EchoSpan Framework

Powerful technology backed by personal, professional service.
EchoSpan was founded on the assumption that our clients have more important things to do than worry about the administration of their EPM projects. Part of meeting our clients' needs means delivering a state-of-the-art Web service that's ready when they are, and keeps pace with the latest in online development and usability.

That's why EchoSpan's suite of EPM services are fully managed and hosted; there's no software for you to install, maintain or upgrade. All you'll need to access our tool is a Web browser.

Technology Layer 1: Data Layer
EchoSpan's services are situated on an Enterprise-class SQL Server database. SQL Server offers us the flexibility and scalability necessary to handle jobs of nearly any size without performance restrictions.

What it means for our clients: A secure, stable database means our Web services are ready when you need them, and they perform as expected.

Technology Layer 2: Business Logic/Survey Engine
echosite60's logic (the code that makes up the application's functions) is built using a combination of .Net, ASP (Active Server Pages), T-SQL (also known as Transact-SQL) and Visual Basic.

For speed and security, the code that writes to and reads from the database, and that generates questions and reports is compiled as a server-side Dynamic Link Library (DLL). DLLs execute code hundreds of times faster than ASP script and cannot be viewed, hacked or modified by the user, but are generally more difficult and costly to integrate.

Most, if not all survey systems we researched when creating our solutions do not use this technology. Instead, they use much slower and less secure "Scripted" Code (such as ASP). The use of DLLs constitute a major advantage for us, as it essentially allows EchoSpan to manage hundreds more users at any given time than our competitors with less risk of server failure or a security compromise.

What it means for our clients: We can handle bigger jobs and protect client data integrity better than others.

Technology Layer 3: User Interface
The User Interface consists of the actual screen elements that the user sees when administering the system.

For easy and quick maintenance, the interface elements (the EchoSpan site and the survey pages) are coded using ASP and connect with DLLs in the Business Logic Layer.

The skill level and time necessary to update ASP code is lower (and therefore, less costly) than the skill level required to update .Net or other languages. As such, we can customize surveys very quickly using entry-level programmers.

What it means for our clients: Though surveys are highly customized, they can be deployed in very little time and at low cost.

Supporting Services
Our solutions are currently collocated in three separate geographic areas (San Diego, DC, Atlanta) with a automatic failover within an hour. Backups of the database are conducted nightly to tape. Backups of the file system are conducted weekly to tape.