Zahara is on the Azure platform and the databases we use are in the UK. No data is stored outside of the UK. 

We currently run a number of applications each day, all pointing to the same databases. Europe and the UK use the same applications but the rest of the world uses a different app. Everyone logs into Zahara through the URL Myzahara.net and then based on your geo location we divert you to the most appropriate application. This then allows us maintenance windows for the respective Apps. 

Restarts

Applications do need restarting to cleanse them. A soft restart takes place every morning for the UK apps around 7am. A user working at this time wouldn’t loose their work but may see something taking longer than normal to appear or save. 

Harder Restarts take place when the application is updated or patched. The apps needs about 10 minutes to fully warm up. In reality this means that every single page needs to be clicked and launched to complete the warmup and this is where you can see a page take 30 or more seconds to appear. Wherever possible we try this in the evenings in the UK or out of the key hours for the respective customers. 

Full releases are usually made at weekends now, meaning minimal impact on the users. 

Slowness

We are obsessed with speed at Zahara. Zahara is very scalable – we can increase the number of apps we use to handle the traffic and we can expand the basis of the database but it is a tenanted system and like most cloud-based systems is prone to ‘noisy neighbours’ and moments of spinning wheels. The app is monitored and any action we can take to keep the app running smoothly is taken. We have noticed that our customers do tend to save their work up for month end. This means that the app picks up usage between the last few days of the month and the first 7 – 10 days of the new month. The middle two weeks are much quieter as people are raising orders but not keying in invoices on repeat.