30 August 2018 Page 1 of 5 BellHawk Systems Corporation

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1 BellHawk Tech Note Cloud vs On Site Installation Tradeoffs Introduction BellHawk Systems offers the BellHawk barcode tracking and label printing software in two variants: 1. As BellHawk Online, a set of prepackaged Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions available for use over the Internet on a subscription basis. 2. As a software platform, with many options that can be purchased for use on a client's own server and configured to the specific needs of each organization. In this technical note, we examine some of the trade-offs and draw the conclusions that if you do not have at least one highly-skilled in-house, on-site IT support person then you should be using BellHawk Online. If you do have such a person then it may make sense to install BellHawk on a server at your site. Pros and Cons for a SaaS based Solution The benefits of the SaaS based BellHawk Online solution are: 1. Little or no involvement required from the client's IT organization. Clients simply sign up and use the software online. 2. Runs at a secure data center with nightly backups to the Cloud and capability for rapid restoration if the system goes down. 3. Very high system uptime. 4. Low Cost, both in terms of usage fees and support costs. 5. No capital expenditures required for the software or a server to run it. 6. Can be brought on-line very quickly - in a day or two. 7. BellHawk Systems staff can quickly fix wrong data entry issues. 8. Minimizes risk as there is no major capital investment required. If the software does not meet your needs, simply stop using it. 9. Able to start small, doing barcode tracking in one area of your plant, and then easily expand the system, as your needs grow and deployment proceeds in other areas of the plant. 10. No need for an expensive on-site IT person to manage an on-site installation of BellHawk. 11. In large corporations, this approach avoids entanglement with Corporate IT. 30 August 2018 Page 1 of 5 BellHawk Systems Corporation

2 The disadvantages of a SaaS based solution are: 1. Operation is dependent on the availability of the Internet. But these days, Internet and Power to a plant typically travel on the same set of utility poles or through the same conduits. So, if one goes out, so does the other and the plant is shut down anyhow. 2. Dependent on a remote data center. The data center we use has backup power generators and many redundancies. Our servers all have mirrored hard drives so if one drive goes down the system keeps running. Also we take nightly backups to a backup server so we can switch our clients to another server, in another data center, if the first one goes down. 3. A subscription requires ongoing quarterly or annual payments rather than a one-time purchase. It costs about 30 months of subscription to purchase the software not including the annual maintenance fee, which is included in the SaaS subscription but has to be purchased at a cost of 20% of the licenses purchased, after the first year. 4. Loss of control. You no longer control the software, running on your server, in your plant. 5. Harder to generate custom reports as clients do not have direct access to the SQL Server database in which their data is stored. Pros and Cons of In House Installation Advantages of installing the system in-house on your own server: 1. Operation is independent of the Internet if the Windows Server is on the same LAN segment as the scanning devices. This will, of course, not apply if BellHawk is installed on a server at a remote data center. 2. Local availability of access to the SQL database used by BellHawk for custom reporting and data exchange with other systems. 3. Total control of the software and server with responsibility for doing nightly backups and restoring the data when needed. 4. One time capital expenditure unless annual software maintenance is purchased. No need for additional budgeted costs. 5. Ability to configure and customize the system to exactly meet the organization's needs. 6. Can run completely "off-the-grid" in a totally secure isolated environment. Disadvantages of installing on your own server are: 1. You need a full-time IT staff person onsite to manage BellHawk and the server on which it runs. This is not a full-time job but our experience is that this person needs to be available on-site to assist users as soon as they run into issues with using the software. Such a staff person costs at least $100,000 per year in loaded cost. If you already have 30 August 2018 Page 2 of 5 BellHawk Systems Corporation

3 such a person, or better a team of such people, then doing the installation on your own server may well may make economic sense. 2. Installing and maintaining BellHawk requires a high level of technical skill, for which it may be hard to recruit. 3. You need to manage the server on which BellHawk is run, with regular security updates, backups, and other maintenance tasks. 4. There are often long delays in getting the capital expenditure approved, the Windows Server system setup, and BellHawk installed. Special Technical Issues If BellHawk is to be used stand-alone, with data imported and exported by means of Excel spreadsheets then BellHawk Online is definitely the way to go for small and mid-sized organizations. It is also the way to go for departments within larger organizations that want to avoid getting their Corporate IT Department involved because of the delays involved. But there are some special technical issues, which we will address here: Printing Custom Barcode Labels While BellHawk can be used with preprinted rolls of license-plate tracking barcodes, some applications do need the printing of custom labels. To support these, BellHawk has extensive capabilities through its TAG option for printing custom labels based on data within the BellHawk database and client specific custom rules, setup through Excel imports. When BellHawk is installed on the client's own server, a label printing request received through the website results in placing a print request in the label print queue and the launching of the LabelPrint program on the server, which calls BarTender Automation, to print the label on a local network printer. When BellHawk Online is used, it is not feasible to print directly to a barcode label printer in the local plant from the BellHawk Online server because of network security and bandwidth issues. 30 August 2018 Page 3 of 5 BellHawk Systems Corporation

4 Instead we use a BellHawk IIOT Appliance (BellBox ) to remotely monitor the print queue on the server and to locally call BarTender Automation to generate the high volume of data needed for each label and to send it over the high speed LAN to the designated printer. BellHawk ships the TAG BellBox to a client's plant with all the necessary software loaded onto it. When the BellBox is powered up it contacts BellHawk Online automatically to print out the labels requested on-line. If the client has multiple facilities in which they need to print labels from BellHawk Online then they can have a label printing BellBox in each plant. Users can also plug in a monitor and keyboard into the BellBox to locally use BarTender to create new custom label formats or to modify existing ones. Exchanging Data with Other Systems For automatically exchanging data between BellHawk and other systems installed on computers on a common LAN within a local plant, BellHawk has a number of options: Direct access to the SQL Database through ODBC Use a.net SDK Use the Bell-Connector data exchange software platform BellHawk Online has a Web-Services (SOAP/XML) interface by which external systems can exchange data with BellHawk but direct access to the database or using the.net SDK are not available. Developing such a remote interface requires significant programming skills, which typically are the domain of an IT department with its own software development staff. BellHawk Systems is shortly coming out with a Data Exchange (DEX) BellBox that will read data, such as work orders, purchase orders, and sales orders from a locally accessible SQL Server database in the plant and send this to BellHawk. It will also take events recorded in BellHawk, such as shipments and receipts, and write these to a local database which can be used for developing custom reports or for exporting to an ERP or accounting system. Custom Reports When using an in-house installed version of BellHawk, clients can use software tools such as SSRS, Access, and Crystal Reports to generate their own custom reports. If SSRS is used, these can be integrated with the standard BellHawk reports. For clients using BellHawk Online, it is often simpler to have BellHawk Systems create custom reports for clients, especially when they do not have any in-house capability for this. This is made feasible by the fact that each client has their own version of BellHawk and that the reporting section is logically separate from the rest of BellHawk. For those clients that do want to develop custom reports then it is recommended that they use the data exported from BellHawk by a DEX BellBox as the basis for their custom reports. 30 August 2018 Page 4 of 5 BellHawk Systems Corporation

5 Custom Barcode Data Collection Through its user defined parameter (UDP) mechanism, BellHawk has extensive capabilities to add the collection of application specific data. If further customization of transactions is required then this has to be done by BellHawk System's technical staff. This applies to both on-site installed and Bell-Connector versions of BellHawk. Interfaces to Weighing Scales, RFID, and fixed station Barcode Scanners BellHawk Systems can provide BellBoxes that can automatically read data from weighing scales, such as those with RS232 interfaces, and automatically relay this data to BellHawk Online so that this data can be automatically incorporated into data entry transactions requiring the entry of weight data. A BellBox used in this way can be equipped with a keyboard and monitor so that it can be used for the online interface to BellHawk as well as providing the interface to one or more weighing scales. BellBoxes can also be provided for interfacing to RFID readers, so that containers with combination barcode/rfid labels/tags can be tracked in BellHawk as they move through RFID portals or flashlight zones. BellBoxes can also be configured to interface to fixed station barcode scanners. Commentary The most obvious conclusion is that if you do not have at least one highly-skilled in-house, onsite IT support person then you should be using BellHawk Online. If you do have such a person then it may make sense to install BellHawk. For on-site installations the client's IT support person is assigned as the project manager and manages the systems implementation with support from BellHawk Systems technical staff and its partners. This is essentially a full-time job for several weeks or even months depending on the complexity of the system being installed. Using BellHawk Online is much simpler with training and support services available from BellHawk Systems both on-line and on-site. Because startup is so much easier and quicker using BellHawk Online, wherever possible, we recommend that clients start out using BellHawk Online. Because each user gets their own website and database this can then be quickly transitioned to an on-site server, if needed. From an interfacing, label generation, and custom reporting viewpoint, BellBoxes make it just as easy, if not easier, to perform these functions with BellHawk Online than with an in-house server. In fact, it may be simpler to use BellBoxes, even with an on-site installation, as they provide a more user friendly interface than directly interfacing to BellHawk. For More Information Please contact Client-Support@BellHawkOnline.com or call August 2018 Page 5 of 5 BellHawk Systems Corporation