ABP Signs Ohmex Software Agreement
Associated British Ports (ABP) has recently signed an escrow agreement with Ohmex to help protect its long term investment in environmental data-capture software and systems. The agreement concerns licensed access to bespoke computer software source code to help alleviate any unforeseen problems with continuity of service, should that event arise.
The modern software escrow agreement is between the author and the user of the package; it nominates a trusted third party to hold the software's source code and a mutually agreeable professional body to arbitrate on the release of the information in the event of a major change in circumstances with either of the agreement parties.
The EDAS software collects environmental tide and weather data from locations throughout the company's UK ports and broadcasts the information for 'live' use by VTS across its network. Designed as a scalable client/server model, the EDAS software has been continually running 24/7 since 1998 at the ABP ports of Southampton, Cardiff, Barry, Swansea and Newport. The core programs have recently been updated under contract to ensure continuity with current and future versions of the operating syste; particular attention has focused on the virtualisation of the software on a central server with direct access to remote data instruments across the ABP intranet. Data storage using a central SQL database has allowed ABP to write its own custom data access and presentation software in addition to the standard network clients provided with the EDAS system.
