IT Solutions Blueprint

Unified Communications for Schools

Times are changing and technology is leading the way. The speed with which these changes are occurring is almost unprecedented.  It seems as though every day a new product, various forms of communication tools and software are being developed.   Where do all these ideas and developments come from?  It begins in the classroom.   Communication is the key to any education.  It makes sense, then, that Unified Communications (UC) is an exceedingly valuable benefit within schools and other educational institutions.  According to Cisco, UC makes it “easy to help your [school] district improve their communications, improve security and reduce costs.”  

Improved Communications:

With UC, teachers, students and parents have the ability to communicate more openly and more freely over multiple platforms.  Parents no longer have to set up a parent teacher conference every time something happens.  Instead, they can stay on top of their child’s schooling with the increased ability to have conversations with their child’s teachers.  Calling a teacher directly at school, leaving voice mails and sending emails make life a lot easier for both the parents and the teacher.   Parents aren’t the only ones who see improvements from UC.  Staff members benefit as well.  UC makes it possible for staff members to access data and communicate more often by phone, email or chat.  UC can also provide district wide intercom paging which makes communicating emergencies much easier.

Improved Security:

When an emergency happens, the first thing anyone needs and wants to do is to notify people.  With UC, it is much easier to do that.  With an IP phone in every classroom, it’s simple for a teacher to get immediate assistance if something should happen.  As stated previously, it also helps get information out quickly regarding school wide or even district wide emergencies.   Another positive is that each IP phone comes with an enhanced emergency number that can track the exact location of the phone.  Staff, parents and students can all feel safer and more connected thanks to UC.

Reduced Costs:

All of the benefits listed are great, but one of the most important features is the money you will save by using UC in your school.  With UC, paper is almost unnecessary. Announcements can be delivered immediately over phone, email or chat.   Parents can be automatically alerted via email for things such as holidays, absentees, overdue library books and low lunch card balances.  One of the biggest cost savings that comes with UC is the decreased operating and maintenance costs that you used to accrue with separate networks for voice, video and data.  

These are just some of the many benefits of UC.   You can visit our website to learn even more. 

Meet Michael Adams, Senior Account Manager, Virginia Beach

ABS Technology Architects is staffed by some of the brightest and most talented people in the technology community.  Our team represents our company in a positive way every day.  In this section, we'd like to introduce you to some of our team so you can get a better idea of who we are and what we do.  Our video introductions are a great way to get to know our employees and see why ABS will always be committed to treating clients as partners, not customers.

We'd like you to meet Michael Adams, a Senior Account Manager in our Virginia Beach office. Upon earning his Bachelor of Arts degree at The College of William & Mary in Virginia, Michael had a successful introduction to business in the financial industry. In 1996, Michael was offered the opportunity to enter the fledgling technology industry.

Over the following 12 years, he was an owner in three successful web solution providers focused on the niche industries of Automotive, Marine, Powersports and RV.  Those organizations brought leading edge and innovative Internet products that revolutionized selling and marketing for those market segments. The backbone of the unique “Branded Flow Technology” Internet platforms were technologies that ABS successfully procures, implements and supports for its elite client base, preparing Michael for successful transition to the technology infrastructure industry.

Since joining ABS, Michael has had the privilege of working with many successful Enterprise customers. His focus is on providing both strategic vision and successful tactical execution in becoming an integral part of the IT initiatives for his customers. This philosophy has earned Michael “ABS Account Manager of the Year” honors in each year of his tenure with ABS. In addition, Michael has formed an organization, along with his partner Kevin Harrington, providing dedicated Project Management, Administrative support, SMARTnet Management and engineering to his top Healthcare and Higher Education provider clients.

When asked, "What are the top-of-mind technology issues you're helping customers resolve?"  Michael answered, "There are many topical technology issues faced by customers today, such as data center resource limitations, accelerating application and data driven hardware and network costs, increased security threats, audit requirements, mobility demands, an increase in end user devices and sophistication, and a quickly growing focus on effective collaboration through voice, text and video to name a few. Our goal is to provide relief to our customers in handling critical daily tasks and issues while not losing sight of longer term goals and initiatives. Through our team approach to Account Management, we endeavor to negotiate the myriad of challenges and goals the IT team faces in a congruent fashion so that long term objectives are not only not sacrificed, but advanced. Through this approach, regardless of the technology issue of the day, we are positioned to partner with our customers to help them be successful.” 

Michael lives in Virginia Beach with his wife, four children, dog and four turtles. 

Please take a minute to view Michael’s video introduction.

Be sure to check back soon to meet more of the ABS staff and read their answers to some of the top technology questions!

ATV at the 2010 ETLC!

The ABS Technology Vehicle (ATV) made its debut appearance at the 16^th annual Educational Technology Leadership Conference (ETLC) in Roanoke, Virginia at the beginning of this month.  This year’s conference had about 300 participants from all over the Commonwealth.  Many participants of the conference took a tour of the ATV to view various technology demonstrations that ABS was showing.

 

Inside the ATV, ABS` talented staff were demonstrating Borderless Networks and Collaboration solutions.  They set up a 2911 router with a Wireless LAN Controller Network Module.   There was also a 3500 series AP with Wireless Control System Software and UC500 and 7900 series phones for voice demonstrations.

In the back of the ATV was a Digital Media Solution demo.  With Digital Media Manager software and a 4400 Digital Media Player, ABS was able to show some basic signage.

ABS also had one of their partners, Molex, there to demonstrate their intelligent patch panel solution.  Those who made it on the ATV enjoyed the demonstrations as well as the information they received from the ABS and Molex staff.  “The ATV allows us to bring technology solutions to our customers, which is something that our competitors are not able to do,” said ABS Senior Network Architect, Ronnie Angello. “I look forward to the opportunity to continue to make improvements to the ATV.”

The ATV is ABS` version of the Cisco Network on Wheels Van.  To learn more about the ATV, please contact marketing@absnt.com.

How to Secure Consumerized IT

One border that remains to be crossed is the border between consumer technology and business technology. But it's a barrier that will be crossed one way or another -- sometimes against the wishes of IT policy makers.

"In the enterprise, there is growing demand for the acceptance of new computing tools -- both hardware and applications -- that first gain their popularity in the consumer space before being pulled into the business organization by employees," writes Tom Gillis in his book Securing the Borderless Network.  "Industry analysts generally recognize this trend as the consumerization of IT."

The positive side of this trend is that it represents opportunities to enhance the user's experience and productivity while driving down IT costs for certain applications. The trouble with this trend is security. How do organizations protect their users, their networks and their data when endpoints are beyond control?

The biggest driver of consumerized IT today is the smartphone. Handheld devices are increasingly powerful and the array of applications now available on them continues to explode. Indeed, the smartphone may be the primary computing device of mobile users in the borderless enterprise in the coming years. This raises the challenge of how to secure them and other forms of consumer IT.

"Desktop virtualization is a big part of the answer," contends Gillis. "It is a powerful tool that helps business and personal computing coexist on a single device. The concept is that consumers can have any device they want... But when the time comes to access company data, they must switch to a virtual desktop."

Such moves create a virtual environment in which policies can be rigorously enforced. Every connection can be scanned, logged and analyzed to ensure these policies are followed.

While Gillis acknowledges that the virtual desktop concept will take several years to implement effectively with emerging smartphones, he sees several meaningful steps that can be taken toward this destination in the meantime. He points, for instance, to the convergence of SSL VPN technology, advanced web security, and hybrid-hosted security solutions as a key enabler of secure networks.

While acknowledging that virtualization is only one facet of the security challenge ahead, he emphasizes that there is no holding back the flood of demand that will come from users to integrate business and personal technology. Fortunately, smart enterprises will also have the tools to protect their networks.

Success with UC Requires a Focus on User Adoption

To take Unified Communications (UC) to the next level in terms of success, organizations are challenged to focus on user adoption. While the business case for UC often is extremely compelling in terms of overall savings and productivity benefits, none of these gains can be realized unless UC is embraced by an organization's workforce.

The first challenge to adoption lies in how a UC solution is presented in the first place. "All too often when Solutions Integrators are proposing a communication solution – whether it is basic VoIP or a UC solution for collaboration, instant messaging, unified messaging or even communication enabling business processes – they get so involved in the technical aspects of the solution that they overlook one of the most basic components of business communication," writes Pam Avila at Unified Communications Strategies, a portal devoted to UC trends and opportunities.

"That component is the 'equipment' that sits on the end-user’s desk or travels in their pocket or briefcase. We refer to this equipment as the 'end points,' which sounds very official and technical," she adds. "In reality, however, it’s all about the end-user experience. Provide a great end-user experience and acceptance of technology is almost assured. Conversely, move the end-user too far out of their comfort zone and a disaster looms."

Mike Sapien, a principal analyst for Ovum, contends that UC services should be introduced in the enterprise the same way as new PCs have been introduced. As he explains, users gain upfront training. They are educated on new applications, features and the value of these capabilities.

"Just like with new PCs, UC users may at first be completely unfamiliar with some new features and have only very narrow experience with others," he contends. "The assumption that end users can immediately jump in, knowing which tools to use to improve their productivity, is a bad one."

He explains that some of the most successful UC implementation results are produced when companies create  formal and informal teams to focus on training users, encouraging adoption, and identifying valuable uses of UC capabilities. In most of these cases, top management also embraces the technology and leads by example.  The rest of the enterprise, in other words, is watching what they do.

"Consider earlier communication technologies, such as voice mail and e-mail, and how often senior managers relied on administrators to manage these tools for them. Some managers went so far as to ask assistants to type up their voice mail." he adds. "This sort of avoidance technique won’t work with UC features such as instant messaging and telepresence. It has to be clear to employees that they’re expected to use UC features, and bypassing these tools will leave them behind professionally. Senior management has to model regular and effective use of the UC features so that others will respond similarly."

When senior managers embrace Unified Communications, they set the stage for widespread adoption across the enterprise. They accelerate time to value by taking steps that encourage others.

5 Tips to Help Network Admins Support Virtualization

Implementing data center virtualization and virtual server networks isn't as simple as install and done. One of the pivotal components is your network infrastructure. Although virtualization offers significant benefits when it comes to server and desktop deployment, management and utilization, the network requires some updates in business networks to be most effective at supporting the increased demands of virtualization.

Network optimization is critical in virtual environments.  If networks are not properly architected, with the required tools for management, virtual infrastructures can result in less efficiency and more cost. Something every IT department is tasked to avoid.

Following are 5 tips to consider when planning network support for a virtual infrastructure:

• Assess how the change will affect staffing requirements, and determine the cost of added complexity, such as increased downtime to accomplish the migration.


• Create a plan for managing your virtual network. While there might be fewer physical switches and routers, a virtualization strategy often means more logical, virtual devices that also have to be managed. Many traditional networking tools may not spot problems unless specifically created for a virtual environment.


• Discover ways to simplify network management. Does your tool allowing IT professionals to interact with a virtual network in much the same way that they would interact with a physical network, such a product should make supporting server virtualization similar to what they already do.


• Plan to scale to manage more and diverse devices. Moving to data center virtualization almost always decreases the number of physical servers, but the number of virtual storage servers, for example, can more than double. [International Data Corporation]


• Incorporate automation to manage network tasks. Virtualization doesn't affect what network managers do, per se. But it does increase how often management tasks must be performed, while requiring more advanced planning for capacity and network load balancing. Automation of these tasks is a key to improved efficiency.

Most experts agree that network planning is one of the most critical aspects of any Data Center Virtualization project.  That’s why having a partner that understands how business networks and virtualization work together is critical to success.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing

Our society is always changing and always growing. With the constant hustle and bustle, we are always looking for new technologies to help us keep up.  Cloud computing, or the “Cloud”, is able to help organizations stay in the loop. According to cisco.com, Cloud computing, “profoundly transforms the way in which information and services are consumed and provided.” So, what are the benefits of this profound technology?  There are actually several.

Cloud computing allows users to:

Lower costs

• By using the “Cloud,” you are able to reduce your hardware costs.  Cloud computing eliminates the need for storage space on your desktop.  It also reduces the need to keep upgrading equipment. Working in the Cloud makes it possible for your employees to have greater flexibility in how they access the data and information they need to do their jobs, which in turn saves on the costs of human latency.

Enhance agility, growth, and profitability

• Cloud computing gives you scalability.  This makes it possible for you to maintain or upgrade services from your private Cloud as your company grows and/or changes.  The ability to modify your company’s consumption of Cloud resources based on your business needs so easily makes it possible for your company to scale growth more profitably.

Simplify operations and management

• Cloud computing allows IT departments to launch services and applications in short order, develop comprehensive disaster recovery plans more easily and expand their capacity to change more quickly, with less demand on staff.  The Cloud also allows your company to standardize your services offerings.  With more work getting done quicker, a company’s operational management methods are simplified.

Ensure resilient and trusted collaboration

• Cloud computing makes it possible for any organization, no matter the size or location, to access information technology resources that previously were out of reach, such as Software as a Service (SaaS) and hosted unified communications.  This allows for companies to easily extend collaboration to remote workers, driving innovation and business values.  Having remote workers is possible without having to sacrifice security.

Cloud computing is taking technology to the next level. It offers a clear and consistent path that preserves existing investment in applications and information.

Is your organization ready for the Cloud?

 

Forecasting the Future of Social and Collaboration Technologies

What's ahead for social and collaboration technology? According to research firm Gartner, you can expect a lot of energy and investment on this front for the next few years.

Gartner offers several key predictions for collaborative technology:

• By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users. Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications.
  
  Gartner recommends that organizations develop a long-term strategy for provisioning and consuming a rich set of collaboration and social software services, and develop policies governing the use of consumer services for business purposes. Companies should also solicit input from the business community on what collaboration tools would be most helpful.
  
  
• Through 2012, over 70 percent of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail. When it comes to collaboration, IT organizations are accustomed to providing a technology platform (such as, e-mail, IM, Web conferencing) rather than delivering a social solution that targets specific business value. Through 2013, IT organizations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. This will result in over a 70 percent failure rate in IT-driven social media initiatives.
  
  A dearth of methods, technologies and tools will impede the design and delivery of social media solutions in the near term. But long term, enterprises will realize that social media is not a "hit or miss" activity naturally prone to high failure rates, and that a calculated approach to social media solution delivery must be an IT competency. At that point, post-2012, the social software market growth will accelerate as will the overall impact of social media on business and society.

• Within five years, 70 percent of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from smart-phone collaboration applications. As we move toward three billion phones in the world serving the main purpose of providing communications and collaboration anytime anywhere, Gartner expects more end users to spend significant time experiencing the collaborative tools on these devices. The experience with these tools for all who use them will enable the user to handle far more conversations within a given amount of time than their PCs simply because they are easier to use.
  
  Gartner's advice? IT organizations should continue to procure leading-edge smart-phones for testing and accumulate knowledge on how collaborative applications on such devices accomplish business tasks. As more organizations consider replacing desk-phones with cell phones, they may wish to anchor their collaboration tools also on the cell phone.

“A lot has happened...within the social software and collaboration space. The growing use of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook by business users has resulted in serious enterprise dialogue about procuring social software platforms for the business,” says Mark R. Gilbert, research vice president at Gartner. “Success in social software and collaboration will be characterized by a concerted and collaborative effort between IT and the business.”

Unsupported Application Use a Challenge to Network Security

As enterprises embrace the “anywhere, anytime, any device” vision of networking, they need to remain vigilant of emerging security risks. Taking steps to address these risks will be critical if enterprises are to confidently capitalize on the new business opportunities that borderless networks represent.

In a study of 512 IT security decision makers (ITSDM) conducted by Cisco and InsightExpress, more than half of respondents (56%) have determined that employees are using unsupported applications on enterprise networks. Among them, the largest proportion has discovered employees using social networking (68%).

In the U.S., more than 60% have discovered use of unsupported collaborative tools such as Google apps. Meanwhile, about four in ten (41%) have determined that employees are using unsupported network devices.  The two greatest risks recognized by these respondents are social networking (51%) and unauthorized network users (55%).

The majority of ITSDMs said they have a complete technical process to lock employees from network access if necessary (74%) and have restrictions on what employees can bring onto the network (79%).  In fact, most enforce policies that restrict network behavior (75%) and impose consequences on those that breach them.  Globally, three out of four respondents said it was the IT department’s responsibility to set, maintain and communicate these security policies – though 40% of respondents in the U.S. stated that such responsibilities belong to human resources.

Interestingly, a majority of respondents (71%) recognize that “overly strict” security policies can negatively affect hiring and retention among employees under the age of 30. So there clearly is a tension between restricting network and device usage and appealing to younger workers. 

But ambitious enterprises need not be paralyzed by these conflicting issues. Intent on helping companies reconcile the challenge of network security with the demand for network accessibility, Cisco recently unveiled its “Validated Secure Borderless Networks” initiative.  The objective is to provide system designs that will secure mobility, strengthen data security and support security management.

Recognizing that key security challenges are associated with today’s dizzying array of point security products, the initiative validates and integrates third-party tools from firms such as ArcSight, Credant Technologies, EMC, HTC, LogLogic, Lumension, netForensics, Nokia,  Palm, RSA, Samsung and Splunk.

By validating these point solutions as part of larger, integrated solutions, Cisco intends to address the security hurdles associated with complexity, integration and management and we're helping our customers take advantage of these innovations.

Meet Launa McMillen, Senior Account Manager, Virginia Beach

ABS Technology Architects is staffed by some of the brightest and most talented people in the technology community.  Our team represents our company in a positive way every day.  In this section, we'd like to introduce you to some of our team so you can get a better idea of who we are and what we do.  Our video introductions are a great way to get to know our employees and see why ABS will always be committed to treating clients as partners, not customers.

We'd like you to meet Launa McMillen, a Senior Account Manager in our Virginia Beach office. Launa primarily works with our K-12 customers as well as local government organizations.  After graduating from college in her home state of Pennsylvania, Launa moved to Virginia Beach looking to put down her roots.  She was hired by ABS right away in an entry level marketing position.  After assisting sales for six months, she decided she wanted a piece of the action and moved into an account management role where she has happily stayed ever since.  Launa is beginning her tenth year here at ABS, and she says she is looking forward to many more! 

When asked, "What are the top-of-mind technology issues you're helping customers resolve?"  Launa answered, "The technology issues really differ greatly for all the customers I work with.   What one customer may have the budget for today could still be on a very long wish list for other customers.   I really try to focus on whatever they need help with the most and if it is something I feel ABS is good at, I do everything in my power to help that project come to fruition and go through the process successfully.”

Launa lives in Virginia Beach, with her husband and two daughters. 

Please take a minute to view Launa's video introduction.

Be sure to check back soon to meet more of the ABS staff and read their answers to some of the top technology questions!