Monthly Archives: November 2021

Is Your Network Prepared for Unified Communications?

Unified Communications, or UC, is an Internet-based way to bring together your company’s communications–telephony, web conferencing, email and more. With its benefits, it requires a reliable and secure network to keep your employees connected and productive. Read on to learn about Unified Communications and what you need to do to prepare.

 

The Benefits of Unified Communications

 

Even before 2020, the use of Unified Communications was growing; since then, it has become even more popular. In a nutshell, Unified Communications is a way of integrating multiple modes of communication–including VoIP telephony, email, web conferencing and more–via the Internet. These new and integrated technologies save time and money by allowing businesses to seamlessly connect and collaborate with colleagues, cohorts and customers with ease. Unified Communications can also help a company gain a competitive advantage, connecting with customers regardless of location. Workers can work anytime, anywhere, with just an Internet connection, communicating and collaborating with each other and customers from work, home or on the road. Integration with CRM can help them obtain information about customers easily, and they’ll never miss a voicemail by routing to email. When UC is supported by software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), traffic can move easily because if one carrier goes down, another can pick up the slack without any downtime.

 

Prepare Your Business and  Network for UC with SD-WAN

 

Adoption of Unified Communications provides multiple benefits, yet requires planning and consideration. First, you’ll need to examine how it will support your company’s business goals. Second, you’ll need to assess your network’s strength and security; do you have the internal bandwidth it takes to support UC? Auditing your network to detect any weak spots might be a good first step, and inventorying the security of devices connected to the network. Checking to ensure network traffic flows smoothly during peak hours by prioritizing usage avoids service interruption and Quality of Service (QoS) issues. Finally, trace network traffic back to your service providers to identify bottlenecks that can easily be avoided using SD-WAN technologies.

 

Unified Communications with SD-WAN can be a great help to your business, especially if workers are still remote. To learn more about assessing the readiness of your business and network, contact us today.

Is Your Network Prepared for Unified Communications?

Unified Communications, or UC, is an Internet-based way to bring together your company’s communications–telephony, web conferencing, email and more. With its benefits, it requires a reliable and secure network to keep your employees connected and productive. Read on to learn about Unified Communications and what you need to do to prepare.

 

The Benefits of Unified Communications

 

Even before 2020, the use of Unified Communications was growing; since then, it has become even more popular. In a nutshell, Unified Communications is a way of integrating multiple modes of communication–including VoIP telephony, email, web conferencing and more–via the Internet. These new and integrated technologies save time and money by allowing businesses to seamlessly connect and collaborate with colleagues, cohorts and customers with ease. Unified Communications can also help a company gain a competitive advantage, connecting with customers regardless of location. Workers can work anytime, anywhere, with just an Internet connection, communicating and collaborating with each other and customers from work, home or on the road. Integration with CRM can help them obtain information about customers easily, and they’ll never miss a voicemail by routing to email. When UC is supported by software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), traffic can move easily because if one carrier goes down, another can pick up the slack without any downtime.

 

Prepare Your Business and  Network for UC with SD-WAN

 

Adoption of Unified Communications provides multiple benefits, yet requires planning and consideration. First, you’ll need to examine how it will support your company’s business goals. Second, you’ll need to assess your network’s strength and security; do you have the internal bandwidth it takes to support UC? Auditing your network to detect any weak spots might be a good first step, and inventorying the security of devices connected to the network. Checking to ensure network traffic flows smoothly during peak hours by prioritizing usage avoids service interruption and Quality of Service (QoS) issues. Finally, trace network traffic back to your service providers to identify bottlenecks that can easily be avoided using SD-WAN technologies.

 

Unified Communications with SD-WAN can be a great help to your business, especially if workers are still remote. To learn more about assessing the readiness of your business and network, contact us today.

 

 

The Benefits of Unified Communications

 

Even before 2020, the use of Unified Communications was growing; since then, it has become even more popular. In a nutshell, Unified Communications is a way of integrating multiple modes of communication–including VoIP telephony, email, web conferencing and more–via the Internet. These new and integrated technologies save time and money by allowing businesses to seamlessly connect and collaborate with colleagues, cohorts and customers with ease. Unified Communications can also help a company gain a competitive advantage, connecting with customers regardless of location. Workers can work anytime, anywhere, with just an Internet connection, communicating and collaborating with each other and customers from work, home or on the road. Integration with CRM can help them obtain information about customers easily, and they’ll never miss a voicemail by routing to email. When UC is supported by software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), traffic can move easily because if one carrier goes down, another can pick up the slack without any downtime.

 

Prepare Your Business and  Network for UC with SD-WAN

 

Adoption of Unified Communications provides multiple benefits, yet requires planning and consideration. First, you’ll need to examine how it will support your company’s business goals. Second, you’ll need to assess your network’s strength and security; do you have the internal bandwidth it takes to support UC? Auditing your network to detect any weak spots might be a good first step, and inventorying the security of devices connected to the network. Checking to ensure network traffic flows smoothly during peak hours by prioritizing usage avoids service interruption and Quality of Service (QoS) issues. Finally, trace network traffic back to your service providers to identify bottlenecks that can easily be avoided using SD-WAN technologies.

 

Unified Communications with SD-WAN can be a great help to your business, especially if workers are still remote. To learn more about assessing the readiness of your business and network, contact us today.

 

Security and Compliance Go Hand in Hand

With the amount of data being generated by businesses the world over, every single day, securing this data is vital. While Government, Industry and other regulations offer compliance to standards, information security reduces business risks related to cybercrime, ransomware and other interruptions resulting in data loss. Keeping your network safe and in compliance can help you avoid the consequences of data breaches. Read on to learn more about how to keep your network in compliance–and healthy, too.

 

Maintaining Network Health Facilitates Compliance

 

Your computer network is the backbone of your IT infrastructure, and needs to be maintained in order to stay healthy, and keep your business secure and compliant. Your network enables you to stay connected to customers, vendors and employees;  keep your mission-critical applications running; and connect to public and private cloud infrastructure as well as back up data offsite. A healthy network is efficient, flexible and secure, routing data in the quickest way possible and rerouting easily. Security is another hallmark of a healthy network, one with no weak spots or holes allowing the intrusion of malware and viruses, where data is encrypted. Keeping the network strong is a good step toward compliance.

 

Keeping Your Network Secure

 

Keeping your network and its data and applications secure can be thought of as a two-prong effort. One involves technological tools and defenses. A company can protect its network with current operating systems patches to block malware or viruses from intruding, as well as maintaining current antivirus and anti-malware definitions. Going further, a company might consider network monitoring to keep small intrusions from becoming major problems. Such monitoring can be done offsite, to protect your network after hours. The second prong is employees. Training them in cybersecurity policies, and best practices around passwords and connecting to your network can ideally transform employees from being the weakest link to being one of the strongest parts of your defense.

 

Compliance Facilitated by Security

 

If security involves protecting your company’s assets, compliance has to do with following regulations from a third party like the government or an industry. Industry regulations include HIPAA, followed by health-care organizations or PCI-DSS which protects personal information belonging to retail customers. Procedures for compliance have to do with backing up data, auditing and monitoring your network for any weak spots including unprotected devices, and maintaining current definitions. These procedures can help your business avoid the loss of money (through penalties), avoid downtime (which is also costly) and can prevent the loss of trust resulting from a data breach. 

 

A healthy network can go far in helping your company stay secure and compliant. For assistance in reaching this goal, contact us today.