Technology
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At PacificEast, our technology powers your ability to know...to know your customers, to know your prospects and to
know that you can ship, sell, communicate and conduct business with confidence. But technology is only a means to an
end. What really matters is that in the end you have the best information with the quickest turnaround times at the
greatest value.
PacificEast uses secure internet technology to access the best datasets available in North America. But we don't just
access one or two. We access the largest number of data suppliers of any similar service provider. The larger the
number of repositories used, the greater the chance that we'll be able to find you the information you need. Many of
our competitors use only their own, internally produced data. While their information may be good quality, no single
producer can have everything. Some producers are good at finding some kinds of information, but not very good at
finding others. So instead of producing just one more file that is very similar to what all the other guys have
available, PacificEast spends it's time analyzing all of the best repositories available, designing custom access
methods to make them even more useful, seamlessly making that information accessible to our customers and negotiating
the best pricing so we can pass those savings on to you.
No matter how you send your information, we start with each record you send, scour our sources to find the information
you need, then append the answer to each record. In order to make accessing all this great information as easy for you
as possible, PacificEast supports the three primary methods of interaction that we've noted in the diagram above:
Batch, Real-Time (or Integrated) and Interactive.
Batch
In the Batch interaction method you send us a file that contains the information you already have. We take your file
and append the information you need to the end of each record and return the file to you. We take any file, in any
format and just about any file type you can imagine. At PacificEast you don't have to conform to one particular file
format or type. We don't think you should have to bend over backwards just to use our services. All you need to do is
FTP us the file and we'll get started. (If you're not sure what FTP is, just call us and we can walk you through the
file transfer process.)
Real-Time / Integrated
Real-time integration allows your computer systems to access PacificEast repositories and services directly. This
method of interaction is quick and reliable once you get it setup. Real-time requires you to develop a module that
runs on your computer systems that knows how to interact with PacificEast servers. The protocols (message structures)
PacificEast supports are based on XML over HTTPS. We currently support access via SOAP 1.1 or 1.2, HTTP GET and HTTP
POST. Our Application Program Interface (API) User Guide
outlines the technical details. The benefits of this method of interaction are that you can send us a variety of
different transactions any time, day or night, 365 days a year. Real-time also lets you integrate our vast
repositories into your internal systems just as if our billions of records were stored in your own database (but
without that big storage bill).
Interactive
PacificEast's Interactive systems allow your staff or customers to access our repositories via a web interface. You
can provide our standalone PacificEast branded web interface to your internal customers or we can provide you with a
webpage you can embed into your internal website. Our interactive screens give you an easy to use interface that
allows the broadest flexibility in types of searches.
Web services
To paraphrase the Bard: A web service by any other name would smell like a real-time transaction. Web services are just a
type of real-time transactions so why list them separately? The simplest answer is that some of our customers and prospects
think of and refer to these machine-to-machine transactions as XML or real-time and others refer to them as web services.
A Web Service is a bit newer term for accessing a computer service over the internet. We also like the term Data-as-a-Service,
or DaaS. But no matter what you call these services they're really just a way of allowing two separate computer systems to have
a conversation. Specifically, our web services allow your computer system to pass a question to us and to understand the answer
we send back. It's really that simple: you ask; we answer.
Security
PacificEast takes system and information security seriously. We know the security of your data must be our #1
priority. Focusing on a "defense in depth" strategy, we use best practices to ensure that your information is kept
safe and protected. At PacificEast we have a program of ongoing training, security certifications and regular review
of our information security strategy, practices and policies. We have a fully prepared and tested Disaster Recovery
(DR) plan that ensures we properly provide for robust business continuity in the event of a prolonged outage in our
primary data center. Our goal is to provide our clients the best and safest combination of Confidentiality, Integrity
and Availability to their information.
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