Cloud

When business and IT leaders think about moving their contact centers (or customer engagement centers) into the public cloud, the first thing that often comes to their minds is the control they’ll be giving up. But often, the improved contact center functionality and high availability they get in return is far more valuable.

It is completely understandable that an organization might be hesitant to hand over the reins of its contact center infrastructure. When systems are housed on-premises, people tend to think that they have the ability to guarantee uptime. But the truth is that cloud contact centers tend to be much more insulated from the factors that cause downtime in the first place.

Here are four ways that the public cloud can improve availability and uptime for enterprise contact centers.

With Azure, organizations have many choices to make, from which services to use to how to purchase, manage and govern its use. In October 2019, Microsoft announced changes to the volume licensing programs in ways that affected a customer’s ability to acquire Azure. Specifically, Microsoft:

1. Will no longer write new Azure-only Server and Cloud Enrollment (SCE) agreements
2. Will no longer renew Azure-only SCE agreements and subject any extended contracts to a 3 percent administrative fee
3. Will no longer allow Azure to be added to existing Enterprise Agreement (EA) contracts

Roughly a decade ago, many businesses moved from legacy PBX (or private branch exchange) phone systems to on-premises Voice over IP (VoIP) systems. In more recent years, some organizations have taken the next step and moved away from on-premises to embrace cloud collaboration suites that incorporate voice, video, persistent chat, file sharing and other features in a hosted model with simplified management.

Still, many companies maintain their on-premises systems. Leaders at these organizations know they’ll likely need to deploy a cloud collaboration suite eventually. But to get the most value out of both their existing systems and their future solutions, they must carefully consider when, why and how to make the move.

Over the past six months, the world has seen an unprecedented shift toward telecommuting and other forms of remote work. That shift not only changed the locations where people work, it also forced a rapid change in some of the tools they use to make things work in new, unplanned environments. This unexpected hurry left organizations and individuals making quick decisions about the adoption of cloud tools, sometimes without the careful thought and planning that goes into other IT decisions.

Unfortunately, cybercriminals haven’t changed their approach. They’re still seeking to undermine the confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems and data. If anything, they’re harder at work, seizing upon this disruption as an opportunity to take advantage of lax security controls. In order to defend our organizations in this new world, we need to get back to basics and increase the visibility we have into what is going on within our on-premises and cloud environments.

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.