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3 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Virtualization

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Virtualization–the business tech craze that’s been sweeping the nation for some time now. For large companies, virtualizing multiple servers on a single server increases efficiency and cuts hardware costs. For small businesses, virtualization manifests itself in the operation of multiple operating systems on a single server and the deployment of virtual desktops. Virtual environments can be of great benefit to business big and small.

Here are three virtualization facts and tid-bits. 

1. A virtual machine allows you to back up entire operating systems and servers. In this way, virtualization of your OS is the ultimate companion to a good data backup strategy. In the event that hackers attack the system, you can simply load the backup and the headache of losing the information framework. This is also your best defense against a natural disaster or other catastrophe.

2. Virtualization lessens the need to replace hardware as frequently. Because you can run new programs and operating systems on older machines through the virtual environment, you don’t need to upgrade physical workstations as often.

3. Browsing the web via a virtual machine protects your physical operating system. When you install a browser on a virtual machine and run it on a desktop, you are not vulnerable to viruses and hack attacks and you won’t see a difference in the speed and functionality of the browser.

If you’re considering investing in a virtualization solution for your business, call the experts at BCS Voice and Data Solutions. We can implement virtual environments on any scale through our certified partnership with VMware–the most respected name in virtualization technology. Whether you are interested in virtual desktop capability or multiple virtual servers, VMware has the solution for your company. And since BCS serves the Hampton Roads region, we can personalize these solutions with ground support and face-to-face user training.

Call or contact us today!

 

 

Should you work from home?

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It’s a liberating idea, isn’t it? Hopping out of bed, walking down the hall and sitting down at a computer to start your work day? For one in five Americans, this is a reality. Working from home has become a viable option in this Work 3.0 culture and made all the easier by the latest business communications technologies like virtualization and unified communications. But working remotely isn’t for everyone. If your company offers a remote option, weigh the benefits and possible drawbacks first.

Pros of Working From Home

  • The ability to make your own hours. 
  • Lack of a commute saves time and money. 
  • More expenses may be tax deductible. 
  • Save money with a smaller career wardrobe. 
  • More time spent with family and possibly fewer daycare expenses. 

Cons of Working From Home 

  • Less structure can lead to more temptation to become distracted.
  • Working in a space that doubles as a living space can become tiresome. 
  • Lack of face time with coworkers can lead to feelings of isolation and an absence of camaraderie. 
  • It’s easy to get too comfortable and then fall into a rut (but let’s be honest…that can happen at home and in a traditional office. 
  • There may be more pressure to “prove yourself” professionally if most other employees are in-office.

The decision to work at home is not one that should be made lightly. Doing business is doing business, but doing that business from home presents some unique challenges.

If you’re a company owner who is considering developing a remote telecommuting program, be sure to read “Tips for Implementing a Telecommuting Program” and call BCS to help you create the most effective strategy. The communications technologies we offer enhance the benefits of working from home and mitigate the drawbacks. In fact, our  Unified Communications and conference room solutions can make it feel as though an employee working from across the country is right there in the office. In the digital age, things like geography are virtually relative. Let BCS streamline communication in and out of your office. Contact us today.

Unified Communications. Bringing People Together During the Holidays and Everyday.

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All small to medium businesses can benefit from adding Unified Communications and Collaboration to their IT arsenal. The backbone of progress is efficient communication and UC allows companies to seamlessly integrate the various channels necessary to daily operations; email, messaging, virtualized environments, video and web conferencing, etc.

Many IT leaders are reluctant to embrace any one Unified Communications solution because they fear that such a change could leave their company “boxed in” to a certain server model or require an entirely new IT infrastructure to support it. We’re happy to report that these concerns are in large part unfounded, at least when companies choose to deploy a UC solution like Mitel MiCollab.

Mitel MiCollab is a single UC platform that addresses IT department’s concerns about complexity and inflexibility.

From Mitel:

  • One server for all functionality
  • One interface for user deployment
  • One management view
  • One point of control
  • Multiple deployment options including virtualized environments
  • Powerful APIs to bring other applications like email and CRM into the user’s communication realm.

In addition to the user-friendly interface, MiCollab offers the most sought-after UC features.

With MiCollab, the way you choose to deploy initially is not the end all be all for your company’s business communications future. Like we mentioned, the suite is compatible with public cloud hosting services, but it can also run on a dedicated site specific server, a private cloud or even a hybrid cloud model, depending on a business’s unique needs. And what’s more, it is incredibly easy to move the MiCollab suite to different platforms as your company grows. You may be running your business on a public cloud now, but if in two years you choose to upgrade to a private cloud model, MiCollab will upgrade with you. No need to invest in a new Unified Communications suite.

As an exclusive Mitel partner, BCS offers Unified Communications solutions like MiCollab as well as the latest business phone systems and the very best IT support and outsourcing in Hampton Roads and the Midatlantic region. Call or contact us today to learn more.

 

The Three “H”s of VoIP Productivity

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You may turn back the clocks this weekend, but that doesn’t mean you should turn back the clock on your approach to business communications. Technology in this industry is always changing, and falling behind could mean the difference between efficient productivity and lagging progress. VoIP and virtualized IP environments, for instance, have been adopted in recent years by the higher education, hospitality and healthcare fields. All three industries utilize IP communications to simplify once cumbersome processes.

Higher Education

Colleges and universities are full of bright minds, great ideas and data…a great deal of data. Rather than risk the loss of vital scholarship and student records, schools are widely transitioning to virtualized environments.

From Mitel: “A virtualized, IP communications environment enables educational institutions to run multiple operating systems via one physical machine—all of which can run on multiple servers. This way, if a blackout suddenly sweeps campus, the school’s IT administrator can access the central, physical machine via a remote server to ensure that all documents, projects and important files that were opened can be kept safe and restored.”

Hospitality

Last year we wrote about the success certain hotels have had with the implementation of VoIP technology. As the rise of mobile phones devalued hotel phone systems, hospitality managers transitioned to VoIP systems which allow users to make calls at a lower rate than the mobile provider’s. Read the full post here.

Healthcare

Efficiency and accuracy are important, especially when it comes to caring for people’s bodies and health.  This year, Cibola General Hospital in Cibola County, New Mexico,upgraded their Internet, data storage and phone services to a VoIP based system. Cibola General is one of many small hospitals that have grown to recognize the value of cutting edge communications technology. According to Rick Smith, the IT director at the hospital, “We’ve dramatically improved performance with built-in redundancy, which means there are two points to get to the same data backup system…If we put in a whiz-bang system but the nurses and doctors can’t use it, then it’s of no value.” (Cibola Beacon).

We agree with Mr. Smith that IT is nothing if it’s not user-friendly. That’s why BCS is proud to offer extremely intuitive Mitel IP Business Phone systems, innovative VMware virtualization solutions and more. Call or contact us today to learn more about how VoIP can add value to your enterprise.

Image: freedigitalphotos.net/stockimages

A Data Backup Strategy is Your Best Defense

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With the next destructive natural disaster seemingly always around the corner and “big data” getting bigger every day, small companies have to stay on top of protecting their business’ critical information with a solid backup strategy. Part of this task involves regularly, if not constantly, backing up important data.  Businesses that don’t back up their data consistently and reliably put themselves at risk for costly recovery downtime, not to mention the loss of customer trust that comes with any kind of data or security breach.

Some businesses approach the issue like a teenager behind the wheel and feel invincible, but no one is immune to the eventuality of data-loss events. Be prepared. How? If you don’t already have a backup strategy in place, follow these three steps to keep your business-critical information safe, secure, and enduring:

Pinpoint business-critical data

Especially if you are a very small business, it may not be necessary to have 2 or 3 copies of every single file, image, or video you have ever handled.  Larger companies with bulkier databases would do well to use less discretion. It’s all about using your best judgment. A good rule of thumb to use is to ask yourself, “Can I do business without this?” If not, you have your answer.

Choose an external backup system

Once you decide on the most important data, you must then decide on the ideal backup medium. What you choose depends largely on the size of your company and the volume of business-critical data that you handle.  Your options include (but are certainly not limited to) placing multiple copies of your information on CDs, storing them on a basic external hard drive or tape drive, or storing your backups offsite in a virtual environment.

BCS recommends combining onsite backup storage on a hard drive or tape drive with offsite virtual backup, as this will keep your data most secure in the event that a natural disaster destroys onsite copies. We work with the company VMware to provide our clients with dynamic virtualization solutions. Along with virtualization, we offer VMware’s top-of-the-line data protection that enables “fast and efficient backups to disk and, more importantly, fast and reliable recovery.” Technology like this allows a growing company to safely store their data in the cloud without worrying excessively over corruptible hardcopies. (Although it is wise to still keep those on hand.)

Backup regularly

Like we mentioned before, part of a solid backup strategy is consistency. If you only backup once a year, you are doing yourself a big disservice.  Perform a manual backup at least once a month, but if you prefer (and your backup medium can perform the function) it, you can schedule automated backups daily. The second option is the better one because not only does it make routine data backup one less thing to think about, it is also extremely thorough.

When you work with BCS to protect your data offsite, we make sure that nothing you need is ever lost and that it remains easily accessible to you and your team at a moment’s notice.  If you have any questions about your data backup strategy, call or contact BCS Voice and Data Solutions today. We are excited to help.

Work 3.0

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A report recently published by Mitel Solutions asserts that, “We are on the tipping point of a workplace revolution that will signal a model for a dynamic, adaptive and smarter business that is focused around the human cloud workforce.”

Flexibility. Virtualization. Bring Your Own Device. These are all things that characterize a new era of business technology that Mitel and the tech-world call “Work 3.0.” It has the potential to provide businesses with more skilled talent, happier employees, and in turn, huge gains in productivity.

But what is this transition to Work 3.0 all about, and what does it mean for small business?

While it’s no secret that business technology and culture has become increasingly reliant on virtual communication thanks to rapid technological innovation, many companies who felt the sting of the recent recession found the cost-saving merit of making a complete switch to virtual voice and data technology through use of cloud computing and unified communications (UC).

With UC, companies can provide their employees the ability to work from anywhere, be it their home office, the coffee shop down the street, or on a plane.

Working remotely is admittedly not a new concept, but UC’s emphasis on mobile capability transcends anything we’ve seen prior. It allows workers to make their job a seamless part of their “on-the-go” lifestyle. Imagine doing your entire job from a smartphone. Unified communications technology makes this possible.

It also makes expansive physical office spaces a little less relevant. In fact, there are quite a few companies who have harnessed the power of UC and gotten rid of their offices altogether in favor of virtual communication between employees.

Since these voice and data innovations have made collaboration and communication as easy as a click of a mouse, companies have access to a larger talent pool that isn’t constrained by location or ability to commute. This means that businesses can hire people on other coasts and in other countries who are truly best-suited for open positions, with a lot less overhead.

The essence of Work 3.0 is facilitating a work environment that interacts seamlessly with the lives of employees. They choose (in part, at least) when they want to work, where they want to work, and how they want to work. It used to be that one’s office was the only place to find the technology needed to get work done. Now, with the ubiquity of smartphones, tablets, advanced laptops and cloud computing, people are just as capable of getting work done at home as they are at the office, if not more so. For a growing number of companies, small and large alike, the days of the 9 to 5 workday are coming to an end.

Your business can harness the power of Work 3.0 without getting rid of your office space or regular business hours. As a Mitel partner, BCS Voice and Data Solutions leads the way for advanced voice and data technology in Hampton Roads. Among other things, we provide desktop and mobile integrated phone systems, wireless networking solutions, and high level teleconferencing equipment that can help your company stay on the cutting edge of innovative communication and increase overall productivity and ROI. Call us at 757-497-3100. We can help.

Source: Mitel 3.0 Whitepaper