Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

Focus on MSP control

In a busy week of announcements and showcasing at ITEXPO, SkySwitch doubled down on its long-term themes of bringing innovation to the MSPs and their customers while reinforcing the message to the MSP community: you control the customer relationship. In this podcast, SkySwitch’s Andy Abramson walks us through the company’s most recent developments, commenting that the Appointment Reminder was a most asked for step. Abramson notes that SkySwitch is responsive to MSPs needs and requests. Grandstream, a provider of award-winning SIP unified communication solutions, has become an approved supplier to SkySwitch’s North American network of resellers and their customers, and Abramson discusses the partnership. Abramson also discusses their approach on robocall issues with Nomorobo, and an approach that works on the network level. Threading the various announcements together is SkySwitch’s long term commitment to guaranteeing the MSP their ability to own, control and manage their direct relationship with their respective customers while leveraging SkySwitch’s white label programs.

Visit SkySwitch

“Make it frictionless,” says Alan Percy of TelcoBridges. Percy was commenting on last week’s announcement that TelcoBridges is partnering with netsapiens to make it easier for service providers to transform their legacy TDM networks into an IP core Infrastructure, while bringing new features to customers that lower operating costs and yield better profitability. This announcement was being made from the floor of ITEXPO in Fort Lauderdale, where executives from both companies were on hand all week to speak with customers, partners and members of the media. We interviewed Percy, a long-term TR blogger and notable UC community leader just before the event began.

Visit www.telecobridges.com

An unencrypted email messages containing sensitive and private information can bring down the house and a user or a whole organization might be blissfully unaware of the danger. For most organizations email is a constantly used and depended upon primary communications channel. In this podcast we learn about Trustifi and how Trustifi’s advanced encryption ensures email correspondence remains private and secure without sacrificing the simplicity and speed of email. Jason Green, Chief Revenue Officer for Trustifi outlines the company’s SaaS-based cyber security solutions. Green describes how email has generally been sent and received and how Trustifi changes and secures that process. Green also walks us through compliance issues, a key item especially in industries where data must by law be protected and Green points out that all businesses and organizations share points of vulnerability.

Visit https://trustifi.com/

“We’re a little bit different from the fact that we were built from ground up to service the small and the midsize market,” says Vince Crisler, CEO of Dark Cubed. In this podcast Crisler discusses how Dark Cubed distinguishes itself by delivering a rich set of security services often available to only larger enterprises, and notes that the SMB versions of rival approaches are often stripped versions of platforms actually designed for much larger organizations. “Our capability delivered as a SaaS platform, enables the MSP to become the security provider for their customer, so you’re not bringing in a new service provider, you’re not threatening your customer base and your able to provide tools that are automated and ongoing verses a monthly report.” Crisler takes us on a tour of his company’s offerings and how his company empowers the MSP to become a trusted and vital part of their customer’s needs. Crisler points to a recent survey which found that 7% of the traffic MSP’s manage is from bad actors. “We didn’t find a single MSP that wasn’t a target.” Crisler also discusses a unique program called Dark Cubed for Good, donating at least 2,020 licenses to charitable organizations in the United States. Each Dark Cubed license will serve to protect and secure non-profit networks from harmful cyber attacks, phishing attempts, and ransomware attacks.

Visit https://darkcubed.com/

One recent discovery is that nearly 2/3 of session border controllers (SBC) are poorly or not managed at all. Many enterprises installed the SBC for their PBX connections to carriers, about 80%. The security features are under implemented. New software releases are delayed 2 to 3 years, not up to date.

Steve Johnson, President, and Ernesto Casas, Director of Worldwide sales at Ingate www.ingate.com and Gary Audin recorded this podcast at the ITEXPO show. Steve and Ernesto pointed out the deficiencies are not product related but management related.

They went on to state:

Customers are reluctant to change the SBC. If it is not broken, don’t touch it.

Many customers have never turned on the encryption features.

The simplicity of setting up the SBC masks what the SBC performs.

Customers underestimate the value of the SBC

Periodically Ingate re-educates their customers so they can take full advantage of the features offered

Ingate® Systems www.ingate.com develops and firewall technology to enable global SIP- and WebRTC-based person-to-person communication to provide the best access for telephony, global real-time and unified person-to-person communication for everyone. With a history in security, Ingate offers enterprises, service providers and carriers elegant solutions for SIP trunking and trusted real-time communications beyond the LAN. Ingate products are used by retail companies, medical facilities, financial institutions, call centers, industrial firms, government agencies, and small-to-large enterprises throughout the world. Read more about Ingate session border controllers here.

Conferencing technology has improved significantly. The popularity of the huddle room has added new dimensions to the collaboration products and services now offered. There are more huddle rooms than conference rooms today. Glass conference rooms look great but produce poor sound quality.

Fredrik Hornkvist, Sales Director at Konftel www.konftel.com and Gary Audin recorded this podcast at the ITEXPO show. They cover many subjects including:

Device design changes

Software and algorithms that can compensate for varied room environments

Cultural differences that influence collaboration behavior

Simplifying the setup and operation of collaboration technologies

Ease of operation has stimulated the uptick in collaboration and increased productivity

Konftel www.konftel.com is a leading company within collaboration endpoint solutions. Their mission has been to help people in businesses around the world to have meetings regardless of distance. They know that remote collaboration is a smooth way to save time, money and at the same time contribute to a more sustainable world. Crystal clear audio and a sharp video image are essential for efficient meetings. Their audio technology OmniSound® is built into all Konftel Conference phones and devices.

You know about your UC and CC environments, or do you? Are your session border controllers well managed or not? How does you voice quality compare to business quality voice? Your view of these is local to you but how do you compare to other networks?

Ross Williams, the Chief Operations Officer at Virsae www.virsae.com and Gary Audin discuss SBC management and voice quality in this podcast. They continue their discussion that started with the EDUcast “UC Global Data Analytics” https://telecomreseller.com/category/knowledge/educasts/

The podcast covers the “what and why” of SBC management and the security liabilities that can occur. The voice quality discussion delves into what can be learned and what new insights can be seen when a global management service is deployed.

Businesses around the world use Virsae’s www.virsae.com cloud services to monitor and manage their communications technology and security. Virsae keeps business communications at peak performance, so every channel remains open, customers always get answers, and workers stay productive.

Security staff burnout and overload is a continuing dangerous situation. Security staff cannot look at all the alerts discovering 50% false positives. Security staff sometimes turns off alerts to alleviate alert fatigue. More data does not mean better security, only more work. The mean time to identify and mean time to resolution of security issues is getting longer.

Stephen Garrison, VP of Marketing at Stellar Cyber www.stellarcyber.ai and Gary Audin recorded this podcast at the ITEXPO show. Stephen speaks to the issues encountered by security operation centers (SOC). He believes:

More data is not the answer

Data correlation is a key component in improving security efficiency

New sensors are required for an efficient security environment

Thorough behavior analysis requires machine learning and a number of touch points

The SOC should have procedures and processes to learn, observe, test, and measure the data

Analyzing the right data can reduce the overload and burnout

Automation is the solution to the SOC problems

Stellar Cyber www.stellarcyber.ai makes Starlight, the only comprehensive security platform providing maximum protection of applications and data wherever they reside and automatically responding to attacks wherever they occur. Starlight tightly integrates dozens of security applications from an App Store and presents results in an intuitive dashboard to supercharge analyst productivity by slashing attack response times to seconds or minutes. Starlight deploys easily on premises, in public clouds or with service providers.

“That’s really what we do,” says Eric Hernaez, Founder and President of SkySwitch. “Our job as a white label platform is find ways to make our partners, resellers into successes.” In this podcast we learn about the company’s newest announcement, an appointment reminder, a new capability available to resellers as part of the vBroadcast app. Appointment Reminder in vBroadcast delivers two major wins. It allows a new functionality for customers whose interactions include appointment making, and it delivers a level of customer care that adds to the value of the customer’s own brand. Hernaez discusses how this is in line with the idea of becoming an indispensable part of the customer’s work processes.

Visit www.skyswitch.com

NEC’s DNA reaches deep into the genesis of what we today call UC. At the same time, NEC offers technology solutions and products beyond the scope of UC. In this podcast, Mike Mitsch, Sales Director, UNIVERGE Cloud Strategies at NEC Corporation of America updates TR readers on NEC’s offerings for both the MSPs and their customers. Mitsch gives us a tour of UNIVERGE BLUE, a business-grade, cloud-based communications solution that offers voice, mobility, messaging, presence, contact center, conferencing, and more. Mitsch discusses how NEC offers cloud and on prem solutions that integrate into larger IT stories, and how that larger footprint makes NEC an appealing choice to MSPs looking to find a partner that can help them migrate customers while meeting a wider set of needs.

Visit https://www.univergeblue.com/