Convergence Corner

Indeed, networking and communications are the core of any business, and with the growth of IP Communications, can no longer be separated. As such, it's also important to understand that resellers and partners that have positioned themselves as complete solution providers, like CDW.

For its efforts in delivering complete cost effective, efficiency enhancing converged solutions to its customers, CDW was named a winner of five separate awards at Cisco's annual channel partner conference in Boston earlier this month. The awards include:

·         Global Small Business Partner of the Year;

·         U.S. and Canada National Small Business Partner of the Year;

·         U.S. and Canada Theater Small Business Partner of the Year;

·         Public Sector Mobility Partner of the Year; and

·         Central Region Enterprise Partner of the Year.

As evidenced by the scope of the awards, CDW's expertise extends from small businesses to large enterprises, and includes mobility solutions as well -- clearly showing its breadth of capabilities as a reseller of not only Cisco solutions, but a host of other high quality networking, computing, and communications solutions for any business of any size.

CDW's vice president of product and partner management Matt Troka noted that CDW prides itself on its "dedication to supporting customers and their technology needs across all market segments -- public and private, large and small."

Part of becoming a valued partner to both vendors and customers is the ability to leverage quality products to lower capital and operational costs, which is among the key areas of focus for CDW today, as it looks to solve networking and communications challenges for its budget conscious customers, with access to certified IT experts who are ready to help understand and address current and future business networking needs.

For more on CDW's approach to delivering enhanced value to small, mid-sized, and large businesses, check out the IT Cost Reduction community on TMCnet.

There's a very high probability that the delay is a result of poor workflow management. More specifically, there is more than likely a high degree of manual processing involved, where much of it could be automated. In fact, many customer facing processes could be -- and should be -- automated from their outset, regardless of how contact is initiated.

For instance, if a customer is filing an insurance claim, they might call their agent to start the process, or they might email the provider's claim desk, or they might even fax in their claim if they have had to the foresight to download the form from their Web site. Instead of relying on a manual end-to-end process that relies on the agent delivering a file to the appropriate office, where it gets processed (hopefully correctly), then passed on down the line, with several stops left before a check actually makes it into the outbound mail.

Yes, that may be oversimplifying the process, at least in some cases. But a standard process, or deviations from it, can largely be made exponentially more efficient through automation. In fact, it's safe to say that any multi-step, people-centric process can be made more efficient be leveraging communications systems to create automated processes.

That's what Indianapolis, Indiana-based Interactive Intelligence figures to deliver with its new IPA (Interaction Process Automation), the latest add-on to its popular unified communications solution, Customer Interaction Center.

You've all heard the term CEBP -- Communications Enabled Business Process --which injects multi-channel communications into the business process. IPA is the next step, CBPA (Communications Based Process Automation), which takes the same unified communications features and functions, and adapts them into business workflows.

For instance, going back to the insurance carrier, if a new policy request comes in from Arizona, the software seeks out the most appropriate agent to handle an Arizona policy. If that person is out, it knows to route the request to the next most appropriate agent. Or, if the task sits idle for more than a predetermined period, it does the same. In other words, IPA uses the same routing technology used for inbound calls for non-voice-based communications and tasks.

In other words, it places business processes onto the IP Communications system, not only creating a more efficient business, but also increasing the value of the communications solution.

Does it make sense? According to 87 percent of executives questioned, there is a relationship between communications and automation that can be exploited to create an operationally more efficient business, allowing companies to much more with their existing resources.

The next obvious step, since many of these processes that are being automated still rely on paper documents, is to integrate an electronic document management system into IPA. In fact, that is likely to happen within the next year, according to Interactive Intelligence's SVP of Worldwide Marketing --a reasonable expectation after the company acquired a 15-year-old document and content management business recently.

Research tends to be somewhat cloudy, with most IT personnel and C-level executives claiming to understand they need to make security a top priority, yet additional reports suggest few have actually followed through on this.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that most users have extremely limited knowledge of network and device security, assuming that their network is protected at the core, and that what they do on their edge devices presents little risk.  If the IT department is vigilant in securing the network, that is true.  However, knowing that many IT administrators simply don't know enough about current threats, or don't have the time to deal with protecting against them, it's a safe (pardon the pun) assumption that there are many networks with unrealized security flaws.

Certainly, there are a number of companies in the communications space touting the need for increased security measures, especially as more and more businesses are adopting VoIP and Unified Communications systems.  But, the message seems to come across louder and clearer when two industry giants come together to drive the message home.

That's exactly what Avaya and IBM have done now.  As TMCnet's Amy Tierney reported today, the two companies have not only extended their relationship to further the growth of Unified Communications, but have included integrated security into their combined solution.

Specifically, Avaya Aura, the company's new UC architecture, has been integrated into IBM's converged communications offerings.  In addition -- and this is where the security element comes into play -- Avaya has certified IBM Security Systems' Proventia GX 5208 and Proventia Management SiteProtector SP1001 for interoperability with Avaya Aura.

"As more and more companies move toward unified communications, it's important that they take a holistic approach to security that encompasses multi-vendor applications in mobile and virtual environments," said Dan Powers, vice president of brand, strategy, marketing and business development at IBM ISS.

In a multi-vendor communications environment, which is becoming the norm these days, the availability of a certified security solution becomes critical, not only to protect critical business data, but also to ease implementation and management of the entire communications network.  The use of open standards only gets you half way there, but even standards-based systems have proprietary elements, so proven interoperability and certified integration is a must, with IT managers strapped for time as it is.

When Telx CEO Eric Shepcaro kicked off the event, the main hall, and the overflow room next door were both filled with attendees.  (Luckily, I found a place to sit and take some notes.)

 

Shepcaro began by answering the question as to why Clifton, especially when Telx already has two sites in the Manhattan and another in Weehawken, New Jersey.  He did suggest a visit to Rutt's Hut for fried hot dogs, and successful hockey and football programs (the Clifton facility is only a few miles from the Meadowlands Sports Complex) -- though that certainly wasn't an incentive for Shepcaro, himself a Rangers' fan.

But all joking aside, what it really came down to was the ability to provide its customers a central location for colocation, backup and recovery, and interconnection services in a network rich location within proximity to a variety of industries.  New Jersey also is among the leaders in broadband penetration (some studies put it at the top of the list of U.S. markets in that regard).

So really, it's about extending the capabilities already offered in Telx' other facilities to a larger set of customers, while enhancing its ability to service its existing customers in the region.  That's what Shepcaro and the rest of today's speakers are here to talk about -- the growth of the data center space and the challenges that face providers like Telx.