Oct 19, 2016 | SMB Technology, Technology News
Businesses today rely on resilient network connectivity to ensure employee communications, collaboration, and productivity. Applications including Voice over IP (VoIP), Hosted Contact Center, Cloud Backup, and more, need a bulletproof telecom network. What’s more, for companies with Remote Offices/Branch Offices ROBO), telecom expense can quickly add up. Here are some tips to keep your telecom expense in check: Audit Your Telecom Expense By periodically performing a telecom expense audit, you can compare your telecom bills to the contracts for your voice and data network solution. Billing errors can add up, and the savings from catching these errors can be significant. Having an independent expert review your telecom expense can save you a lot of money. Revisit Your Carrier Network at Renewal Time When your telecom network contracts are up for renewal, you may be able to get better service for less. You may also find cost-effective alternatives when you add a new Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO).The market for carrier services is competitive, with new technologies introduced all the time. Consider Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) SD-WAN is an emerging wide area network approach allowing you to use multiple business- class Internet providers to get the same reliability as MPLS or other networking alternatives. By using multiple carriers to connect your Remote Offices/Branch Offices with each other, the savings can quickly add up. Proactively Monitor Your Network By proactively monitoring your network you can avoid downtime and ensure better network performance. Many of these issues can be rapidly resolved using remote management. This proactive managed service approach will reduce network failure while saving IT expense. In many cases you...
Oct 11, 2016 | SMB Technology, Technology News
According to IDC, the combined public/private Cloud security market will more than double over the next few years. Cloud adoption is changing the way enterprises use applications. Increased adoption of hosted email, Unified Communications (UC), and Voice over IP (VoIP) may increase bandwidth and change the way employees access the Internet. Many companies are moving away from routing network traffic to a centralized data center for the Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) locations, in favor of increasing traffic directly to the Internet and bypassing the data center altogether. With all of these changes, the traditional Wide area network (WAN) relying on carrier MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) network capacity may prove costly and inefficient to keep up with today’s demands. Here are some tips to consider to ease your migration to the Cloud: Where to Begin Your Migration to the Cloud If you haven’t already begun your migration, consider starting with Email, File Sharing and collaboration. These popular Cloud Services offer enhanced or new functionality to your business with immediate productivity benefits. Voice and Call center services can offer savings with reduced operation costs. There are also many benefits from Cloud Backup and disaster recovery services. In some cases, these services may be available with turnkey bundles supporting a range of applications. Many companies also benefit by migrating other enterprise applications including CRM, ERP, and other mission-critical applications to the Cloud. Network considerations include device consolidation, multi-path optimization, and network performance monitoring for better awareness and control. Taking these steps can save you money, and avoid costly delays from loss of employee productivity due to insufficient network bandwidth reliability and availability....
