CODE3 is a German independent software vendor (ISV) that was founded in 2012. As a business, they develop and sell their “fireplan” software to fire departments all over Germany and other German speaking regions. In essence, fireplan is an ERP for fire departments: it provides fire departments and municipalities the ability to document and bill any kind of incident and keeps track of educational and personal documentation, such as training schedules and health and equipment checks.

By default, fireplan is installed on premise. Yet, the increasing proliferation of new device types (e.g. mac OS or Linux), and the need for mobile access is also growing in fire stations.

Problem: CODE3 used to leverage on Azure RemoteApp to provide mobile access to their end-customers. However, as of August 2016, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Azure RemoteApp service, meaning CODE3 needed to find a suitable alternative.

Awingu as the solution: By replacing Azure RemoteApp with Awingu, CODE3 ensured easy, fast and safe access to their software on every platform. Be it either in municipalities with limited internet access or in fire stations that deployed operating systems different from Windows, the Awingu platform helped enable a connection to fireplan that works even smoother than if it were installed on premise. CODE3 tested Awingu All-in-One on the Azure Marketplace. “Our trial on the Azure Marketplace worked remarkably good from the start, and that really convinced us”, Bojan Slegel (one of the co-founders) says.

CODE3 chose Awingu to resolve their issue because of the following reasons:

• No third party: Awingu is available as a software package. CODE3 runs and operates the software under their name, and in the infrastructure of their choice: Microsoft Azure. There are no additional contracts and processes needed with Awingu to comply to German privacy regulations.
• Platform-agnosticism: Cross-platform usage is crucial for the fireplan software. It needs to run not only on desktops and laptops (for everyday usage) but also on tablets in the field or in fire trucks. Furthermore, CODE3 required enablement for all Operating Systems: Apple iOS and mac OS, Google’s Android, Windows 10 or older Windows platforms…
• Scalability: Awingu can allow the company to grow at a faster rate, because they would provide their upcoming products via the same channel – guaranteeing a smoother and less-disruptive implementation for current clients.
• Easy to manage: The setup of Awingu on Azure was very simple. CODE3 only needed to build on top of their existing platform.
• Speed: Municipalities are often still connected with low bandwidth connections and struggling with network restrictions. In fact, CODE3 had customers who couldn’t run fireplan because of connection issues. With Awingu’s bandwidth optimization, those issues were largely solved.
• Support: In the early stage, CODE3 was impressed by how quickly, thoroughly and professionally the Awingu Support Team responded to the question they had: “Any questions we had in the earlier stages were very quickly, thoroughly and professionally answered by the Awingu Support Team,” Bojan says. “We were surprised by how engaged they were for a company that wasn’t even a customer yet!”