Being Soft…

We saw some interesting stats on the use of ‘softphones’ compared to desk phone today.

Based on an end-user survey of ShoreTel Communicator adoption, about 10 percent of ShoreTel customers currently use their softphone at least once a week. According to this same survey, within the next three years:

• 10% of customers anticipate replacing desk phones with softphones.
• 29% of customers do not intend to replace desk phones with softphones.
• 26% of customers do not know whether they will use desk phones or softphones.

Of that 10 percent planning to move to softphones, many common traits appeared:

• Younger workforce (education, Web 2.0 companies)
• “Inward facing” employees (accounting, logistics, R&D…)
• Technically savvy users
• Cost-driven organization such as Contact Centers.
• Scattered work-force (small HQ with a lot of teleworkers)

In the ShoreTel world, all users have a Communicator client on their desktop. With Communicator for Windows, users can simply turn their PC into a phone in a click of a button.

We use the ShoreTel softphone all the time at Adtech, especially when working remotely. Whether over the laptop speakers, using a USB conference phone (I use a Jabra device, but Plantronics have soem great devices also) or using a USB headset, the softphoneprovides fantaistic flexibility.

The High Availability Challenge

Organisations and their workforces are increasingly dependent on the applications and data held within corporate systems – to do their job, employees need to remain connected. Whereas convergence brings us significant opportunity, it also increases our dependency on the corporate network with application access, information, voice communication and even video being accessible over a single LAN/WAN.

IT departments are the ones feeling the pressure on this ‘Network’ dependency.  It is no longer acceptable to have network downtime, whether this be planned or not, and even a degradation in performance will result in a barrage of complaints.

The Three Aspects of Availability
Overall the resiliency of your network is decided by you. You and your business decide what level of unplanned downtime is acceptable; the closer this gets to zero, then the closer your network needs to get to five 9’s performance, i.e. 99.999% uptime.

However, it is important that in planning network resilience you consider this at each different point in your network. For example, a loss of a single access switch is likely to only impact a few dozen users, whereas the loss of a data centre switch connecting the email server is likely to have a severe company-wide impact.

Once the resilience requirement at each specific point in your network has been determined, the next step is to understand the ‘three aspects of availability’ when selecting which components and technologies to use.  These aspects are as follows:

• Device Availability
• Network Availability
• Operational Availability

Products and solutions that address all of these aspects of availability are more likely to minimise downtime of the network and when failures do occur, dramatically cut the meantime to repair (MTTR).

Improving Device Availability
Step one in maximising device availability is ensuring that all high risk components such as power supplies, fan trays, control modules, interface cards and switch fabrics can be field replaceable and where possible, hot-swappable with the failover from the downed component to the backup component being automatic and seamless.

Another key step is to leverage Virtual-Chassis technology to enable the seamless failover of single chassis switches. The way this works is relatively simple, multiple switches are deployed but controlled by the network OS in a Virtual-Chassis arrangement. One switch is defined as the master and controls the Route Engine, the other switches act as the slave to the master. If for any reason the master fails, then instantly the second switch takes over as the Master with a replicated version of the Route Table ready to go.

Boosting Network Availability
Network availability encompasses those mechanisms and configurations that contribute to the availability of the network as a whole. Some of these are as follows:

Network Access Control – ensuring that your network is protected from misuse or unauthorised access. This is not only ensuring that only those designated users are permitted to join and utilise your network, it is also ensuring that they have the relevant virus and firewall protection in place to protect your network.

Path Redundancy & Resilience – to increase network uptime, redundant connections are commonly used to link access switches to the aggregation layer, to interconnect core devices, and to dual-home servers to switches in the data centre. Along with physical path redundancy, IT must consider which network protocols to rely on for fast failover or recovery in the event of a primary link failure.

Single Control Plane – IT should consider deploying a primarily routed network. While historically it made economic sense to use Layer 2 devices at the access layer, networks are less complex—and therefore more available—if a single, routed control plane operates from access layer uplinks to the aggregation and core layers. Such an architecture eliminates the need for Spanning Tree; with only Layer 3 to administer and troubleshoot, ITs’ job is simplified and human errors are reduced.

Operational Availability
Given that human error is the leading cause of network downtime, organisations have the most to gain from operational availability, which equates to simplifying routine operational management and maintenance. IT can simplify operations by selecting products with features, processes and tools that reduce complexity and automate tasks.

The secret to operational availability is reducing complexity. We strongly believe that organisations can reduce network complexity by using standards-based technologies and products. In addition, having the same software image across all layer 2 and layer 3 platforms makes it easier to roll out new features and new versions of software.

The Complete High Availability Solution
At Adtech Solutions we believe that it is possible to address all three aspects of availability while reducing both the complexity and management overhead of your network. Juniper Networks offer leading Ethernet Switching technology controlled by a single network operating system, Junos that addresses each of the elements discussed above.

If you are interested in finding out more about how you can implement Juniper network components into your existing network and improve availability, please call the Adtech team on 0118 976 3030.

Out of Office in an Always on World

By: Gina Jacobs, Senior Director of Marketing Communications , ShoreTel

What’s the meaning of “Out of Office” in an always on world, anyway?  Does anyone really use that notification anymore with the adoption of smartphones? I don’t.

It used to be you’d set this notification in Outlook when you were out at a conference for a day or locked in an all-day meeting, or god forbid, you took a holiday!  Today, tuning out doesn’t seem to be an option or even a goal. Many of us can’t live without our smartphones. It’s our life line to our work, our friends, our family and the world.

And, because it stores our music, photos, games, contacts and communication channels to everyone we are connected to, it is ok if we bring it to a meeting or tote it along on our holidays.  It is no longer considered rude to check email on your phone in meetings and your spouse doesn’t know if you are working or playing Angry Birds, so work can go anywhere and because of this, the idea of being “out of office” is irrelevant.

What does this mean for this previously useful feature in Outlook? Will Microsoft change how it functions in this age of “always on”?  Since work is no longer a desk, four walls and a phone, will the name of this feature change to “Roaming But Connected”? Will Microsoft give users the option to change the label of this feature along with the personal message you present?  Here are a few labels I’d consider using if they were available:

• Finding Peace – Disconnected Temporarily
• Tuned Out from Work, Tuned Into Fun
• Multi-tasking On Hold Temporarily
• Response Time Delayed

I know Google and Apple want to know where I’m at each moment of every day but given I can work anywhere, I don’t need to tell my vendors, colleagues or random soliciting sales people that I’m not tied to my office today.  What’s the point when you have all the tools you need in portable devices – including your smartphone, tablet and laptop – and integrated applications. With my ShoreTel Communicator and ShoreTel Mobility I can be just as productive at Starbucks as I can in the office so “Out of Office” is now out of date.

Enabling The ‘Device With No Wires’

It is suggested that we are entering the post-PC era where traditional desktop devices are being replaced with a whole range of ‘smart’ devices that provides the access we need while offering improved mobility.

We no longer have mobile phones, we have Smartphones that deliver emails, enables us to browse the internet and to communicate in whatever way we choose. We are also starting to see the laptop being complemented and in some cases replaced by the tablet in both the work and the home environment, proving to be a far more flexible tool for reviewing information and collaborating.

Last year the number of wireless mobile devices soared through the 10 Billion mark and with the launch of the iPad 2 and Blackberry PlayBook this is one technology revolution that has well and truly arrived. Notebook PCs, Smartphones and Tablets all dramatically increase workforce productivity as well as enable business agility – So when your MD or CEO wants to connect their iPad or PlayBook, do you want to be the one that tells them it is not possible, or worse still that it is not IT policy?

Embracing Wireless
Whether it is the ‘post-PC era’ or the ‘Smart revolution’, IT organisations have to be ready and have in place both the accessibility and security for the ‘Device with no Wires.’

For the single office, access does not pose a greater challenge – it is simply a case of deploying a wireless access point. However, it is not always as simple as that – for example, the retailer with many stores, the venue with a vast area to cover, the finance or law firm with many regional offices or the restaurant needing to provide guest access.

For these organisations it is most definitely not a case of adding another box to your network, but planning and implementing a distributed wireless-enabled network that allows you to embrace mobility.

Security is also a major challenge. We would never have dreamt of employees bringing their own devices to work and wanting to utilise them on the corporate network, however, today it is a common occurrence. Likewise, it used to be a simple world of one employee one device; now we have one employee with many devices all requiring access to information, applications and virtual resources. The way we think of security has to change significantly; we no longer can focus on the individual device level, there are too many and they are growing exponentially. We need to focus our network security around the individual, with personal authentication and a profile that follows them through any location and any device.

Enabling A Different Way Of Working
If we are able to overcome the fear factor of embracing the wireless world, it opens up remarkable opportunities to businesses to change the way they work.

•  The restaurant that takes your order directly onto a tablet device at your tableside.
•  The shop assistant that never has to go and look in the store room – they have real-time stock information on their smartphone.
•  The hotel that monitors the working of vital pieces of equipment such as refrigeration units over the wireless-LAN.
•  The payment terminal that maintains connectivity regardless of location and that has PCI compliance built in.
• The professional services firm that differentiates the service it delivers through the use of the latest tablet devices for illustrations.

The world in which we work is changing.  Over the next decade, organisations will need to wire less and provide greater access and capability across the wireless world.

If you would like to find out more about how Adtech Solutions can help you review your wireless needs, then please contact the Adtech team on 0118 976 3030.

The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic

Courtesy of the Search Engine Journal, here is another infographic that charts the rise of social media from the beginning to the tsunami that it has become today (albeit that monetising it has not proved straight forward!).

There is no doubt that the rise in social media and the tight integration into consumer smartphones is driving a new way of working. The familiarity with, and preference for social media as a means for communication among what is called Generation Y (or the coming generation of workers) is expected to have a big impact on workplace communications. New networking technologies, the increasing shift to wireless and mobile broadband and the seamless integration of communication technologies and methods are all part driven by this growth and change in the way that we use the internet, communicate and interact.

The Mobile Workstyle

Workforce mobility and the consumerisation of IT is something that we’ve written about before and regulalry talk with customers about. There are some interesting statistics in the lovely infographic below, which has been produced by the guys at Gist, who provide contact management solutions for the increasingly mobile workforce.

We don’t have any connection to Gist but they’ve invited the world to share their excellent infographic and so we have!

Why We Recommend ShoreTel

Despite being the fastest growing IP telephony vendor in the world, ShoreTel is sometimes mistaken for an SMB/SME solution or an inferior solution to the bigger vendor offerings. At Adtech our staff have many years of experience of selling, installing and supporting other IP telephony platforms, including Avaya, Cisco and Mitel and yet we are all agreed that ShoreTel is the vendor we recommend. The simplicity of the technology, the guaranteed lower total cost of ownership and the outstanding customer satisfaction rating make ShoreTel our unified communications vendor of choice. We use the system at Adtech and can’t speak highly enough of it.

This video from ShoreTel’s US team, despite the somewhat quirky freeze frame image, summarises the ShoreTel difference nicely:

The following video from the same team provides a good overview of the vendor agnostic fixed to mobile convergence mobility solution from ShoreTel that work as well on Cisco and Avaya platforms as it does on ShoreTel: