Blog

Making a Smooth Cloud Transition

May 22, 2017 by teleconsult

The cloud is no longer considered a fad. It is increasingly becoming the home of many businesses that are leaving their on-premise hardware behind. Not only does cloud save money, it also makes the workplace more productive. Many businesses are only partially in the cloud, taking advance of SaaS platforms that suit their needs. Here’s what any business needs to know to make a smooth cloud transition.

Where the Cloud Is Going

The cloud market is expected to reach $4.46 billon globally by 2021 with the help of BYOD policies. Allowing employees to bring their own devices is one way companies are easing into a cloud environment. The fact that BYOD significantly cuts hardware and maintenance costs makes it an attractive form of quick change. SaaS platforms lead to further savings, since they involve paying for one license as opposed to several.

Decision makers also view VoIP as a practical alternative to a traditional land line. Using an internet connection for communication cuts costs enormously on long distance calls, which is important to global businesses. Cloud providers that offer SMS are gaining favor over traditional communications providers. More and more business professionals are using embedded communications rather than standalone solutions.

The shift toward cloud-based services has much to do with the fact that it’s more expensive and less secure to run and maintain on-premise infrastructure. Hardware that must be replaced every five to ten years becomes a huge expense if every employee is assigned their own machine owned by the company. A cloud transition opens the door for less focus on technical aspects and more focus on the actual business. This shift in focus leads to improved business productivity.

Cloud Configurations

When a business decides on making a cloud transition, they have various configurations to choose from. Purpose-built software solutions provide embedded experiences. Cloud-based PBX technology limits disruption while providing basic, familiar capabilities for customers. The be your own carrier (BYOC) approach is based on the concept of Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS), which allows developers to create customized applications. It frees developers from operating network infrastructure while having control over the customer experience.

Management must decide on a configuration then choose a service provider after carefully reviewing the options. While switching service providers can be complex, it can also make a big difference in profits and reputation. If the service regularly drops calls or makes communication difficult, it’s necessary to switch to a more reliable solution. That’s why it’s important to thoroughly research a service provider before committing to an agreement. Here are essential criteria to explore:

quality of service must be carrier-grade
operations must be reliable for automation, call flow design, and support
the degree to which the carrier provides developers access and control
access to telecom data
new development features enhance voice, messaging, and video

Conclusion

Businesses are steadily making a cloud transition to save money and time on managing hardware and software. The growing popularity of VoIP is another example of how the cloud is providing cost efficient solutions to businesses. As long as the service is researched and shown to be reliable, in many cases cloud services are much more economical than traditional equipment or services.

Planning for Successful IT Transformation

May 8, 2017 by teleconsult

When a company plans to shift from one IT state to another, its IT transformation must be overseen by a CIO or qualified technical expert. One of the main expectations of a CIO is to improve business efficiency. In order to upgrade IT to a better state, the CIO must also stay updated on security vulnerabilities and technology compatibility. Here are ways to ensure proper IT transformation toward a new framework.

Planning Ahead

The main concern of the planning stage is to make sure IT and business goals are in sync. It’s a time to evaluate how IT can help bring strategic value to the company. Certain workloads or applications may need to be improved. Management may decide it’s easier to outsource certain services.

Careful Assessment

Beginning with IT inventory, management must assess which processes are helping the company meet its goals and which ones create a strain on the system. Every type of technology from data centers to applications must be examined thoroughly. Utilization rates and operational costs must be compared with industry norms to learn where budget cuts are necessary. It’s a time to ask questions about scalability and IoT issues.

Designing the Framework

The design phase applies to application, workflow, and process transformation. During this phase management must establish a budget and timeline. It begins with a vision of how the ideal IT department will look, and involves long-term decisions on merging IT with business.

The decision makers for each element of IT must be identified and considered for the expertise they bring to the organization. Their input will help shape a sustainable business strategy and plan. During this phase the CIO must sort out how security, hardware, and networking are organized. It’s helpful to create a list of potential service partners and answer questions about ROI.

Migration Phase

Migration is the key turning point in IT transformation. This stage begins with management deciding what needs to move, whether it’s data centers, databases, or applications. Usually starting small, such as moving email to the cloud, then easing into the migration process works well.

A move will be much more organized if it involves a continuity and contingency plan that allows the company to continue running its business during migration. It’s a time to create strategies for eliminating or reducing downtime during the transition. A migration service provider can help pressure test the migration plan. Technicians must test the code of applications to make sure it will work in the cloud.

Refinement and Optimization

Once the migration is complete, the next phase is to work out the nuances of new management processes. By this point either administrative responsibilities have been streamlined or they’ve been taken over by a service provider. CIOs need to make sure at this stage that their system integrates well with external service providers.

The optimization stage completes the IT transformation project, as it ensures that IT and business goals are aligned. The CIO must further evaluate how well IT is focused on application performance and that workload optimization has continuity. IT must also be driven by measurable performance and work as an empowering culture for employees.

Conclusion

IT transformation is the process of moving from one IT state to another in the most efficient way. The end result is a more cost efficient business in which processes are optimized. These improvements should help companies attract the best possible technical talent.

Energizing Business by Moving to the Cloud

April 17, 2017 by teleconsult

Game-changing technology has opened new possibilities for businesses over the last decade. The new landscape is filled with start-ups that wouldn’t have been possible five or ten years ago, and the major player in that evolution is cloud technology. Rather than requiring costly hardware investments, virtual machines and pay-as-you-go applications offer the flexibility and agility demanded in today’s global marketplace. Yet, some companies are still hesitant to embrace the change, and the delay can be costly.

Established organizations with in-house systems often cite concerns like security, cost, disruption to daily operations, and a lack of knowledge about how to make the move when justifying their reluctance to migrate systems and data into the virtual arena. However, those concerns are largely unfounded.

Security

Companies hesitant to adopt cloud computing have vague impressions that security is lacking, but nothing is further from the truth. Providers that host data in a virtual environment take security concerns very seriously because their reputations depend on confidentiality.

Operational Fluidity

In-house data centers are typically the result of years of investment. Hardware, software, and systems that support daily operations seem too intricate to move to a virtual environment, so companies often think that migrating data and applications will present a set of difficulties that will be costly to overcome. However, since legacy systems must be evaluated and updated to meet changing needs, cloud services offer a significant reduction in upkeep expense. Companies that resist the change often find themselves falling behind competitors that have transferred service to cloud computing and can operate on smaller budgets.

Getting Started

Knowing how to begin cloud migration is one of the biggest challenges for many organizations. For those companies, making small changes is the best way to get started. For example:

Move data archives to a cloud storage facility. Instead of storing data on tapes and other methods, the cloud offers a low-cost alternative for storage compliance.
Move one application. Start small by moving something like email. This will give businesses the confidence to move other applications.
Deploy a new application virtually. Keep legacy systems running, but introduce new applications virtually so that mission-critical operations remain in-house.
Employ a hybrid approach. Private options allow businesses to choose which applications to augment virtually for the best performance.

Moving data to a virtual environment offers reduced costs, increased scalability, and dependable business continuity in a secure environment. Businesses that embrace this technology benefit from lasting improvements.

Bandwidth Flexibility Is the Key to the Future

April 3, 2017 by teleconsult

Bandwidth.
It’s been such a ubiquitous part of the networking landscape for so long that it has become easy to overlook its importance and get tied in to an outdated view of how it affects a business. With the current crop of new technologies enabling businesses to be more and more competitive, companies are going to have to change how they think about bandwidth.

To illustrate just how pervasive the need for increased bandwidth is likely to become, and how our concept of bandwidth usage needs to change, we present here a pair of scenarios, both of which will be very familiar to any modern corporation.

After a Merger

When acquiring another company, what is usually important are assets such as locations, branding, and customer relationships. What is seldom of as much significance are the business processes and personnel. After merging with another company, it is often desirable to spread experienced staff from the parent company as far as possible throughout the organization to make for a smoother transition, and to create satisfying new customer relationships. One of the most cost effective ways to do this is through telepresence solutions such as video conferencing.

It is not usually necessary for experienced employees to be physically present in various locations. What is needed is their knowledge, authority, or experience. Video conferencing allows key staff to be “present” at many different locations without any of the requisite travel time.

In the right circumstances this can increase productivity enormously. This type of solution, of course, requires enough bandwidth to carry the necessary audio and video signals for all affected staff.

Post-Modern Customer Contact

In many industries there has been a trend towards automating as much of the customer interaction process as possible. Modern customer contact is automated. This helps reduce costs associated with staffing, of course, but often at the expense of satisfied customers. Although fine for “business-as-usual” interactions, it is not a particularly good solution for anything out of the ordinary.

A new development in the area of automated customer interactions, whether through kiosks or online, is the ability for customers to deal with their normal business through the automated channels, but speak to a live customer support employee should circumstances warrant it. Post-modern customer contact is a hybrid of automation and personal service.

This type of network demand is difficult to forecast, though, and can be prone to spiking – with sudden and drastic differences between normal and peak usage. The solution to this issue is scalable bandwidth. Bandwidth scalability means having excess capacity available when needed without having to pay for it when it is not being used.

Conclusion

We are already seeing bandwidth needs changing in ways that could never have been predicted 5 years ago. What is clear at present is that a key bandwidth issue in the future is going to be flexibility. More bandwidth is still going to be necessary, but maybe not all the time, and not necessarily to and from the same places. And it probably won’t be used in the same ways it is now. Maintaining bandwidth flexibility is certain to be one of the most important challenges facing businesses in the near future.

BYOD and the “Digital Divide” in Schools

March 20, 2017 by teleconsult

Workplaces around the world have adopted bring your own device (BYOD) policies, but the trend is moving beyond the world of the enterprise. A growing number of public schools are also embracing the BYOD trend as a means of providing digital education in an age of budget cutbacks and funding limitations.

While school-based BYOD policies do offer students enhanced educational opportunities, they also expose socioeconomic divides. What happens to the children whose parents can’t afford to buy the latest technologies? In some places, the problem is made worse by the fact that retailers seek to exploit the rush for devices by jacking up their prices when the calendar rolls around to the beginning of the school year.

BYOD in Schools: Issues Parents and Students Face

Beyond the costs involved, there are other issues that parents and students face when trying to navigate the BYOD world. They include:

Device compatibility. Some parents and students aren’t sure which connected devices they need, leading to guesswork. If the purchased device isn’t compatible with the school’s hardware, the family may be stuck with a device that doesn’t serve its intended purpose.
Compulsory participation. Schools with optional BYOD policies tend to have an easier time integrating the needs of less-advantaged students. However, some schools have mandatory BYOD requirements, which can significantly increase the financial strain of putting a child through school.
Technology fees. To ensure students have access to the technologies in which they need to be literate, some school boards have started charging “technology fees.” These annual dues are yet another way that parents are taxed by the move towards digital education.

Towards Effective BYOD Solutions

Fortunately, most schools with optional or compulsory BYOD guidelines are aware of these problems. They’ve developed solutions that help bridge the gap, including:

Giving students without their own devices prioritized access to in-classroom computer resources
Loaning laptops to students in need
Reduced-price agreements with some major computer manufacturers that give qualified parents special discounts on electronic devices
The designation of school discretionary funds for the acquisition of more computer resources

Connected devices are an integral part of modern education, and making sure that all students have equal access is a challenge that all parties need to solve together.

Backup and Recovery: A Treatment for the Ransomware Virus

March 6, 2017 by teleconsult

In 1989, one Dr. Joseph Popp mailed a set of floppy disks innocuously labeled as “AIDS Information Introductory Diskettes” to several thousand members of a mailing list of researchers. These disks, when read by the computers, replaced and renamed system files so that when the computer was later booted up, it would display a fake license agreement and ask that the user send $189 to a P.O. box in Panama in order to continue using the computer. In doing so, he set the pattern for a type of virus which would come to be known as ransomware.

Ransomware on the Rise

People may no longer receive floppy disks in the mail, but the pattern remains similar: most ransomware attacks are delivered as an innocuous email attachment. And the number of these attacks has been rising. In 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice issued statements on the ransomware threat, and the number of ransomware attacks is estimated to be even higher than the number of data breaches. In this environment, businesses need to know how to handle an attack which may be inevitable.

Protecting Against Ransomware

The top protection against these attacks may be to sidestep their effects by investing in backup and recovery. This way, if a virus corrupts, encrypts, or otherwise blocks access to business data, the company can simply restore to an earlier “snapshot” of their business data. Companies should design journaling procedures and reporting practices, and engineer frequent recovery points into their data days so that the loss from any attack is minimal. And companies should ensure that they retain backup data long enough to recover from an attack.

But simply backing up data may not be enough. Some ransomware viruses lie dormant for some time before launching their ransom demand, which may mean that unwary businesses back up the virus along with their legitimate data. Recovery for these companies can be painful, as a restoration simply re-introduces the virus. Backup and recovery services need to be integrated with data validators and malware scanners in order to provide an adequate defense against these and other viruses.

Don’t Pay

If there’s one thing that’s ineffective, it’s paying the ransom. Payment doesn’t guarantee a release of data – and, in fact, those companies which do pay may face additional monetary demands or re-targeting at a later date, once they demonstrate their willingness to comply.

In all, ransomware protection boils down to a few key points:

All employees of a company should be educated against opening suspicious attachments, or attachments from unknown sources
Data should be backed up regularly, scanned for malware, and verified
Backup data should be retained long enough to provide for recovery in the event of an attack
Attacks should be expected, and planned for
Attacks should be reported to law enforcement when they occur, and ransoms should not be paid.

While these practices cannot guarantee safety from ransomware attacks, they provide a solid foundation upon which to build a security protocol.

Key SMB Technologies in 2017: What to Watch

February 20, 2017 by teleconsult

Gartner’s recent list of trends in technology for 2017 paint an exceptionally interesting picture for any SMB willing to think big heading into the new year. Although accurate predictions of what the business/technology landscape will look like grow fuzzier and less distinct the further out we look, what seems clear now is that there will be ample opportunities for a forward-thinking SMB to leverage a number of key technologies in order to reach new levels of productivity – and even to deliver entirely new products, services, and customer experiences.

More Mobility

Although this may seem like just more of the same – after all, mobility has been a steadily growing aspect of business tech for years – adoption of services like cloud-based document storage, hosted VoIP, distributed project management, and communications suites are set to reach a critical mass that might just change how the majority of companies do business.

Intelligent Apps

Intelligent apps, sometimes called smart apps, are applications that leverage the burgeoning abilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to support workers in becoming more productive, more creative, and more effective. The ways in which AI can be applied to business apps are already varied and nuanced, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to potential uses.

At the moment, the most commonly used applications involve voice recognition and transcription as well as anticipating the information needs of workers – applications of great utility to an SMB.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

As is so often the case with new technology, what was once developed for the game room is now moving to the board room. Virtual reality (VR) creates an entirely artificial environment that is experienced by the user as though it was real by way of a VR headset. Augmented reality, most recently popularized by the game Pokémon Go, overlays the real world with additional information that only exists digitally, often through the use of a smart phone or tablet.

The human resources/training and customer contact applications of this technology are immediately useful for almost any SMB, and it also has implications, through its use in tele-presence solutions, in allowing a small business to expand operations over a wider geographical area without significantly increasing staffing.

Adaptive Security

Almost a combination of several of the previously mentioned technologies, adaptive security uses a multi-layered security framework and machine learning to identify and remember potential threats and protect against them in the future. This type of security is superior to inert security solutions in that it is always actively scanning the system for threats and breaches. It protects the network proactively rather than reactively, and does so more quickly than any human being could.

The development of cloud services and numerous “as a Service” technologies over the past decade have allowed SMBs to level the playing field and hold their own against much bigger corporations. These new developments might go one step further and allow SMBs to truly take advantage of their adaptability, flexibility, and agility to not just compete with big corporations – but to out-compete them.

The Business Case for Fiber Optics

February 6, 2017 by teleconsult

Fiber optics aren’t new. First developed in the 1970s, they’ve been known for high-speed data transfer for decades. But many CEOs are used to thinking of their business application as limited; aside from a few specific markets, like stock trading or telecommunications, does data speed really have a significant impact?

As the economy becomes ever more digitally supported, the answer has swung to a resounding “Yes!” Fiber optic networks offer benefits to businesses of all sizes, including the following:

Increased employee productivity. Downloading reports, sending files across departments, accessing shared documents, and other business tasks are just one component of the fiber optic benefit. Employees also feel more engaged and can support a faster working pace when the systems they use are more responsive. In the digital age, that often comes down to network connectivity.
Improved VoIP support. Voice over IP is a technology that underpins a number of modern communications technologies, including Google Talk and Skype. VoIP offers numerous benefits over traditional phone services, including lower costs and increased flexibility, especially in BYOD environments or environments with a number of remote workers. And the speed and bandwidth of fiber optic networks puts professional-quality VoIP services within reach for many businesses.
Better disaster recovery prep. It’s all well and good to have a disaster recovery strategy in place, but if a disaster does strike, backing up the company’s data will have been only half the battle. The speed with which a business can recover from a disaster is limited by the speed at which data can transfer from offsite data storage to production servers. Fiber networks can speed this transfer, reducing downtime in critical moments.
Better cloud access. With Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), and numerous other business applications as services flourishing on the cloud, businesses can take advantage of high-quality, well-managed resources with lower overhead costs than in-house management and support. But accessing the cloud requires data transfer, and a slow network can hamper business processes that touch the cloud. High-speed fiber optics alleviate this considerably.
Increased flexibility. Site traffic isn’t a constant, especially for businesses whose demand fluctuates seasonally, or businesses that are launching large sales or promotions. Fiber networks offer increased ability to scale bandwidth without costly additional installations.

Fast data networks are no longer just an impressive technical toy, or an investment that benefits the IT department while leaving other departments unaffected. Instead, they can dramatically increase the overall functioning of a business.

Opening a Dialogue about Data Protection and Security: What SMBs Should Know

January 23, 2017 by teleconsult

Many small and medium businesses (SMBs) are vulnerable to security threats. Whether they’re aware of the risks and know that they need improvements or they’re operating in blissful ignorance of the costs of a cybercrime, discussing security and data protection upgrades can be challenging. Many of these companies consider themselves a low priority target for attackers, or simply feel that their current antivirus is adequate protection against an attack. These businesses typically focus more thought on daily operations than on whether or not they are at risk for a data breach.

However, companies of all sizes must protect themselves against malware attacks, injections, and similar hacking techniques to avoid extreme losses. For SMBs, this discussion is vital, because a major breach can cause insolvency. In fact, Experian estimates that as much as 60% of SMBs go out of business within six months of a cyberattack. By understanding what to discuss with their service provider, SMBs can develop stronger protections against catastrophic events.

Operating and Mission Critical Systems

First, identify the primary operating system (OS) and version of it that is running. Many older OS versions, such as Windows XP, no longer offer support for the latest protocols. Patches that were put in place four years ago won’t cut it today, so companies that are operating on systems that are no longer supported should upgrade immediately.

Software that is critical to daily business operations should also be considered. Web services, communications, and planning systems should undergo examination concerning the type of securities in place.

Current Authentication Practices

Another area that SMBs should discuss involves internal policies. When considering how to heighten data protection, companies should examine current password policies and physical restrictions. Often, weak passwords open up a variety of cybersecurity concerns. A qualified service provider will ascertain whether or not an SMB is using the best password development system for strength, duration (if needed), and confidentiality. A recent study by Verizon determined that in 2015, stolen credentials accounted for more than 30 percent of attacks.

Password policy best practices include:

Using at least 8-12 characters
Never writing passwords down anywhere
Creating passwords that are complex (have upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols), but are also easy to remember.

Password encryption services are also an effective tool. The idea is to fortify the weakest link in business data protection, which is most often the human factor.

Know the Risks

A cyberattack has the power to cause serious repercussions for SMBs that aren’t prepared. Whether it comes in the form of denial of service (DoS) attacks, malware infiltrations, language injections, brute force attacks, package transmissions that are susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks, or some other malicious trespass, SMBs can’t afford to ignore data protection and cybersecurity concerns.

Evolution of Unified Communications: Benefits, Drawbacks, and New Frontiers

January 9, 2017 by teleconsult

Many businesses today need to institute effective ways to simplify their sales funnel and customer relations processes. However, the way technology has rapidly expanded in such a short time has contributed to more disjointed communications. For example, customer relationship management (CRM) software is designed to integrate every aspect of an interaction with an individual buyer, whether it involves touches on website pages, phone contacts, or emails. Businesses need to retain every interaction with each customer, but the rise of the mobile workforce makes this a difficult challenge.

Unified communications (UC) service providers seek to alter that dynamic. By developing a “single pane” of interaction that includes every customer “touch” and integrates resource planning systems with CRM software, a method is established for combining the information gathered through various connections. Yet problems occur when a salesperson makes contact with a buyer using their personal device.

Ideal Function

Ideally, UC should integrate all the information gleaned about a specific customer. The various forms of interaction, such as email, phone calls, and purchases made either online or through electronic POs would exist in one unified system, which could be accessed through a customer-specific dashboard. In principle, this would streamline service to create a comprehensive view of the customer history and simplify compliance performance by creating records of every contact.

As mobility options grow, more and more employees have the ability to connect with clients through their personal devices. In light of this, UC needs to be able to integrate the data accumulated within any mobile device management (MDM) program that the company utilizes to keep mobile interactions secure.

Creating a Comprehensive Customer Journey

Since CRM and ERP systems are part of mission critical operations, but there are countless ways to make phone calls, the idea of UC is beginning to evolve. Much like the expansion of software-defined networks, UC as a concept is adapting to become more effective. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are expanding and traditional telephony is receding, allowing companies to integrate more and more communication options into their operational systems.

This is good news for businesses. Building an infrastructure that has the ability to integrate mobile, web, and office-based activity into one system helps reduce costs and improve productivity. Moreover, it simplifies compliance performance so that businesses are able to effortlessly conform to volatile regulatory statutes.

Although the definition and execution of UC continues to evolve, the concept of retaining and being easily able to access the entire customer journey is one that businesses will continue to embrace because of the benefits it is able to produce.

Stay Connected