RingCentral is one of the fastest growing communications platforms out there supporting messaging, video and phones. One of the core components to the platform for years has been the RingCentral Meetings (RCM) platform powered by Zoom on the backend. This rebranded third-party meeting technology seamlessly integrates with the phones and messaging at the core of the RingCentral Office platform, however, this arrangement is rapidly changing.

In April of this year, RingCentral announced their homegrown RingCentral Video (RCV) platform as another alternative. This development is not that surprising given the negative attention Zoom received recently around the security of its platform, along with the fact that Zoom launched its own Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform last year. All things considered, this seems like a good time for RingCentral to move its technology in a different direction.

Earlier this year, I spent time helping a company as it responded to a serious security incident. During that engagement, I had the opportunity to witness firsthand how a lack of planning can hamper incident response efforts. My takeaway was simple: Effective incident response requires proper preparedness.

While that sounds like a common-sense conclusion, the stark reality is that many organizations simply don’t have a solid incident response capability, and that fundamental gap limits their ability to even determine whether they’ve been compromised.

Here are five steps to building an effective IR plan — before a cyberattack occurs.

Becoming an Azure Expert MSP required a companywide effort spanning multiple teams, bringing together expertise from across our global organization. We worked extremely hard to demonstrate to an independent third party that our experience in these solutions is best in class.

So what does this status mean for customers? That through our CDW Amplified™ Azure Managed Services, we provide consistent processes, tools, skills and technology to ensure successful delivery of repeatable, complex solutions based on Microsoft Azure. Learn more about our three-step approach.

Endpoint security management has been a significant challenge for years, and the recent shift to remote work by many organizations in response to the coronavirus pandemic has only made the situation more complex. Today, IT and security professionals have even more to manage as users access sensitive data and conduct critical business activities from home.

The timing is good, then, for the emergence of secure access service edge: a new category of solutions designed to protect users — and their data — wherever each is located. Several security vendors have introduced solutions built around SASE (pronounced “sassy”), an architectural framework that places the edge wherever an organization’s devices and cloud services meet.

I get many questions about Amazon Web Services (AWS). For instance, what should be the first step when starting the cloud journey? What sort of connectivity is required between the on-premises data center and the cloud?

Given the number of important considerations and the plethora of available services in the cloud, it’s important to have intricate cloud knowledge. Working with a trusted partner can help ensure your organization adopts the right strategy from the beginning.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, some organizations had a difficult time responding to the new IT needs of their end users. Shifting resources to accommodate a largely remote work environment proved to be a complicated endeavor. And, as IT staffers’ time and energies were focused on supporting these new workflows, routine maintenance and support tasks began to pile up.

But some companies tended to have an easier time with the shift. One common denominator for these organizations: They largely relied on software-defined solutions in their data centers. Find out why.