Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

While many cloud companies focus on information workers, Unified Office has distinguished itself by supporting companies whose workforces must remain onsite: food service, medical care, manufacturing and law enforcement. In this podcast, Ray Pasquale CEO and Founder of Unified Office updates us on how his company has helped essential service customers not only remain functional but make improved sales and services even under the strain of the crises. Pasquale, who is a pioneer in cloud delivered services and advocate of cloud delivered services, nevertheless predicts that the on-prem office model will not necessarily disappear. He thinks that collaborative equity and social capital are part of the office scene, and that possibly a hybrid model is on the horizon.

Visit Unified Office, Inc

Cyberattacks already cause problems for channel partners and their clients. 68% of organizations report an increase in attacks on their endpoints in the last 12 months. Recent events have compounded our challenge with an explosion of remote endpoints needing protection. In this podcast Pat Hurley, Senior Partner, and Growth Enablement Leader at Acronis tells us about a response: Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. Hurley describes how Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud that combines backup, AI-enhanced anti-malware, vulnerability assessments and patch management, in one management interface that’s easy to learn and manage.

Visit https://www.acronis.com/en-us/cloud/cyber-protect/.

by Gary Audin

Much of the discussion of digital transformation focuses on the contact center and customer experience. Digital transformation includes so much more, specifically the networks used to support the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Traditionally, the local area network has been designed from the switch outwards. However, when modernizing to IP and the IoT, is it better to evaluate the needs of the endpoint first?

John Croce, CEO of NVT Phybridge www.nvtphybridge.com and Gary Audin discuss a new LAN design approach and implementation, taking into account the growth of IoT. John uses the results of modern LAN design developed by Frost & Sullivan’s industry experts. Their Modern LAN white paper provides consultants, resellers, and the modern enterprise with a revolutionary set of new best practices to accommodate the impact of the Internet of Things on the LAN. Download the Modern LAN white paper here: https://go.frost.com/modernlan.

John covers the modern LAN principles, including:

Start with endpoint requirements first

Create a secure and robust LAN

Improve ROI by allocating infrastructure cost savings to the endpoints and applications

Consider a physically separate but functionally integrated network for the IoT endpoints

Ensure an environmentally responsible modernization

Leverage new innovations

What you will learn in this EDUcast:

History and Evolution of LAN Design

Overcoming Common Infrastructure Barriers

Designing the LAN for Success

Traditional LAN Design

Modern LAN Principles

Optimizing Performance

NVT Phybridge www.nvtphybridge.com is a global leader in Power over Long Reach Ethernet (PoLRE®); leveraging Modern LAN principles to make IP connections simple, secure, and cost-effective. The NVT Phybridge CHARIoT series of award-winning switches help customers modernize to an IP-based network, transforming their new or existing infrastructure into an IP path with power. NVT Phybridge is a North American-based technology company with global reach dedicated to practical innovation, producing innovative and affordable solutions for over 24 years, with technology that is currently supporting millions of IoT endpoints.

“We’ve been cloud native from the very beginning”, says Bob Norberg, CMO of Cloud Age Solutions. Over the last two years, Cloud Age has built and launched a cloud native SaaS platform called gpxcloud. In this podcast, Norberg describes in detail why cloud native is a better approach for data centers. With cloud native, “…You still have the centralized infrastructure but you gain automation like automated scalability. Infrastructure automation at scale eliminates downtime due to human error,” says Norberg. According to Norberg cloud native delivers, “…the best performance, reliability, availability, scalability and future proofing.” Norberg points out an IDC report that says that 90% of all new software applications will be developed from the ground up as cloud native software. We learn that gpxcloud offers channel partners and consultants to their customers visibility into and ongoing management of their telecom services.

Visit www.cloudagesolutions.com

When you think AudioCodes, you think SBCs and it’s likely you have heard that their SBCs come in works-with-Teams. In this podcast, we learn that AudioCodes offers a roadmap to Teams for operations of most sizes and industries. Scott Middlebrooks, Sales Solutions Architect for AudioCodes discusses what Teams looks like “out of the box” and then outlines options that people have. Middlebrooks thinks that Teams can function as a full-throated phone system, fully capable of replacing legacy systems, but he also makes the point that enterprises and SMBs should be thinking beyond the PBX of the past to the need for a unified workforce collaboration platform. Middlebrooks discusses how AudioCodes offers options and describes three levels of AudioCodes subscription service options to Teams.

Please visit www.audiocodes.com

What if the moving of employees and contact centers to a distributed mode scrambles all of your assumptions? In this podcast Ira Cohen, Chief Data Scientist, thinks that a distributed workforce, changes the assumptions network managers have made and changes how you monitor your network. Cohen argues that telecom industry’s “new normal” in the age of COVID-19 requires that managers rethink everything. Corporate traffic is now running over networks designed for consumer needs, where stay at home workers are now using Zoom competing over the same network being used by other householders using Netflix. Cohen has ideas and suggestions for network managers to respond to and discusses how his company, Anodot can help.

Visit www.anodot.com

“It’s all about productivity," says Sharon Koifman, CEO of DistantJob. According to Koifman, the abrupt pandemic driven migration from prem based to distributed workforces will result in a long-term gain in productivity for businesses and job satisfaction levels for employees. In this podcast, Koifman lays out a vision of the distributed workforce, noting that some prominent companies have already announced an all distributed model or option for workers. Koifman thinks that employers will shift to a hybrid model, offering at work and off-site days. He sees the new model of work as a great “equalized”, making the virtual office more a place of opportunity for everyone. He notes that the revolution in the way we do nonphysical work not only widen options for employees, but that it creates a basically global talent pool for employers to choose from. Koifman notes that UC investment is part of the picture. Good gear and cloud assembled delivery options that facilitate better experiences, are important to getting the full value of remote working. Notably, Koifman also suggest that firms actually offer non-home offices, but distributed, and not centralized, offering associates a non-home-based option for meetings or work. The end of the giant centralized office might be at hand.

Visit www.distantjob.com

CallTower offers their clients an integrated Office 365 Microsoft Teams experience with global calling plans and a business communications app that integrates critical features into a single experience. In this podcast, William Rubio, CRO discusses the company’s unique Microsoft Teams and Cisco offerings. We also learn about the company’s special COVID-19 Relief Program, with free 90-day services, especially designed to help companies struggling through the current crises. Rubio also discusses his company’s strong ties to the Cloud Communication Alliance (CCA).

Visit www.calltower.com

Jeffrey Klein, President of TeamKCI has seen all the business seasons that exist in the world of IT: recession, boom, market meltdown, recovery, war, social disturbance, malaise, new beginnings and false dawns. So even though four crises hit the IT community almost all at once, Klein believes that the months and years ahead are a time of opportunity and growth for the AscdiNatd community. Klein makes his case that big savings in maintenance is always attractive, and that if the ASCDI community stay current with customer needs, the alternate market vendors will remain as critical partners for enterprises. Klein discusses a diversification of his company’s offerings over the past year and how that makes his company more attractive since TeamKCI can take care of more multi-vendor platform needs.  Klein thinks that TeamKCI and its colleague companies in the alternate market also represent supply chains and stocking sources that cannot be disrupted by trade conflicts, shipping issues or even slowing of domestic factories. Dependability and savings remain attractive in all seasons.

Visit www.teamkci.com

Sanjay Raja

Due to the global pandemic, companies are supporting a drastic increase in remote employees. This has forced an explosion of mobile devices that increasingly connect to applications and infrastructure in the cloud instead of the traditional data center. IT teams are straining to evolve their overall infrastructure, management, and security to keep up with these changes. Additionally, cloud security expertise is especially lacking, causing many organizations to look to partners for help in implementing new platforms and better security practices.

While working to maintain productivity, organizations are working with service providers and other partners to help them implement easily scalable and purpose-built cloud security solutions. These capabilities are critical to supporting customer requirements and will set some organizations apart when it comes to crisis response.

Security must be a priority as threat actors target the expanded attack surface with the explosion of remote workers and the move to the cloud. Assessing work-from-home resources and cloud infrastructure for risks and threats is the first step in preventing cyber criminals from executing successful campaigns that exploit vulnerable systems.

As customers are relying on partners to help them, that last thing they need are re-purposed on-premise solutions that are difficult to scale and not really built for rapid cloud migration. In determining asset risk, most vulnerability management solutions are not built specifically for cloud environments and often require yet another agent to install and manage. Current threat monitoring solutions also require an agent, but are incapable of detecting malware, like ransomware, that uses dwell time to remain hidden from security teams.

Sanjay Raja of Digital Defense, Inc, a provider of next generation SaaS vulnerability management and threat assessment solutions, will discuss the increased need for agentless solutions in a time when businesses are dealing with a broadening attack surface, while making extreme changes to how they operate.

Visit www.digitaldefense.com for more information.