In the world of risk management, we spend a lot of time preparing for the unexpected, because we know that unexpected events will inevitably occur. This mindset colors everything we do in our professional careers and often spreads to our personal lives as well. I’ve endured eye rolls from my children when I forced them to participate in fire drills, what-if disaster scenario discussions and other preparedness exercises. But I know that thinking through how we would handle a surprising situation in advance arms us with a plan of action should it actually occur.

Does your organization have a plan of action in the event of a major cybersecurity incident? Sure, you likely have an incident response plan sitting somewhere on a shared drive, but is it covered in digital cyber dust, or is it an active document that the team embraces as part of a daily routine? Regular practice helps keep your plan fresh and your team prepared to spring into action at a moment’s notice. CDW offers two services designed to shake that cyber dust off of your plan.

In 2020, Cisco introduced enhancements to the Webex cloud and Webex device series, providing a way to connect to Microsoft Teams meetings directly from Cisco video devices.

There are two technologies at play here: Cloud Video Interop (CVI) and Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC).

This past October, Cisco released a new flexible edge platform to support use cases like SD-WAN and cloud networking. This new platform is the Catalyst 8000. There are three major platforms within the Catalyst 8000 family:

1. The 8500, designed to replace the ASR 1001-HX / ASR 1002-HX and is positioned at the data center/colocation for extremely high performance.
2. The 8300, designed to replace the ISR4400 and is positioned at the branch. This platform offers very good performance but also focuses on delivering services like switching, VoIP, security and more at the branch in a compact footprint.
3. The 8000v, positioned to replace the CSR100v. This one is designed to run in virtual environments and on cloud marketplaces.

Power and cooling systems for IT equipment are often an afterthought when it comes to day-to-day business operations. Yet they support the backbone of your entire organization, as most everything is connected to IT these days. Departments such as e-commerce, payroll, human resources and communications (think employees’ email or VoIP phones) rely on your servers to be up and running, and your networking equipment to keep everyone connected. A good way of thinking about power and cooling is to think of it the same way you think of your car.

Let’s say you want to take a trip and you forget to check the tire pressure before departing, or you haven’t replaced your tires in a long time and they are heavily worn. Something as small as a nail or a bump in the road can cause your tire to blow out, and now you are stuck changing a tire. The tires, the engine, the brakes, these are all important components of your vehicle, and if you don’t maintain them properly you may end up in some sort of unpleasant event, preventing you from completing your journey. This is similar to how you should be thinking about your power and cooling equipment.

Many companies were already adopting collaboration technologies before the coronavirus pandemic hit last spring. But the massive shift to a remote work model has created a sort of forced proof of concept for numerous businesses, with employees and managers learning on the fly how to use these tools to support productivity and collaboration.

One thing that many business and IT leaders have discovered: Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) solutions and a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) are often a good fit. UCaaS refers to cloud-delivered capabilities, including voice and telephony, meeting solutions, messaging, presence and other communication applications. With SD-WAN, advanced software simplifies the operation of complex WANs while optimizing the end-user experience.

Here are several reasons why these two technologies work so well together.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made sure that the year 2020 will go into the history books for a number of reasons. For one, the way people work has changed. But while some of us are fortunate enough to have the option to work from home, this has not been the case for everyone, especially for those who have been designated as essential workers. These individuals continue to show up for work during periods of local community restrictions or shelter-in-place orders.

Whether working remotely or on-site, safety is a big concern for all of us right now. According to Price Waterhouse Cooper’s November 2020 Workforce Pulse Survey of 1,000 American workers (both remote and essential), 48 percent say they feel strongly or somewhat agree that they are forced to sacrifice personal safety to remain employed. Many employees are concerned about their safety — as they should be. I’m thankful that my employer, CDW, has taken coworkers’ concerns about safety very seriously.