd is more than enough for a lifetime of using the product.

• No backups are required of this instance, as everything is replicated and saved in the hosted environment, and should anything happen to this instance, we simply recreate it, and all the data will be synced through again automatically.

• The server has to have access to port 443 (https) in order to access the hosted instance (specific IP addresses can be provided upon request).

The communication server will communicate with the hosted instance securely and then communicate on the Local Area Network / Wide Area Network to the devices.

If required, a central communication server, can talk to all the local devices, but various communication instances may also be deployed if the network prefers this.

The communication server is highly configurable as to how it communicates on the network, and also how often. The following can be set:

• How many devices should be communicated with at the same time;

• How often should attendance be synced in from the devices;

• How often should employee changes be synced to and from the devices;

• How often should employee template changes by synced to and from the devices;

• How often should the devices report that it’s online (Check-in).

The diagram below shows how the devices talk to the Binary City Time server (hosted), via the Binary City Time Communication server (on premise).