Author: Eric Vasbinder
Support Status: Supported
Integration Method: ODBC Direct Database
Connection Method:
OPTION A (RECOMMENDED): IPSEC VPN or TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) from Customer Environment or external cloud
OPTION B (LEGACY ONLY / NO LONGER SUPPORTED FOR HOSTING): Hosted Data Connector
Hosted:
OPTION A (RECOMMENDED): NO
OPTION B (LEGACY ONLY / NO LONGER SUPPORTED FOR HOSTING): YES
Additional Charge:
OPTION A (RECOMMENDED) (Customer Hosts Data Connector):
YES - 1 x IPSEC VPN OR 1 x TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN)
NOTE: This should already be included in your VP1 bundle contract. Please reach out to your rep to verify.
OPTION B (Trimble Viewpoint Hosting of Cosential Data Connector - LEGACY ONLY / NO LONGER SUPPORTED FOR HOSTING):
Sales pipeline and opportunity tracking in a full Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution, provided by a strategic Trimble Viewpoint partner.
This product is similar in operation and feature set to Salesforce.com or Microsoft Dynamics.
As per many other server-side integrations to third-party products, this product is designed to use a data connector (a.k.a. a shim) that speaks to the Vista database directly using ODBC and then itself connects to the third party. This connection requires that the Vista server be "visible" to the third party system. To ensure that the two systems can communicate, we set up either a TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or an IPSEC VPN tunnel between our cloud and the environment where the data connector "bits" will be hosted.
Specifically, how this integration is implemented depends on how the connector shim is deployed: in Viewpoint's cloud, or externally to Viewpoint's cloud.
OPTION A (Remotely Hosted) (PREFERRED): where the customer hosts the third-party solution in their own environment on-premise. In this scenario, the customer does need to set up a VPN between their on-premise network and our single tenant network in our cloud. Note this is the least expensive method as we do not need to pass on charges for a separate integration server to the customer.
OPTION B (Viewpoint Cloud Hosted) (LEGACY ONLY - NO LONGER SUPPORTED FOR HOSTING FOR NEW INSTALLATIONS): In this case, the customer is connecting cloud-hosted Vista to the third-party's cloud directly. This is done by installing a vendor-supplied shim connector in the customer's single tenant environment in our cloud. This shim connector needs to be installed on a separate server as it accepts inbound control requests from the Internet.
NOTE: Since this shim is a third party product that we need to host, it requires being hosted on a separate server in our network for security reasons. As such, we need to pass on the costs for an additional server to the customer.
Stand up a TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or an IPSEC VPN between hosting location of third party product and customer's Vista environment in our cloud:
Create SQL account to allow third-party to authenticate to Vista: I need a dedicated SQL account for my integration to Vista in your cloud. How do I set that up?
Configure the third-party solution to talk to the IP address of the new Vista server in our cloud.
tl;dr: Customers who need to integrate Cosential Vista in our cloud need to host that data connector shim in their own environment either on-premise or in their cloud instance, connected to our cloud over a TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or an IPSEC VPN. Hosting of the data connector for Cosential is no longer supported for new installations.
changelog
Tuesday, 06 February 2024 at 03:53PM:
cleaned up references to options to include TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) and corrected font colors.
Tuesday, 09 August 2022 at 11:43AM:
updated to show that hosting of the connector is no longer supported.
Updated: Wednesday, 13 October 2021 at 11:15AM