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Telework Best Practices: Mobility Challenges in the Age of Working from Home

Posted on by Bluewave

To some extent, all enterprises are struggling with mobility challenges as more employees work from home full-time than ever before. If your organization is facing new or evolving issues related to mobility, that’s no surprise, but you’re probably wondering what you can do about it. Here’s what you need to know about telework.

An Overview of New and Evolving Mobility Challenges for Telework

Enterprises of all sizes are encountering broader technology challenges due to more employees working remotely than in the past, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many workers into working from home who previously didn’t. As a result, organizations have had to rethink and refocus their approach to mobility, but to different degrees. In our experience, two types of clients have struggled with mobility challenges:

  1. Businesses that had already migrated to the cloud prior to COVID
  2. Premise-based organizations that hadn’t migrated to the cloud before the pandemic

That’s right—even organizations that had already migrated some or all of their network operations to a cloud environment encountered mobility challenges as they transitioned to a fully remote business model. However, since cloud architecture goes hand-in-hand with business agility and mobility, these organizations faced fewer initial challenges and recovered faster than those without a cloud model. While many cloud-based organizations have recovered from the initial mobility challenges, that doesn’t mean they still didn’t encounter them or that they don’t have to worry about developing challenges in the future. Across the board, we’ve seen organizations at every level struggle with:

Network Performance Challenges

Leading up to the pandemic, most enterprises already knew that their on-premise infrastructure was built and optimized to handle day-to-day network traffic. What they didn’t necessarily know is if their employees’ home or off-site networks were capable of meeting those same demands. As a result, all organizations have inevitably encountered the challenges of employees’ home networks not always aligning with application network requirements.

Endpoint Security Challenges

As with network uptime, it’s much easier to manage endpoint security when all devices are actively connected to a business’s core network. You can flag device vulnerabilities, keep antivirus definitions up to date, and monitor for suspicious activity. Without the right tools in place, it’s been impossible for organizations to achieve that same level of security and visibility into vulnerabilities when everyone’s connected to a different network. With increased mobility comes decreased network visibility—unless you partner with the experts at Bluewave.

Best Practice: Network Performance

It’s easier to guarantee network performance and guard against downtime when everyone’s working on the same network, but what do you do when they’re not? Now, if one employee’s home network goes down, the business may not be affected, but individual employees are. To solve this problem, more companies are prioritizing mobile connectivity that provides remote workers with hotspots and failover services as backup when their primary network fails.

Best Practice: Endpoint Security

Organizations that had already migrated to the cloud leading up to the pandemic were better equipped to respond to the security risks that come with a less structured network model, as cloud services help bridge the gap between mobility and security. However, the primary option for on-premise networks has been to rely on a virtual private network (VPN) to ensure secure access, but by doing so, end users often struggle with poor network speeds. As a result, unified endpoint management has become the best way to consolidate network security, delivering the same level of security whether workers are in the office or working remotely.

What Mobility Challenges Are Still on the Horizon?

While network performance and endpoint security are two of the most significant challenges organizations face with a more mobile workforce, that doesn’t mean solving the issues outlined above exempts you from challenges moving forward. One of the biggest unknowns businesses currently face is about what they’re going to do when they return to the office. Most businesses have had to make significant changes to their network to accommodate telework and mobile employees.

That’s often required restructuring and refocusing network resources around mobility, so a business’s network infrastructure may not be equipped to deal with the new performance requirements when everybody’s back in the office and collectively using massive amounts of bandwidth again. If businesses fail to account for this factor now, they’re going to run into a similar set of problems that they dealt with at the outset of the pandemic.

How Can Bluewave Help Overcome Mobility Challenges?

At Bluewave, whenever we’re talking about mobility, we’re always thinking in terms of visibility. That’s because your business’s mobility platform has the potential to introduce more hidden vulnerabilities than any other layer of your network. Fortunately, our experts make it easy to achieve visibility today with a Telecom Assessment while aligning ongoing strategies with managed mobility services. Schedule your assessment to get started.

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5 High-Value Features of Hosted PBX

Posted on by Bluewave

Whether you run a multinational corporation or a startup, communication is key to survival and success. Many organizations, regardless of size or industry, still rely on legacy PBX phone systems as the backbone for their corporate communications.

However, these systems are ill-equipped to handle the complex communications needs of today’s businesses. And as workforces become increasingly more mobile and both the fiscal and operational needs of your organization change, it’s imperative to make sure your communications systems have all the features and functions you need today and into the future.

So, as you evaluate the strength of your current environment or consider upgrading to a newer one, here are 5 of the most valuable features hosted PBX solutions have to offer:

Central system configuration and administration

What it is: Unlike old phone systems that required their own rooms and a bunch of boxes to manage, hosted PBX systems are cloud-based and can be fully managed from a central customer portal. The admin portals make it easy to oversee, change, add extensions and employees, and monitor all system functions–with the added bonus of on-demand support from your vendor.

Why you need it: No matter the size of your business, you and your employees have better things to worry about whether your communications system is working properly. Companies of all sizes, in every industry, benefit from the time savings and reduced installation costs of up to 70% with cloud-based, done-for-you phone systems that you can customize and manage without a ton of special training, expertise, or expensive hardware that become obsolete and a cost burden in a couple of years.

Automated Attendant

What it is: Call answering with an automated attendant replaces the need to staff a reception desk or hire a call answering service. Call answering features in hosted PBX services include an auto attendant, dial-by-name directories, and even a do not disturb feature to help callers find their preferred contact–even if he or she isn’t immediately available.

Why you need it: There are better uses of employee time and company resources than staffing and training dedicated receptionists. Re-allocate time and as much as $35,000 per year ordinarily spent on low-impact activities toward higher-value tasks like answering support tickets faster, connecting with prospective customers sooner, or collaborating with colleagues to build a better business.

Collaboration

What it is: In today’s business environment, conferencing and remote collaboration are must-haves. Hosted PBX solutions deliver an array of integrated video, audio, and desktop sharing tools that allow you to host your own advanced video or teleconferences, pre-schedule on-demand events, and even record the conferences for future playback to help you take control of your meetings even before they even start–without having to manage all infrastructure yourself.

Why you need it: You can’t be everywhere at once, despite what your customers and prospects expect. Conferencing–both teleconferencing and video collaboration–helps to dramatically extend the reach of your business to be more places for more people and collaborate in real time with geographically dispersed teams–all without having to add a big number to your travel budget. Conferencing gives smaller businesses the added bonus of appearing larger and more responsive without hiring additional employees or otherwise increasing overhead.

Employee mobility

What it is: It’s no secret that more employees are working from someplace other than the office than ever before. Hosted PBX services support employee mobility and the ability to work from home, during a commute, at a hotel or another office from virtually any device. Employee mobility sends calls to multiple locations at once, meaning you and your team can answer no matter where you are at the moment.

Why you need it: Whether it’s because they feel more productive working from a coffee shop or they’re out in the field working with customers, your business can’t afford to have employees tethered to their desks. And when you factor in that 91% of workers believe they “get more work done when working remotely,” you’ll be hard-pressed to come up with a reason for not at least providing some off-site connectivity for them.

Call routing/ACD queueing

What it is: Hosted PBX solutions expedite your callers’ journey through your phone system keep them engaged, connected, and on the line. With call routing capabilities, your system comes equipped with virtual extensions for every employee, “follow-me routing” to allow direct calling to a specific desk or mobile devices, and even skill-based routing logic to make sure your caller is getting the right person or team, at the right time.

Why you need it: like with call answering, your customers and prospects don’t want to spend their valuable time tracking down someone to help answer their questions. Hosted PBX solutions automate many of the most tedious aspects of phone communication, providing a smoother, more efficient, and superior customer experience.

Hosted PBX solutions are a far cry from your old, boxed-in phone systems. They’re fully equipped with all the bells, whistles, and special features your business needs to remain connected and competitive in an increasingly complex, instant gratification world.

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Transitioning from TDM Voice to SIP

Posted on by Bluewave

If you’ve heard a lot about SIP trunking or Session Internet Protocol services lately, it’s because more businesses are moving away from traditional communication networks and adopting Unified Communication or UC systems. They’re making a move to IP-based voice services for cost savings, access to advanced features, and streamlined management capabilities.

Businesses are also transitioning to UC or VoIP systems because the FCC and major telephone providers like AT&T have already started phasing out their support of legacy dial-tone services, also called time-division multiplexing or TDM-based voice services.

In 2018, Verizon discontinued its ISDN services, a platform used for data exchange, voice, and video. These moves are signaling the transition toward wireless and fiber-based network services. That means traditional TDM services will only get more expensive and offer fewer options. (Source: ComputerWeekly).

Resisting Change

Like most changes in life, however, adopting UC services doesn’t happen overnight. It is an evolutionary and multi-step process. Besides our inherent desire to dig in and ‘resist change”, part of the reason for a sticky transition is that organizations want to maximize the investments they’ve already made in their telephony equipment. That’s where SIP trunking services come into play.

SIP trunking services use the protocol to provide voice over IP connectivity between an on-premises phone system, and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A SIP trunk essentially provides a virtual connection between an organization and an Internet Telephone Service Provider or ITSP, either through lines that link the trunk to other IP traffic or through a virtual private network.

Services that deliver SIP trunking over Ethernet or Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network infrastructures reduce the cost of managing these systems, plus users can take advantage of additional calling features available.

SIP trunks also don’t require a dedicated circuit so customers have the flexibility to utilize SIP trunks over MPLS, internet or private line services which can also transport other types of data.

Making a Case for SIP Trunking

SIP trunking offers more flexibility than TDM services which is a benefit to many customers. The most common TDM trunk type, the T1-PRI, supports a minimum of 23 voice channels, meaning most businesses wind up paying for many more lines than they need over the years.

In contrast, SIP trunks can be purchased in any increment and, again, don’t require a dedicated circuit. Call costs are also much lower with SIP and services carry the benefit of simpler billing, often with a predictable monthly service fee for a “bucket” of included minutes from a single vendor.

And, instead of operating and maintaining both data and telephone voice networks, one IP-based network meets both needs, so costs are cut again.

In addition, SIP offers much greater scalability because users can be added easily without the additional physical infrastructure or local IP-PSTN gateways, eliminating other hardware purchases, installation, and maintenance costs.

Building a Seamless Transition Plan

For many organizations, SIP trunking services are a great way to begin the migration from old TDM-based services to IP-based services. Cloud-based SIP services don’t require a significant investment making them more attractive and a ‘stair-step’ to moving to a full-scale unified communication platform.

By starting with SIP technology, organizations can begin a migration path to eventually moving towards full UC at a pace that makes sense for them. Here are key considerations for transitioning to SIP trunking services.

  • Evaluate Which Services are Most Critical

    SIP trunking is the new standard or underlying “transport” technology that enables collaboration and productivity applications. Organizations should evaluate which new services will be most beneficial to the business. For example, collaboration tools like Webex Teams, Slack, all use SIP for the transport technology.

  • Look at How to Route Traffic From Traditional TDM Applications

    Determining how traffic from traditional TDM applications, including fax lines, point-of-sale credit card authorization, alarms, and gates, etc., will be routed over SIP is an important consideration. For example, if you remove your PRI or analog lines to SIP, there are dependencies that may impact your POS systems or credit card processing. It may make sense to carry some of these applications on existing PSTN gateways as technology continues to mature.

  • Consider Support Options

    Look for a service provider that offers multiple support methods. While proactive monitoring and remote management capabilities are critical, sometimes in-person support is needed too. Truck rolling means service providers will dispatch a technician in a truck to install, move, reconfigure or respond to a service call if needed.

  • Don’t Underestimate a Proof of Concept

    SIP interacts with multiple systems across your organization, making it crucial to have an integration plan ready. Going beyond a standard demo, ask your provider to walk you through how the system will interact with your business productivity applications.

Organizations evaluating SIP trunking services are finding access to new features and collaboration and productivity applications. By combining voice and data traffic and running it over the same transport, businesses are also benefiting from greater bandwidth utilization and cost savings.

At Bluewave, we’ve built TDM Voice to SIP roadmaps for hundreds of customers and helped them find other ways to optimize network capacity and control costs with cloud technology. If you’d like help moving beyond traditional TDM Voice, get in touch today!

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So, Who is Your Security Adversary?

Posted on by Bluewave

To provide security as a service, you are tirelessly used to the idea that the technology landscape and its adversaries are constantly changing. To stand out, a provider needs to find the right balance of not only addressing technology and security concerns, but also simultaneously sharing a human level of service to its customers. If someone is coming after you, you need to know that someone is also there for you, with the same level of intensity and intelligence.

Security Professionals

Professionals who have worked in this space are seeing more than ever the intricate ways that security and technology are becoming a part of people’s personal and business lives. Just a short time ago the security team for an enterprise used to be small and tucked away, only to be called upon when the company was in defense mode. We are now seeing security as a proactive measure, woven into every aspect of day-to-day business functions and decisions. Here is the bottom line – without a trustworthy security team, you have your business on one side and limitless adversaries on the other.

Cybersecurity Day to Day

Today, business leaders are much more engaged in cyber security and realize they have a responsibility to make their company and employees safer. They know that the adversary is there, evolving with new technologies and tactics and targeting everyone, not just big banks. When hacking first started, its purpose was more thrill seeking than anything else. But today hacking is a money-making industry among other things. There is an entire supply chain from those who create exploits, to those who sell and use them, and ultimately those who launder the information and proceeds from it.

As the likelihood for real monetary returns occur the sophistication and depth of the supply chain increases. For example, if you look on the Dark Web, there are huge amounts of organized crime groups working together, typically for some sort of profit or political gain. Groups are providing both confidential data such as intellectual property and medical records but also “hacking as a service” with customer support for using exploit tool kits. Enterprises are now needing to maintain levels of defense against this kind of systematic and organized criminal activity.

Crippling for Businesses

For example, through the monitoring of threat intelligence, data dumps, and the Dark Web, we now see that one of the biggest industries falling victim to cyber-attacks is the healthcare industry. A medical record on the Dark Web now costs more money than someone’s social security number or any other personally identifiable information. The remediation time involved, potential loss of intellectual property, and other secure data can be absolutely crippling for a business, which is frustrating when there are simple steps to take to remedy these issues.

This is the unique thing about cyber security – there is a faceless adversary who is intending to cause specific harm. At Bluewave, we help our customers determine the best solution to protect them from their adversaries. Many people think that security is only a technology issue, but we know threats can’t be stopped with technology alone. You need skilled people and processes in place to stay secure, with a trained security team focused on delivering high levels of service with a human touch.

Next Steps

Adversaries are constantly adapting their methods of attack, and companies will require the same levels of consistency and review of their ongoing security posture to stay ahead of them. Please reach out to us so we can help match you with one of our leading cyber security partners that provide the people and technology necessary to protect your company’s valuable resources.

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Connectivity Matters: It is key for cloud-driven digital transformation

Posted on by Bluewave

The age of digital transformation has truly enveloped enterprises. The concept has shifted from a buzzword phrase to an actual strategy, that is informing how businesses are operating and looking to establish processes and systems moving forward. It is for this reason that cloud migration is now top of everyone’s agenda, with enterprises looking to harness the flexibility and agility of the new way of doing business.

According to the Cisco Global Cloud Index, by 2021 94% of workloads and compute instances will be processed by cloud data centers. ERP applications are said to drive a vast majority of this cloud adoption – as companies look to move away from on premise data centers into a hybrid cloud environment to become future ready and monetize the digital opportunity.

So, for enterprises, it’s long past the question of if they’ll move to the cloud, but to what extent and when.

For the network, this changes the dynamic from it being simply a connection to the outside world to the life-blood of the business and a link that everyone depends on. This can create another set of challenges however, where if connectivity to the cloud is not considered in the migration process, it could put whole transformation projects at risk or cause significant disruption to the entire organization.

Speed to market is key, and the ability to move to the cloud, using both secure state of the art IT in the cloud as well as state of the art, on-demand networks will be the game changer. Many of our key technology partners have responded to this new era with on-demand software defined networks available globally with the best, most secure and resilient data centers connected. They offer a smart, intelligent network.

However, we’re still seeing organizations using this same outdated model to plan for their future cloud strategies as if the capacity demands of moving applications to, and running them in the cloud will be an increasing but predictable, and static requirement. This model is no longer working for transitioning to the cloud.

Bluewave: Your Partner in Connectivity

This is why organizations need a trusted connectivity partner that provides an agile, flexible network, because to succeed on digital transformation journeys, enterprises need access to the entire technological ecosystem.

The new way of doing business has the power to eliminate geographic boundaries and bring down boardroom walls. However, without thinking of the whole picture, transformations may be stalled before they even fully begin.

Our team at Bluewave works with leading connectivity partners around the world so reach out to us to determine what is best for your company’s specific needs.

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What is the Intelligent Edge and How Does it Relate to SD-WAN?

Posted on by Bluewave

It’s enough to push you over the edge!

Edge computing is the dominant term associated with enterprise computing in 2019. But why?

In a nutshell, edge computing includes a set of connected systems and devices that can gather and analyze data – close to users and close to the data, instead of at a data center.

Why does it matter? Edge computing is making continuous innovation possible in areas such as Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, advanced analytics, and IoT. Think about it: smart street lights, autonomous vehicles, automated industrial machines, or even smart devices using Natural Language Processing (NLP) – these technologies all require massive amounts of near-real-time computation to work. Edge computing or the intelligent edge makes these processes possible because there’s no delay in transferring information.

Infrastructure functions are processed on the actual device at the edge of the network, instead of at the corporate network or in cloud data centers. Pairing edge computing with 5G networks will bring even more significant transformation with faster speeds and lower latency – delivering on the promise of near real-time computations and connections.

Let’s dive deeper into the characteristics and capabilities of an intelligent edge.

The foundation of edge-to-edge intelligence

So, how do IT teams lay the groundwork for edge computing? It starts with virtualizing the network infrastructure and functions. For these reasons, Software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) is a great place to start. SD-WAN is an intelligent, cloud-first way to build and operate a WAN because it centralizes control to securely and intelligently direct traffic. It also supports connectivity flexibility, allowing enterprises to leverage a diverse and cost-effective combination of transport services – MPLS links, 4G LTE, and broadband internet. SD-WAN also supports application-specific routing so solutions can automatically detect and support various types of applications and traffic.

Self-learning and automated responses

SD-WANs are programmable, so they continuously monitor applications and available WAN transport resources. These capabilities are critical because SD-WAN can then quickly adapt to ever-changing network conditions – all to maintain the highest levels of application performance and availability. To support an intelligent edge, including AI capabilities or IoT, companies require network virtualization and self-learning, application-aware networks.

Branch offices are now a bigger priority

Today’s modern enterprises don’t just have one, two, or even 10 branch offices and networks to manage. Most have a complex combination of branch offices and networks to support, from permanent structures to temporary offices like construction trailers. Or, they may have roaming offices, retail kiosks, digital signs, booths, or pop‐up stores. Each ‘branch office’ requires plenty of bandwidth, fast speeds, and reliable network access to connect users to bandwidth-hungry business applications. Instead of traditional WAN technologies that require costly links, multiple boxes, and equipment at each site, SD-WAN virtualizes and centralizes control. SD-WAN supports an intelligent edge because it eliminates the hub-and-spoke WAN architecture, which brings data back to the corporate office and causes delays in processing data. Instead, SD-WAN as a foundation delivers seamless branch connectivity to any number of network edges – all interconnected by a virtual, agile and software-defined network.

Next Steps

Even if your company isn’t ready to fully adopt and integrate AI or IoT, you need to start thinking about how edge technologies will change the game. Contact Bluewave to get started with an assessment.

Whether you’re a retailer looking to deliver innovative digital experiences, or you’re a healthcare provider that wants to improve communication to speed and personalize treatment plans, the intelligent edge is critical.

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