The Hosted components are housed in Co-location Centres. All the data centers have dual independent power feeds, backed up by dual battery string UPS systems and 2 Megawatt diesel generators as well as fully redundant air handling units, providing constant fresh airflow. 
Bandwidth is provided by several Tier 1 backbone providers who all offer resilience in their core networks. 
In common with other leading hosted products, HSS guarantees that the platform will operate free of outages 99.9% in any 30 day period. The UK data centers are ISO 17799/BS 7799 (Code for Information Security) certified. This service is highly secure and provides the required basic redundancy for these fundamental services.


HSS  is based on the concept of "clusters". Each cluster of servers provides a set of services that are sufficient to provision a service for a fixed number of clients. This arrangement is very flexible allowing both horizontal and vertical scaling. Each cluster consists of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web and Database servers. These servers have redundancy built into each layer. In addition where required the individual servers have redundant discs, power supplies and network interface cards.
The database servers provide storage for all data collected by HSS Clients. These servers are also used for storing policy information and generating reports.
The SOAP servers provide the basic connectivity between the hosted service and HSS Clients. This protocol provides a simple communication mechanism that runs over standard ports and through Proxies. The protocol runs over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
The Web Servers provide the systems user interface - the Control Center - via the HSS Manager portals. These portals can be provided as a white label for own branding, and provide the interface for setting the policies and generating reports.
The load balancers ensure that the traffic from the users and clients is evenly spread across the SOAP and Web servers. In addition in the event of server failure the Load Balancers detect the failure and route the traffic to other servers.
The Web Content Checkers are located in a number co-location sites around the world. These servers provide the HSS Manager URL checking service. They operate by receiving a URL from a client and checking it against the URL database. After checking the URL the service returns the category or categories that the URL matched. The Client then checks the category against the local policy and takes the appropriate action. The Client connects to the Content Checkers using a round-robin system; if a content checker does not respond within a specified period then it moves to the next. The Content Checkers are updated at regular intervals and therefore provide the most up to date content to all users without the need for end user updates.
The HSS Client is at the heart of the system. It provides the protection to the target machines based on the latest policies provided by the central servers. In addition the client collects the data that forms the basis of HSS Manager reports. The client monitors activity in the following areas Web visits, Instant Messenger conversations, Application usage and Hardware and Software changes. The service also provides Anti-virus, Spyware and Personal Firewall protect through additional components that are managed by the HSS Management Client.
The HSS Manager Client contacts the servers at predetermined intervals to send data to the servers and receive the latest policy changes or updates. The Client uses SOAP over SSL to communicate with the central servers and generates around 40k of traffic per hour.


The Benefits of HSS Manager

• Easy to install and use 
  
• Protects and monitors all users - regardless of location 
  
• 'All in One' unified threat protection 
  
• Hosted Service - No Additional hardware or software required 
  
• No maintenance, manual updates or upgrades required
  
• 'Anywhere/Anytime' Control & Policy Enforcement via web
  
• Plug & Play - No integration issues with existing programs/applications
  
• Increase productivity and reduce risks and liabilities
  
• Value - One integrated package
  
• Simple Low cost per end point pricing
  

HSS Manager enables you to effectively monitor and enforce your company security and acceptable use policies in real time.