Technology
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Overview
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, but we don't just access one or two. We access the largest number of data
providers of any similar service provider. The large the number of repositories we use assures that we'll be able to find the information you need. Many of our
competitors use only their own, internally produced data. While their information may be good quality, no single data provider can have everything. Additionally,
some providers are good at finding some kinds of information, but not as 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 and passing those savings on to you.
Our Operations
PacificEast systems operate from three data centers in the US and Canada. Our British Columbia Data Center provides support for our Canadian customers who need to
keep their data inside the Canadian borders. On the US side of the border we have two SAS 70 Type II (or better) data centers; one near Portland, Oregon and the
other near Richmond, Virginia. Portland houses our primary production data center for most US-based services. However, our Richmond facility serves the specialized
high-speed operational requirements of our East Coast and European customers.
Technology Options
PacificEast supports three primary methods of interaction between your systems or files and our services: Batch, Interactive and Real-Time and Web Services.
- 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. You don't need 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 or discuss other options you may find useful.
- Real-Time / Integrated
Real-time (you may also see this referred to as “integrated”, “API” or “Web Services”) allows your computer systems to access PacificEast services directly and at
high speeds. This method of interaction is quick and reliable. However, Real-time connections do require your IT, Programming or Technology department to write a
program that runs on your computer systems but knows how to interact with PacificEast servers. The protocols (message languages) PacificEast supports are based on
XML over HTTPS. We currently support access via SOAP 1.1 or 1.2, HTTP GET and HTTP POST. If needed, we can also support REST and JSON. 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 search systems via a webpage they can access from anywhere in the world. 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.
Access to our searching web pages gives you an easy to use interface that allows the broadest flexibility in types of searches. Best of all, it requires zero setup
and no programming or even software installation.
- 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.
Privacy
PacificEast self certifies under the United State's Federal Trade Commission's Safe Harbor program. For details, please visit our privacy policy here.
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