New digital workspace technologies bring together the best of collaboration, mobile and productivity solutions to improve communication and deliver exactly the tools users need, right at the moment they need them. Beyond creating the seamless user experiences workers demand, digital workspaces simplify IT management tasks, such as maintaining device and data security, and free up IT staff to focus on strategic goals. Hear from CDW experts as they discuss how emerging solutions drive transformation in the workplace and help organizations thrive in today’s mobile-first world.
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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).
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.
Before spring 2020, many organizations didn’t let people work from home for one reason: security.
Sure, business leaders also may have had concerns about potential issues with productivity and collaboration if people weren’t in an office. But perhaps more than anything, there was concern about the heightened possibility of critical data breaches.
The coronavirus pandemic, of course, left many companies with few, if any, other options. In March, managers were forced to send employees home to comply with regional lockdowns and protect the safety of their workers. For the most part, organizations have been pleasantly surprised with the ability of their employees to work productively outside the office. And, with a few exceptions, organizations are also largely finding that their technology tools are up to the task of keeping their environments secure.
In particular, Cisco Systems has gone to great lengths to make enterprise security a key component of the popular collaboration platform Webex. Here are some important features to be aware of that are helping keep organizations safe.
While a COVID-19 vaccine is encouraging, companies are still facing a tremendous challenge to keep the wheels turning while teams work remotely. IT and Finance teams are under huge pressure to optimize IT spend in the short term while looking at the long-term effects of their decisions.
Moving away from legacy file servers is on the agenda for many organizations right now. It’s understandable that many companies are still using these on-premises systems. File servers are old standbys, and most organizations have never had a pressing reason to modernize the way they store and manage their files.
However, the remote work boom stemming from the global pandemic has quickly changed this calculus. Companies’ VPN connections have been overloaded with employees trying to access huge amounts of data from home, and many business and IT leaders are searching for a new solution.
At CDW, we’ve begun offering file modernization workshops to help with this process. We’re able to assist companies with assessments of their existing data environments, helping them to define their goals and develop a plan to transfer files to cloud-based tools such as Microsoft SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams and Azure.
Here are four key benefits of file modernization.
