It has been six months since the global health crisis invoked government-mandated “shelter-in-place.” Yet many organizations that scrambled to standup hundreds of work-from-home offices are…
Magna5 Sales Leader Steve Francis reflects on a recent lunch conversation.
We all have conversations in which we find ourselves connecting with more than others. Those discussions usually focus on topics we’re really curious and passionate about. It’s the mutual sharing of new ideas through our connections and professional friendships where we learn, gain insight – and solutions happen.
I can think of a recent conversation that fits this scenario: over lunch with an IT executive, our conversation centered around the Cloud and now operating in a world far beyond your office environment or your local data center. Or, what may be referred to as blowing out the traditional four walls – both in the literal sense and in new ways of thinking and possibilities.
It’s a conversation that has stayed with me since. My IT friend started the conversation off with an interesting analogy, albeit a bit facetious, “I don’t care where my IT infrastructure resides, it could sit on Lego blocks for all I care, as long as the applications work,” he joked.
All joking aside, he was being serious: he didn’t care where the technology was housed – just so long as it worked all the time. The point he was really making was on the importance and underpinning of the application in driving core value- physical infrastructure has never made anyone money – rather, innovative applications and services layered on top are the real lifeblood of a company’s success.
For today’s client, this also introduces new options to consider to optimize application performance and for the best end-user experience. Consider your company’s own internal environment, external go-to-market strategies and all the critical services and applications in place to meet your objectives. Where do you house your sales CRM, collaboration tool, payroll system, ERP, storage, email, e-commerce site, databases, expense systems, phone system? How do customers reach you, how do you reach them and others across your supporting ecosystem? Are they residing outside your “four walls” or across data centers on infrastructure managed and owned by someone else, but reachable through a direct connection or the Internet? If you’re like the many and growing exponentially – they are outside the traditional four walls. With this said, the dependency to connect, to access and enable applications across the global market has never been higher or more important.
With the shift to infrastructure and resources anywhere, my friend also shared an interesting change his company was taking on, an IT resource and headcount reallocation. In the past, their IT infrastructure folks would manage IT infrastructure in individual silos or in the areas they were only responsible for, e.g. routers, servers, storage – and do it well. Now those same infrastructure folks were partnering up or moving up the stack, and are now tightly connected and working side by side with the actual application owners to drive collaboration, speed, agility and performance through the application life cycle. That made a lot of sense to me – rather than looking at the parts, look at them as a whole and unify and focus everyone on the big picture purpose.
So, a great story so far: new, distributed services available anywhere, a new agile workforce, and improved time to market and response.Source: Balboa Capital
When our lunch conversation shifted to the network and accessing the critical applications, the conversation dimmed in enthusiasm pretty quickly. It was our consensus that it seems as though the network is the forgotten or overlooked piece – when, really, it is the critical component and glue that makes it all work.
The Cloud, with all of its inherent power, is only as good as the underlying network – but for many, it’s still the Achilles heel. And, in commiserating our network woes, we both shared our collective “oh no” experiences in rapid-fire succession like we were on a game show competing for the buzzer: Internet failures, DDos attacks, power issues, fiber cuts, backhoes, latency lag, application slowness, human error, brown-outs, routing misconfigs, fat fingers, finger pointing, routine maintenance gone bad … and, we repeated, human error.
But what really happens when things go bad? Time stops. People freeze. They grow frustrated and eventually go home to get online. For the affected company, its lost revenue and diminished brand value like a ticking clock, where the ticks get louder and louder every second, where customers, employees, stakeholders demand answers. Not a good day. Not the picture of a thriving, productive workforce and organization.
So, what’s the better in this part of the story? We fundamentally agreed it really starts with the approach and how you look at things. First, understanding we’re living in a multi-cloud world, and, rather than looking at the Cloud as a standalone panacea or end all, we should be looking at the Network and Cloud as symbiotic and as an interconnected platform to deliver high-value applications.
In today’s business world, you need a secure, diverse and resilient network giving rise to all of the Cloud applications – otherwise, in simple terms, you’re dead in the water. Better yet, to achieve the best of all outcomes partner with a service provider who specializes in both the network and the cloud. A partner who understands and considers all the network and cloud interdependencies and relationships end-to-end for voice and data: from ground level last-mile local-access strategies, software-defined network features, security controls, application performance, to hybrid-based carrier egress routing options with multi-path failover.
My lunch partner and I decided that businesses need to figure out if they’re asking the right questions:
As we were leaving the restaurant, we joked about who’s going to patent “Lego as a Service” first – everything else is “As a Service” why not Legos, but we stopped ourselves, and said before we do that – we know that a strong network comes first.
I walked away still thinking about the conversation – who better than Magna5 to support and help guide customers to the modern Network and Cloud delivery platform. This is what we do.
From the Magna5 Network and Cloud platform, we design and deliver the most resilient of Cloud-based network solutions for our clients. Our customer-first culture and philosophy is defined by high touch and response, and the idea that “what affects our customers affects us.” The ultimate compliment we can receive is hearing that we create peace of mind for our customers. We know the pitfalls, the gotchas, the worries and have tested and deployed, re-tested and re-deployed with certain scenarios in mind to prevent and find solutions to those issues before they happen to our customers.
From enterprise customers, government agencies to Level 1 Trauma Centers focused on saving lives every minute, every day – they count on us. For critical environments like a trauma center, there is no “go home” option.
So, what’s to think after all of this? Think customized solutions. Think Network and Cloud. Think SD-WAN. Think UCC. Think multi-path failover. Think Security. Think SIP. Think Magna5.
—
Interested in speaking with Steve more about this topic? Connect with Steve.
It only takes one mistake to be tricked by a scammer. Here are several guidelines to help us spot phishing attacks and become an effective human firewall barrier.
Magna5 will monitor the health of Tachyon Technologies’ customer networks, servers and devices in real-time to ensure network reliability and performance.
Teaming with Magna5 to manage your IT network monitoring can improve network performance and drive costs down.
Magna5 Sales Leader Steve Francis reflects on a recent lunch conversation.
We all have conversations in which we find ourselves connecting with more than others. Those discussions usually focus on topics we’re really curious and passionate about. It’s the mutual sharing of new ideas through our connections and professional friendships where we learn, gain insight – and solutions happen.
I can think of a recent conversation that fits this scenario: over lunch with an IT executive, our conversation centered around the Cloud and now operating in a world far beyond your office environment or your local data center. Or, what may be referred to as blowing out the traditional four walls – both in the literal sense and in new ways of thinking and possibilities.
It’s a conversation that has stayed with me since. My IT friend started the conversation off with an interesting analogy, albeit a bit facetious, “I don’t care where my IT infrastructure resides, it could sit on Lego blocks for all I care, as long as the applications work,” he joked.
All joking aside, he was being serious: he didn’t care where the technology was housed – just so long as it worked all the time. The point he was really making was on the importance and underpinning of the application in driving core value- physical infrastructure has never made anyone money – rather, innovative applications and services layered on top are the real lifeblood of a company’s success.
For today’s client, this also introduces new options to consider to optimize application performance and for the best end-user experience. Consider your company’s own internal environment, external go-to-market strategies and all the critical services and applications in place to meet your objectives. Where do you house your sales CRM, collaboration tool, payroll system, ERP, storage, email, e-commerce site, databases, expense systems, phone system? How do customers reach you, how do you reach them and others across your supporting ecosystem? Are they residing outside your “four walls” or across data centers on infrastructure managed and owned by someone else, but reachable through a direct connection or the Internet? If you’re like the many and growing exponentially – they are outside the traditional four walls. With this said, the dependency to connect, to access and enable applications across the global market has never been higher or more important.
With the shift to infrastructure and resources anywhere, my friend also shared an interesting change his company was taking on, an IT resource and headcount reallocation. In the past, their IT infrastructure folks would manage IT infrastructure in individual silos or in the areas they were only responsible for, e.g. routers, servers, storage – and do it well. Now those same infrastructure folks were partnering up or moving up the stack, and are now tightly connected and working side by side with the actual application owners to drive collaboration, speed, agility and performance through the application life cycle. That made a lot of sense to me – rather than looking at the parts, look at them as a whole and unify and focus everyone on the big picture purpose.
So, a great story so far: new, distributed services available anywhere, a new agile workforce, and improved time to market and response.Source: Balboa Capital
When our lunch conversation shifted to the network and accessing the critical applications, the conversation dimmed in enthusiasm pretty quickly. It was our consensus that it seems as though the network is the forgotten or overlooked piece – when, really, it is the critical component and glue that makes it all work.
The Cloud, with all of its inherent power, is only as good as the underlying network – but for many, it’s still the Achilles heel. And, in commiserating our network woes, we both shared our collective “oh no” experiences in rapid-fire succession like we were on a game show competing for the buzzer: Internet failures, DDos attacks, power issues, fiber cuts, backhoes, latency lag, application slowness, human error, brown-outs, routing misconfigs, fat fingers, finger pointing, routine maintenance gone bad … and, we repeated, human error.
But what really happens when things go bad? Time stops. People freeze. They grow frustrated and eventually go home to get online. For the affected company, its lost revenue and diminished brand value like a ticking clock, where the ticks get louder and louder every second, where customers, employees, stakeholders demand answers. Not a good day. Not the picture of a thriving, productive workforce and organization.
So, what’s the better in this part of the story? We fundamentally agreed it really starts with the approach and how you look at things. First, understanding we’re living in a multi-cloud world, and, rather than looking at the Cloud as a standalone panacea or end all, we should be looking at the Network and Cloud as symbiotic and as an interconnected platform to deliver high-value applications.
In today’s business world, you need a secure, diverse and resilient network giving rise to all of the Cloud applications – otherwise, in simple terms, you’re dead in the water. Better yet, to achieve the best of all outcomes partner with a service provider who specializes in both the network and the cloud. A partner who understands and considers all the network and cloud interdependencies and relationships end-to-end for voice and data: from ground level last-mile local-access strategies, software-defined network features, security controls, application performance, to hybrid-based carrier egress routing options with multi-path failover.
My lunch partner and I decided that businesses need to figure out if they’re asking the right questions:
As we were leaving the restaurant, we joked about who’s going to patent “Lego as a Service” first – everything else is “As a Service” why not Legos, but we stopped ourselves, and said before we do that – we know that a strong network comes first.
I walked away still thinking about the conversation – who better than Magna5 to support and help guide customers to the modern Network and Cloud delivery platform. This is what we do.
From the Magna5 Network and Cloud platform, we design and deliver the most resilient of Cloud-based network solutions for our clients. Our customer-first culture and philosophy is defined by high touch and response, and the idea that “what affects our customers affects us.” The ultimate compliment we can receive is hearing that we create peace of mind for our customers. We know the pitfalls, the gotchas, the worries and have tested and deployed, re-tested and re-deployed with certain scenarios in mind to prevent and find solutions to those issues before they happen to our customers.
From enterprise customers, government agencies to Level 1 Trauma Centers focused on saving lives every minute, every day – they count on us. For critical environments like a trauma center, there is no “go home” option.
So, what’s to think after all of this? Think customized solutions. Think Network and Cloud. Think SD-WAN. Think UCC. Think multi-path failover. Think Security. Think SIP. Think Magna5.
—
Interested in speaking with Steve more about this topic? Connect with Steve.
It only takes one mistake to be tricked by a scammer. Here are several guidelines to help us spot phishing attacks and become an effective human firewall barrier.
Magna5 will monitor the health of Tachyon Technologies’ customer networks, servers and devices in real-time to ensure network reliability and performance.
Teaming with Magna5 to manage your IT network monitoring can improve network performance and drive costs down.
It has been six months since the global health crisis invoked government-mandated “shelter-in-place.” Yet many organizations that scrambled to standup hundreds of work-from-home offices are…
“I’m about to go ballistic! Our SLAs are falling short. We’re experiencing more frequent network downtime. Our vendor is monitoring and sending us alerts but…
Do you have a trust deficit with your existing managed IT services provider? Are you confident they are taking care of your network? Is juggling…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Five) Whether or not your organization made the government’s cut as ‘essential workers’ during the coronavirus pandemic, we…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Four) Recognize this? “Jason is the kind of guy who’s always in a state of readiness. He likes…
Recently, the Enterprise Networking Magazine’s editorial board selected Magna5 as one of its Top 10 SD-WAN Solution Providers for 2020. The magazine evaluates and selects…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Three) By default, playing it safe during a downturn can hurt your chances to thrive in a stronger…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part Two) During a business downturn, it is important to go beyond just surviving and position your organization as a…
Driving Responsiveness – Agility Series (Part One) Rather than tapping the brakes during the COVID-19 business lockdowns, many organizations are accelerating growth by reaching out…
It has been open season for cyber threat actors targeting organizations’ endpoints during the COVID-19 epidemic. With a large percentage of employees now working from…
Recently, MyTechMag editorial board selected Magna5 as one of its Top 10 Promising Disaster Recovery Solutions Providers for 2020. The magazine evaluates and selects solution…
By 2025, contact centers will morph into experience hubs and how they perform will be placed more clearly within the context of the overall performance…
Every day, cyber criminals bombard networks with phishing emails or social engineering enticing users to give up confidential information. Examples include trying to trick you…
With the rise of the remote worker operating model, it doesn’t take long to discover that a distributed workforce depends upon high network performance and…
It is bad enough that cyber criminals relentlessly breach organizations’ networks with malware and ransomware to hold their data hostage. Now they are going a…
Unified Communications has been around for a while. But during the recent nationwide pandemic lockdown, the dynamics of communicating from any place, on any device,…
Hackers are leveraging ransomware and other malware through phishing lures, malware distribution and domain registration tied to COVID-19. Common themes include scamming, brand impersonation, blackmail…
The ripple effect of a major global health crisis can have a profound impact on organizational operations. As we’ve seen with the recent coronavirus outbreak,…
IT monitoring and management services offer organizations a way to improve security and network uptime without burdening internal IT teams. In this post, we’ll review…
SD-WAN in healthcare is changing how hospitals, medical offices and clinics care for patients. Here are four ways healthcare organizations are reaping the rewards. SD-WAN…
Federally Qualified Health Centers are community-based health care providers who provide a vital link to primary and preventive healthcare services in underserved communities. Dependable communications…
We’ve heard the saying: “Expect the unexpected.” But do businesses really take it seriously? Last October, weathermen cautioned residents in the Dallas area of pending…
In our last two blog posts, we discussed how to “OWN IT” and “SECURE IT.” Today, continuing our National Cybersecurity Awareness Month series, Be Cyber…
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is working on final rules to enable true national number portability on a nationwide basis. When implemented, it will enable complete national number porting…
Imagine getting to work and seeing an invoice from your voice provider that your company ran up a $122,000 phone bill in a single weekend!…
By 2021, a new business will be victimized by ransomware every 11 seconds. Even with strong security controls in place, your organization still has a…
Toll-free least cost routing helps organizations find the best path between caller and destination at the lowest available cost. Here’s why it matters. Toll-Free…
SD-WAN with Magna5 offers three popular deployment models to fit the needs of your organization – on-premises, hybrid and cloud application. Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is…
Roughly 40-60% of midsize businesses never reopen after a disaster. But, with the right disaster recovery and business continuity plan in place, the damage can…
Over the past five years, security breaches have increased by 67%, according to Accenture’s global survey. Traditional security is in trouble. As threat actors deploy…
An effective IT monitoring and management strategy helps organizations protect precious uptime to eliminate downtime situations. Every company’s network and server structure are different. Some…
SD-WAN is revolutionizing networking by improving how businesses connect. But before hopping on the SD-WAN train, you need to decide whether you want to manage…
Healthcare providers are finally hopping on the managed SD-WAN train – and telehealth is driving it. In this post, we’ll look at five ways s…
If you’ve ever seen your area code on the caller ID, only to be greeted by a pre-recorded voice message promising to erase your credit…
SD-WAN is the new buzz word these days. Do you fully understand how it can positively impact your business? Managed SD-WAN can bring benefits and…
As you see in the video, sometimes network complexity can make you want to go back to the antiquated days of pen and paper. However,…
Deliver high quality voice and application performance over SD-WAN for your employees, nationwide. Organizations utilize Unified Communications to bridge the gap between multiple locations and…
Every organization is liable for the information it keeps. In a data-driven world, company records and information are everywhere … in servers, in storage, on…
Traditional WAN is out of date. SD-WAN can make your network agile and efficient with the cloud. Almost every IT and business leader today is…
Simplify your branch office network with optimized application performance using SD-WAN Today’s enterprise IT has become more sophisticated and bandwidth intensive, creating a complex and…
Companies are increasingly moving IT workloads to the cloud, but are they doing it at the risk of exposing themselves to a data breach? Multiple…
Lots of companies are moving IT workloads to the public cloud, but is this the right strategy for your business? I’m sure you’re aware by…
Disasters hit every organization sooner or later. The cloud, combined with reliable partners, makes recovering from disasters easier than ever before. Disasters have a tendency…
Simplify your Enterprise communications with Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) in the cloud. Enterprise businesses are constantly struggling with communication challenges. Traditionally, business phone…
Secured business communications mean better connections to your customers. UCaaS (Unified Communications) ensures your security with features like encryption, business continuity, and 24/7/365 support. Security…
Improve customer satisfaction and the customer experience with a hosted UC and Cloud Contact Center solution. One of the many exciting things happening at Magna5…
Managing your network can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be – that’s why Magna5 now offers Cloud Managed Network. Experience feature-rich benefits and…
Reduce Costs, Increase Uptime and Improve Performance A network operations center (NOC) is the heart of an IT managed services provider – monitoring, managing and responding…
Enhance collaboration to increase productivity and save money Being able to easily connect with your customers, vendors, and fellow employees is key. Without it, employees…
What is SD-WAN? Combined with UCaaS, it’s the future for small businesses in 2018 Unified communications, delivered as a service (UCaaS) from the cloud, is…
A fast, flexible data recovery system not only saves thousands – it could save your business. Business Data Loss can be the result of anything…
Businesses today either evolve or get left behind. We see organizations of all sizes that were once successful, now losing customers because they have not…
As business pushes the limits of IT availability, productivity and efficiency, the importance of reliable IT operations continues to be apparent. Small- and medium-sized organizations…
Interested in finding a Managed Service Provider for your network needs?
Would you like to find out more information about Magna5? Whatever your need, reach out!