BCM One Blog Blog

Can You Get an MS Teams Phone Number as a Default? Recently, Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) has become increasingly popular as more and more people work remotely. In April 2021, there were 145 million active MS Teams users, up from 75 million in April 2020. These users began to ask if they could get an MS Teams phone number to enhance the tool's capabilities. It is well known that Microsoft…

Are SD-WAN Advantages Enough to Migrate to This Technology? It doesn't matter whether it is a small business. You may want to leverage SD-WAN advantages if you have several locations, remotely located employees, and constantly rely on cloud services. According to research, SD-WAN will be worth almost $8.4 billion by 2025. Companies of all sizes are increasingly looking to use this advanced technology as an alternative to traditional WANs. However,…

Is SD-WAN for Small Businesses a Good Approach? It doesn’t matter if it’s a small company. If your business has several locations, remote employees and is constantly relying on cloud services, it may be time for you to switch to SD-WAN for small businesses. Recent research suggests the market for SD-WAN will be worth almost $8.4 billion by 2025. This advanced technology is becoming the preferred option for companies of…

Businesses of All Sizes Can Benefit from an SD-WAN Managed Service Provider Whether you manage a small company or a large one, SD-WAN may be the best communications decision you can make. By partnering with an SD-WAN managed service provider, you can better support a business with multiple locations and remote employees who constantly rely on cloud services. Data indicates 43% of enterprises had implemented SD WAN by 2020, compared…

What Are Unified Communications Integrators? Unified communications integrators can assist your business with understanding and implementing new, more robust communications infrastructures. Since it is a highly competitive industry, choosing the best one for you can be daunting. These providers usually have experience with both digital and legacy communications platforms and can help you deploy a new system with more modern features. Gartner explains Unified Communications (UC) combine and provide multiple…

What is Microsoft Teams SIP Video Conference Integration? Throughout the world, Microsoft Teams has seen a massive increase in popularity and adoption following the Covid-19 pandemic. Approximately 250 million people use the app every month. During this surge, companies with more comprehensive communications requirements have needed to augment this tool with more capabilities, including Microsoft Teams SIP video conference integration.   In its early days, Microsoft Teams was just a way…

VoIP: The Foundation of VoIP Video Conferencing With the advent of new technology, people can now communicate through many more channels than ever before. Phone calls, text, chat, social media, and other communications methods are crucial, but VoIP video conferencing has taken an extreme leap, especially in recent months. Increasingly, companies are shifting their video communications systems to VoIP solutions to improve their productivity. In the field of technology, VoIP…

Managed SIP Trunking Services: What Is SIP? For your business to be successful, clear, high-quality voice communications is essential. By switching from Private Rate Interface (PRI) or SIP to managed SIP trunking, you can gain increased voice capacity and security without compromising your call data quality.  Let’s just recap what SIP protocol is in its most standard mode. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol, which is a more reliable way…

Microsoft Teams Conference Call Features The COVID-19 pandemic made Microsoft Teams’ popularity and adoption explode worldwide. Every month, 250 million people use this app, making Microsoft Teams conference call modes become more complex and intricate, adapted to hybrid workforces. For example, aside from regular calls, meetings, or video chats, the Teams app introduced a feature called Together Mode back in 2020. The feature allows multiple users to share virtual space…

What Is SD-WAN Architecture? According to recent research, the SD-WAN architecture market could reach a value as high as $8.4 billion in 2025. More and more companies are selecting this advanced option over traditional WANs because they are no longer meeting their needs. Are you interested in selecting an SD-WAN solution for your business but are unsure about the available types or how they differ? Let’s break down the basics…

How Can Microsoft Teams Make External Calls If It Doesn’t Have Voice Capabilities? The popularity of Microsoft Teams has exploded recently due to the large number of people working remotely. According to Statista, the number of active Microsoft Teams users almost doubled within one year, increasing from 75 million to 145 million by April 2021. In order to enhance this tool’s built-in features, many of these users started wondering, “Can…

What Does MSIP Stand for? Regardless of the circumstances, you need clear, high-quality voice communications for your business. By migrating to SIP using mSIP, you can gain greater capacity and security without sacrificing voice quality at all. But what does mSIP stand for?  First off, you should know standard SIP protocol (without the “M”) can deliver more reliable business communications. SIP means Session Initiation Protocol. It allows for setting up,…

It’s Official: Microsoft Teams Replaces Skype for Business Skype for Business took simple instant messaging and videoconferencing capabilities and added security and productivity features. It was helpful for companies globally for many years. However, this app ended its lifecycle in July of 2021, and the announcement became official: Microsoft Teams Replaced Skype for Business. This is what Microsoft originally communicated about the shutdown: “Skype for Business Online will be retired…

SD-WAN vs. MPLS: Learn the Basics Before comparing SD-WAN vs. MPLS, it is a good idea to review the basics. First off, SD-WAN stands for software-defined wide area networks. This method reduces reliance on physical routers by breaking down and organizing data on the digital level. This works through a two-tiered system using an intelligent gateway and management structure. More specifically, TechTarget says, “SD-WAN is an alternative approach to designing…

Does Microsoft Teams offer Voice Calling? Even though it is not a native feature, Microsoft Teams voice calling is possible. Business owners often want to enhance this already powerful tool to help it fulfill more communication needs. So, let’s learn about its basic functionalities. First off, there is a free version of Microsoft Teams, but it is only available to Microsoft365 subscribers. With this plan, chat, audio and video calls…

Microsoft: Teams Managed Services, Cloud Solutions and More Cloud technologies offer an attractive pricing model for capital expenses, but they may also bring operational costs, adding up considerably over time. These fees are well worth it, but only when cloud systems contribute directly to value creation for your business. This is where the best Microsoft Teams managed services, cloud solutions and more could help. Microsoft has long been the dominant…

Before SD-WAN Security, Let’s Review the Basics If your company is migrating to SD-WAN technology, getting the best SD-WAN security may be of concern. However, before digging into what you need to consider, let’s briefly review the basics. Software-Defined Wide Area Network or SD-WAN aggregates multiple internet connections and dynamically determines the most effective path for traffic based on the current conditions of such connections. SD-WAN can provide organizations with…

SIP Trunking Defined If you are looking for better communications solutions to improve your company’s connection to other parties, you probably run into SIP technology and are wondering: What is SIP trunking and what can it do for you?  To start, SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol. It’s a series of digital signals that create and terminate multimedia sessions (such as calls) with one or more participants.  Oracle explains, “The…

Is Microsoft Teams Enough to Replace Your Phone System? Microsoft Teams’ popularity grew enormously during 2020, particularly with so many people working remotely in light of COVID-19. The Verge reported Teams’ usage jumped from 44 million daily active users in March 2020 to more than 75 million in April the same year – a 70% (trying to keep 70% on the same line) increase in only 30 days.  You may…

Why Is It Important to Compare UCaaS Providers? Your business needs seamless, secure and cost-effective communications. Connecting efficiently across multiple platforms wherever you are is key to today’s on-the-go business world. Investing in Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) will give your company the edge it needs to compete in real-time in an ever-changing communications environment, but how do you find the best UCaaS provider?  According to Gartner, UCaaS supports…

Replacing Legacy Technologies to Realize SIP Trunking Benefits The business world is embracing SIP trunking benefits. Transparency Market Research estimates the market for SIP trunking services could grow at a 13% annual rate through 2030, with a market value of US $35.5 billion by then. What is the impact of this technology on companies' communications vs.legacy copper wire?   Most people don't realize it is SIP trunking technology that allows them…

How to Use Microsoft Teams: Basic Features Have you ever wondered how to use Microsoft Teams in your company? If you haven’t already jumped on the Microsoft Teams bandwagon, then it's time to get familiar with one of the latest additions from Microsoft. Microsoft Teams is a chat and conference calling app that combines all your conversations into one place and, with the right partner, it can integrate enterprise-level voice…

SD-WAN Cloud in a Remote and Hybrid Work Culture SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network. It can help you deliver effective network connectivity across your company. This technology has never been more relevant than now, in an increasingly remote workplace reality. SD-WAN Cloud can help you quickly tie together both your in-house and off-site resources, among other benefits. Understanding WAN isn’t always simple. The Telegraph recently defined SD-WAN as…

SD-WAN Benefits: Starting with The Basics SD-WAN benefits may be complex to understand, especially for people who own a business but do not have an IT-related background. This post will help you learn the basics of this technology and why it improves your company’s bandwidth and costs. The acronym SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide-Area Network. Compared to a traditional WAN, SD-WANs are based on software, not hardware. Therefore, they are…

The Origins of E911 According to the Federal Communications Commission, the emergency 911 phone number we know today launched in 1999 with The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act or 911 Act. The service’s objective is “to improve public safety by encouraging and facilitating the prompt deployment of a nationwide, seamless communications infrastructure for emergency services.” Since then, the FCC has led the transition from any other emergency numbers in…

What Is SIP Trunking and How Does It Work? SIP trunking is a technology that enables businesses to send voice and other unified communications services, such as video, chat and messaging, over the Internet instead of traditional phone lines or PRIs (Primary Rate Interface). All you need to enable diverse communications is an IP-enabled PBX (private branch exchange), Internet access, and a SIP trunk. SIP trunk providers will help you…

Hosted SIP Trunk and The Modern Business What does your business look like today compared to last winter? If you are like the vast majority of companies, you likely have more employees working remotely than ever before. And if studies and predictions are correct, many of your remote workers will remain remote long after the threat of COVID-19 subsides. Harvard Business School found that at least 16% of American workers…

What Is SD-WAN? SD-WAN stands for “software-defined wide area network” and is the technology that aggregates multiple Internet connections and dynamically selects the best path for traffic based on the real-time conditions of those links. SD-WAN vendors swear it is a game changer in how it allows organizations to rapidly, reliably and securely access applications in the cloud without needing dedicated pipes to enterprise data centers. It’s also considerably less…

 Microsoft Teams, the unified communication and collaboration platform that’s integrated with Office 365, is seeing massive adoption rates. In March of this year, there were 44 million daily active users. That number jumped 70% to 75 million daily active users the very next month. And a report in June found that Teams usage growth has surpassed that of Zoom, the original poster child for video conferencing in the work-from-home…

If you are managing a growing business, you know the importance of providing a secure, connected communications platform to your employees, particularly if you have multiple locations, a distributed workforce, and multiple applications. Traditional PBX phone systems are no longer enough to support your dynamic and diverse application environment. What is the next level in communications and how do you provide the foundation your company’s employees require to efficiently and…

CIO magazine recently ran an article on how CIOs are reshaping IT priorities in wake of COVID-19 and it reflects the reality we’re seeing across our own clients and the entire industry. The current pandemic is a health crisis. But for most businesses, many of the changes they needed to make to support stay-at-home directives had significant technology implications. Companies like this union benefits provider and this insurance company had…

There’s a lot of hype out there in the industry, and it can be difficult to figure out what’s essential for a stable, reliable network that supports your business requirements. You don’t want to over-invest in technology you really don’t need. But you also don’t want to miss out on improvements and innovations that can drive your business forward and deliver real ROI. The answer doesn’t start with the technologies…

The concept of telemedicine—using technology to deliver remote clinical services to patients—has been around for quite a while. The current shift to remote everything, however, has made telemedicine a necessity for virtually all non-critical healthcare. This means that healthcare organizations everywhere, ready or not, are forced to support telemedicine right now. But to be effective, telemedicine requires a strategy and network infrastructure that can support its unique needs. If you’re…

There’s a lot of talk about SD-WAN and the benefits it can deliver. If you’re a multi-site business with growing bandwidth needs, SD-WAN enables you to manage bandwidth more efficiently across all your locations. By decoupling the networking hardware from its control mechanism—that’s the SD, or software-defined piece of the acronym—SD-WAN simplifies the management and operation of your WAN and enables you to dynamically share bandwidth across your connection points…

In 2013, Kari Hunt was in a hotel room with her children when she was killed by her estranged husband. Her then-9-year-old daughter tried repeatedly to call 911, as she had been taught to do, but was unsuccessful because she didn’t know the hotel phone required her to dial 9 to get an outside line. To prevent another tragedy like this happening again, on February 16, 2018, Kari’s Law became…

Unified communications systems can prove transformative to your business. However, finding the right tools for your specific needs and supporting the underlying technologies needed to put those solutions in place is a complex matter. The challenge is well worth tackling as a modern UC system can: Reduce travel costs by allowing for powerful videoconferencing capabilities. Keep employees engaged by creating more personal means for corporate communications. Foster collaboration as the ability…

Information and communications technologies are intersecting in new ways, giving enterprise employees opportunities to work and engage customers in more intuitive ways. IT systems have long played an instrumental role in working in the background behind communications systems. However, they haven't generally done much to make them better. Advanced network systems may allow for high-quality voice performance, but that is still a situation where IT is supporting good communications functions, not…

Businesses within every industry have had to shift radically in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, doing what needs to be done right now, while trying to plan for an uncertain future. BCM One’s three key niche verticals—healthcare, retail, and financial—are arguably some of the most affected when it comes to a direct impact. Of course, the entire BCM One team is working alongside our clients, first and foremost, to ensure…

BCM One is excited to announce the addition of Michael Milnamow to the BCM One family. Michael has a strong history of delivering revenue growth through aggressive sales approaches in the communications, SaaS, and network services markets and will be responsible for building out the company’s channel presence in the central region. Michael brings over 20 years of channel management experience with a strong background in UCaaS/VoIP and an emphasis…

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the first priority is the health and safety of everyone across the nation and the globe. But we need to keep businesses running, too. Many are necessary to protect and sustain us—such as hospitals, utilities, and the food supply chain, to name just a few—and others are just looking to stay afloat, which is critical for their employees who depend on their salaries and benefits. For…

As an independent consultant, you want to provide your clients with the best possible solutions and service to meet their business needs. But that means working with a slew of suppliers. That’s a lot of points of contact to juggle. And different terms to manage. Not to mention all the different commission programs. And now you have way less time to focus on your own business and clients. No wonder…

When you’re running a business in the channel, you’re working hard every single day to build strong partnerships with vendors and valuable relationships with clients. Undoubtedly, you want to grow your business. But it’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day that you don’t have a moment to pause, take a breath, and think about your strategy and direction. BCM One’s Andy Steinke has spent the last decade…

BCM One is excited to announce the addition of Derrick Dike in the newly created position of Director of UCaaS. Bringing Derrick on board, together with the acquisition of Arena One, is part of BCM One’s strategy to drive growth in its unified communications offerings and become a top-tier UCaaS provider. Derrick brings 20 years of industry experience to this strategic role with a unique perspective—he’s spent time on the…

BCM One would like to welcome Chanter Adams to the BCM One family!  Chanter oversees the BCM One Channel Support team and works with our Channel Sales Managers to ensure the success of the company’s channel partners and agents. Chanter has over 15 years of industry experience. She comes to BCM One from MetTel where she held the role of Analyst supporting the direct sales team. Previously she held a…

Putting a simple device in the hands of your clinicians has the power to transform the care your patients get—and their overall health. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mHealth as “medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as [cell] phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices.” The Potential for mHealth is Huge mHealth has the potential to transform virtually every aspect…

Collaboration is more important -- and easier -- than ever, thanks to tools for sharing documents, instant communication and workflow tracking. However, too many collaboration tools can often be counterproductive. Many companies purchase Microsoft Office 365, but retain competing legacy collaboration tools. In fact, BCM One has found that many of our clients who have Microsoft Office 365 are only using it for email, nothing else. There’s no need to…

BCM One is excited to announce the addition of Jose Padilla, Enterprise Account Executive – Healthcare Solutions.  Jose specializes in advising healthcare companies of valuable solutions to launch telemedicine practices, efficiently manage and support electronic health records (EHR), streamline the management of integrations of legacy and new systems for acquired offices and improve overall patient care. Jose spent 8 years at Verizon, working for the last 6 years as a…

BCM One is excited to announce the addition of Chelsea Mann, who joins BCM One as an Enterprise Account Executive-- Retail Solutions. Chelsea specializes in advising retail companies of best practices with regards to implementing the right blend of technology solutions to tackle prominent retail issues including PCI Compliance, ensuring a consistent omnichannel experience without margin-busting IT budgets, streamlining the connectivity of all store locations, taking control of cloud usage…

Fundraising is an integral and necessary part of successfully managing any nonprofit. You need to have the right people skills—to engage with donors, communicate and spread your passion for the mission, and convince them to give their time and/or money. Technology can also play a key role in helping you fund your operations. But according to a survey conducted by NetChange, only 11% of nonprofits report that their organization’s management…

When we think of blockchain, we often think of cryptocurrencies, but it’s more than just Bitcoin. In fact, a Deloitte survey of over 1,000 global executives found that 74% see a compelling business case in blockchain, and 84% expect mainstream adoption. And, we’re not just talking futures—34% already have a system in production and 41% will deploy an app within a year. The unique characteristics of blockchain technology—notably, providing a…

BCM One is excited to announce a new addition to our Southeast Channel Team – Matt Frechette who is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. As Channel Manager for the Southeast, Matt will work closely with local BCM One channel partners throughout the region to drive business and provide dedicated channel sales support and co-selling with our existing channel partners. Over the past decade, Matt has held sales roles for a…

The Patient Experience: It’s Not Just “Customer Experience” for Healthcare In many ways, delivering a high-quality patient experience is similar to providing a great customer experience in any field. Except there’s one critical difference: when someone is a patient, they are likely coming to you in a moment of vulnerability, anxiety, and pain. This means all your communication platforms have to be utterly reliable. Patients need to be able to…

Digital Signage Isn’t Just Signage That’s Digital Oh no, it’s so much more. According to a Cisco IBSG study, over 40% of shoppers say that digital displays change what they buy, because relevant information is provided near the point of purchase. The result? Retailers can generate higher brand awareness and sales uplift. When you give creative retailers the ability to combine all kinds of data with an information delivery platform,…

Financial services companies of all kinds understand financial risk and have tried-and-true strategies to manage that risk. But what about cybersecurity risk? This is a much newer kind of risk—one that we know can have significant financial consequences—and it’s starting to get executive- and board-level scrutiny. What is third-party cybersecurity risk? With the emergence of cloud computing, remote and mobile workforces, fintech solutions, and more, a lot of applications and…

Just about every company on the planet today depends on technology. If something goes down, business functions go down with it. That puts a lot of pressure on the IT staff who are responsible for those systems; and that pressure is compounded by the global shortage of technology talent. It’s no wonder IT burnout is rampant. You can’t hire your way out of the problem. You can, however, partner your…

Technology changes fast. That’s why at BCM One we hold quarterly reviews with every single one of our clients to help them stay on top of their technology investment and ensure it continues to meet business needs today and in the future. If you’re a BCM One client, here’s what you can expect. Components of a Thorough Quarterly Review The centerpiece of the quarterly review is, not surprisingly, a review…

BCM One is excited to welcome Chris Robbins as our Channel Manager on the West Coast. Chris, who is based in Southern California and will focus on managing and building out BCM One’s channel partnerships in the west region, joins Andy Steinke’s team as part of our regional expansion to provide local support to our partners. Chris has over ten years’ experience in the telecom space starting his first sales…

Moving applications and services to the cloud makes good business sense for a bunch of reasons. But if you’re like most organizations, your understanding of cloud expenses and utilization is, well, cloudy. The reality is there are a number of aspects of cloud computing that are challenging to manage with the tools that cloud providers give you. One tool you could use for trying to understand your cloud spend is…

At BCM One, we never start with technology. Our clients’ business needs are the focus, and then we determine which enabling technologies will best meet those needs. It’s why we’ve always stayed technology-agnostic. And it’s why we engage in thoughtful and probing discussions right up front with each and every client. After having done this for more than a quarter-century, we’ve learned a thing or two about how to build,…

Once upon a time, there was an IT director who was completely overwhelmed. We know you can relate. In this case, his was working for a national veterinary hospital which was expanding at a rabbit-like pace—acquiring two to four clinics every month! And did we mention that the voice and internet solutions in the acquisitions were mostly set up by the local doctor or office manager who had no IT…

You’ve been going along, taking care of business as it comes up. And there’s nothing wrong with the way you’ve been doing it. But then you have a moment of realization. You’ve reached a certain scale, and as you look around to all those as-they-came-ups, it’s all a bit of a mess. If you had known this would be the point you’d get to, maybe you would have done things…

Firewalls are like insurance—it’s not fun, it’s not sexy, but it’s a necessary precaution. Installing and configuring a firewall is just the first step; you need to patch and update it on an ongoing basis, which includes testing (you don’t want anything to break!) and ensuring all your compliance checkboxes stay checked. It takes a couple of hours to update a firewall, which doesn’t seem like much in the grand…

Imagine you’re a retailer spending a lot of money on your MPLS network. Spending so much, in fact, that pretty much your entire infrastructure budget goes to said network. You want to do so much more—like backup systems, upgraded software, and hosted VoIP. Is it possible that enough savings could be squeezed out of that network spend to fund these other initiatives? Without sacrificing quality or coverage? While at the…

The word “partnership” gets thrown around a lot and, as a result, it’s become a rather empty promise. But at BCM One, we believe our channel partner program is truly unique; we emphasize the word “partner” rather than “program,” and nothing underscores that more than our investment in helping you retain and expand your clients. We call it Retention-as-a-Service. We may be in the technology business, but relationships are paramount.…

On paper it might sound like a good idea to work directly with the carriers and suppliers of your communications infrastructure. It gives you control. They’re accountable directly to you. But in reality, the process of evaluating, selecting, deploying, and managing technologies can be challenging along a number of different fronts. Here are seven ways working with BCM One as your single-point-of-contact technology partner can actually save you time, money,…

As a technology consultant, you provide value to your clients by taking on the responsibility for their IT strategy and management so they don’t have to. Could they do it themselves? Yeah, probably, but it’s not their thing and it wouldn’t be the best use of their resources—and they couldn’t get nearly the same results you deliver. That’s because you’ve got some serious chops when it comes your area of…

The SDWAN market is hot right now. IDC’s worldwide SDWAN forecast from 2017 to 2021 predicts SDWAN network sales to reach over $8 billion. This is a titanic jump from $225 million back in 2015. Why is the SDWAN market blowing up like this? Because SDWAN provides benefits too attractive for any organization seeking to remain a competitive to turn down. BCM One has identified several technical and business benefits…

For many organizations, their cloud budget has become their new phone bill. Your organization needs cloud services, but you have finite resources and don’t want to spend any more than you have to, and you certainly don’t want to go over budget. At the same time, you don’t want to nickel and dime your organization out of optimal services. Adding to the difficulty is the complex nature of understanding a…

Nearly every company deploys some kind of legacy product that just doesn’t perform as well as a new and improved alternative. Case in point, copper-based communication lines like Ethernet over Copper, POTS and DSL. Many organizations continue to use legacy products in the face of more agile and efficient alternatives. They’re comfortable with their phone lines the way they are. Even when an outside expert tells you that copper is…

SDWAN is exploding. Andrew Lerner of Gartner stated in 2017 that "SDWAN is delivering on the promise. In just three short years, adoption has taken off, and we now estimate 6,000 plus paying SDWAN customers with more than 4,000 production implementations." With so many SDWAN solutions out there it can be difficult to sort through the field and find the best fit for your organization. BCM One has identified three…

Author: Corinne Kerner Vice President, Technology Optimization Group at BCM One   For the last couple of decades, technology expense management (TEM) has been the way many organizations handle their billing. Paper billing has long gone the way of the dinosaur, thanks to the large expense involved in printing, shipping, storing and processing. When TEM first came on the scene, it saved organizations around the world tens or even hundreds of…

Gartner predicts total spending on SDWAN network products will rise from $129 million in 2016 to $1.24 billion by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, Frost and Sullivan believe SDWAN has moved from the early adopter stage into the growth stage of  the product life cycle. This explosive growth is due to SDWAN’s increased uptime and connection quality compared to just MPLS circuits alone. A wide array of vendors on…

In the not-so-distant past, VARs and system integrators sold software and cloud, and there was a Telephony agent who you went to for your carrier business. Now everyone is becoming a one-stop shop for everything under the sun. Traditional telecom companies are selling the cloud. Cloud providers offer telecom services. Where the lines exist at all, they’re extremely blurry. Some companies think they can remain inside their comfort zones, providing…

Formatting can cost you! Microsoft Azure quick format gives a representation that a disk is ready to use.  However, it does not truly prepare the disk, be it virtual or physical. It merely overwrites the index tables of the drive.  A full format however will write zeros across the entire drive to both overwrite any existing data as well as check the disk during the write process. Microsoft charges for…

Author: Traci Blowers Microsoft SME & Manager, Cloud Operations for BCM One No doubt you’ve heard about Skype for Business Voice. You can use this to replace your current PBX and phone carrier. Still, you want to make that transition as seamless as possible. Your phone system is the lifeline of your business, so a careful approach is essential. So how do you decide which partner to work with if…

Cloud computing can be far more efficient at meeting your computing and storage needs than traditional computing. You can obtain far more computing power and storage at a fraction of the price of traditional computing solutions. The cloud allows your organization, regardless of size, access to many of the same tools available to enterprise-class organizations. While the cloud is nothing new -- it’s been around since at least the 1960s…

See the complete webinar here. Transcript SD-WAN has the ability to identify e-mail traffic. We all know e-mail traffic is very important to businesses, but it's not necessarily time-sensitive. So SD-WAN will choose the lowest-cost link. And that's where e-mail traffic will flow. So let's say that lower-cost link has some major delay on it and will throw in some packet loss. Well, SD-WAN's real-time circuit monitoring will recognize that…

Holistic planning plays an integral role in finding success with collaboration in business settings. Browse a few studies and you'll find that plenty of companies are using social, mobile and video tools to bolster collaboration in the enterprise, but you'll also see an overarching theme that technology alone is not enough to transform the way an organization operates. Instead, cutting-edge solutions must be tightly integrated into everyday processes and procedures…

Balancing business flexibility with cybersecurity can be a somewhat overwhelming challenge, but it is increasingly important as IT and corporate leaders work in tandem to protect company data. The problem is that business and technology leaders have vastly different priorities when it comes to security, something that is underlined by a recent study from The Economist Intelligence Unit and VMware. "Business and technology leaders have vastly different priorities when it comes…

We recently discussed how transparency into relationships with managed services providers can pay dividends for businesses. Similarly, deepening insights into every detail of IT operations can fuel value creation. IT transparency and value creation are closely linked as having a clear understanding of the nuances of how IT systems operate can empower business and technology leaders to ensure investments deliver returns. The problem is that many IT departments are functionally siloed,…

Businesses have long depended on technology to get the job done. This reliance on technology has long fueled a relationship in which business and IT units have been segregated from one another. The enterprise operates to meet customer needs and drive profits, and IT exists to support those tasks. This longstanding relationship is changing, but how do you adjust your culture around a new world of responsive IT that is…

Vendor partnerships are a key strategic issue in the managed services provider sector. MSPs will partner with vendors to be certified as specialists with those technologies, giving them added clout when working with businesses that want specific solutions. If a company likes the Microsoft Cloud ecosystem, for example, an MSP that is a Microsoft partner will often be best positioned to meet those needs. However, this is the simplest explanation…

Virtualization has been transforming IT infrastructure strategies. It began with server virtualization. Establishing virtual machines within single systems allowed one server to host dozens of applications, changing the way data centers operate by allowing apps to use system resources on an as-needed basis. This process extended out to storage, network and desktop systems, creating software-defined data centers. Virtualization's rise has also led to more discussions around the idea of software-defined…

Big data is a major point of discussion when businesses explore digital transformation. In theory, gathering information from a wide range of unstructured and structured sources should help companies build efficient, streamlined operations using digital apps and services. Going digital makes it easier to gather data from diverse locations, and having apps and services in place to leverage that information enables companies to make both real-time and strategic decisions with…

Performing an all-purpose IT audit can be a great way to kick off a partnership with a managed services provider. An audit will help you and the MSP understand how technology is currently impacting your business and identify potential strategies for improvement moving forward. A good MSP doesn't just sell you technology and support it, it will also serve as a consultant that helps you maximize value creation through IT innovation. An…

The data center without walls movement has taken hold in the enterprise, creating a situation in which organizations can freely mix and match diverse technology services to drive value creation. In particular, being able to subscribe to cloud technologies, colocation services and similar hosted data center solutions lets companies move to an operating cost model for many of their IT systems. The result is a situation in which raising large…

Telecommunications expense management tools offer organizations visibility into how they use and pay for a variety of communications technologies, something that is increasingly valuable as technological models shift across the telecom services sector. Historically, enterprise communications investments have boiled down to purchasing phones, fax machines, internet services and the various network services that support them - such as a direct line for fax machines. Over time, this model became more…

Enterprise culture is changing as many businesses work to establish startup-like collaboration and flexibility to fuel innovation and gain a competitive edge. Advanced communication tools have become critical as this cultural shift has gained momentum, and Microsoft Skype for Business has emerged as an easy-to-use solution for the modern enterprise. The longstanding collaboration problem Creating genuine team environments in which people actually work together on projects instead of simply taking…