Category Archives: Network

as-a-service, Cloud computing, cloud management, Companies, hybrid cloud, multicloud, Network, Platform as a service, Software as a service, Verizon

Verizon Business brings multi-cloud management solution to network-as-a-service offering

Verizon Business today announced Network as a Service (NaaS) Cloud Management, a new service that allows businesses to control application components and network architecture across multiple cloud environments – public, private and hybrid – all on one unified online portal. The new solution is designed to work with Verizon Business’ NaaS offering and vastly simplify multi-cloud… Read more »

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Alcatel-Lucent, Collaboration, Companies, hybrid cloud, Network, partners

Alcatel-Lucent launches new Partner Programme for 3,400 partners 

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, a provider of communications, cloud and networking solutions tailored to customers’ industries, has launched its new global partner programme, the 360 Partner Experience (360PX) that delivers a unique partner journey tailored to each organisation.   The programme was developed to support ALE’s worldwide network of 3,400 partners and accelerate their proficiency and growth on… Read more »

The post Alcatel-Lucent launches new Partner Programme for 3,400 partners  appeared first on Cloud Computing News.

Featured, Network, Network Infrastructure, wireless

6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

Every company needs sound wireless capabilities to operate successfully. But it’s not always as simple as some may think. There’s a lot to consider when designing your wireless infrastructure. The last thing you want is business users not being able to perform their jobs effectively and becoming disgruntled. Below are some tips to avoid common mistakes and to help ensure your wireless infrastructure can support the demanding needs of the business.

 

Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

 

1. Understand that all Wi-Fi is not created equal

Everyone’s wireless footprint is going to end up slightly different. Don’t let someone try to put you in a predesigned box. With light research you can find the perfect wireless balance to fit your needs whether dense-user offices, high density of low density warehouses or distribution centers, stadiums or amphitheaters, or outdoor areas, etc.

 

2. Pre-design is critical to stay within your budget and not throw money away

The biggest mistake that can be made is not having a clear design before any hardware is purchased. You don’t want to overdesign and overspend, or under design and spend poorly at the last second in an attempt to correct a project. Often the cause for under design is attention to coverage OR capacity and not both. For example, warehouses are likely to be using handhelds to transmit over clear text, so the focus can be on coverage and security. Offices often have many different types of users and workloads shift throughout the day so special attention should be taken to identify density and capacity usage areas such as conference rooms and collaborative workspaces. Stadiums have their own special configuration policy that controls the air and allows users better wireless and cellular connectivity. It is critical to consider the minimum needs and requirements of each specific environment and balance the design to meet your users’ needs. Licensing is another great example when planning for design, traffic, and budget in the same conversation. Controller licensing determines failover path and cost of licenses overall.

 

3. Know your users’ expectations and your management team’s expectations both now and 3-5 years from now

Having to make changes to a project can lead to overspending on implementation costs, project drag out, poor rollout, poor user experience, and expensive add-on situations. By fleshing out all of the expectations and defined them in advance, you can design to meet and exceed the needs of the users, enabling IT to focus on supporting the business and not on supporting the technology. Establish a list of needs and wants first. Much like buying a house, once you’re in the discovery phase and comparing brands or features, it will be quick and easy to step through what you were looking for in the first place.

 

Would you like to read the rest of Dan’s tips? Download his whitepaper, 6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project!

 

 

By Dan Allen, Architect

Network, Network Infrastructure, wireless

6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

Every company needs sound wireless capabilities to operate successfully. But it’s not always as simple as some may think. There’s a lot to consider when designing your wireless infrastructure. The last thing you want is business users not being able to perform their jobs effectively and becoming disgruntled. Below are some tips to avoid common mistakes and to help ensure your wireless infrastructure can support the demanding needs of the business.

 

Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project

 

1. Understand that all Wi-Fi is not created equal

Everyone’s wireless footprint is going to end up slightly different. Don’t let someone try to put you in a predesigned box. With light research you can find the perfect wireless balance to fit your needs whether dense-user offices, high density of low density warehouses or distribution centers, stadiums or amphitheaters, or outdoor areas, etc.

 

2. Pre-design is critical to stay within your budget and not throw money away

The biggest mistake that can be made is not having a clear design before any hardware is purchased. You don’t want to overdesign and overspend, or under design and spend poorly at the last second in an attempt to correct a project. Often the cause for under design is attention to coverage OR capacity and not both. For example, warehouses are likely to be using handhelds to transmit over clear text, so the focus can be on coverage and security. Offices often have many different types of users and workloads shift throughout the day so special attention should be taken to identify density and capacity usage areas such as conference rooms and collaborative workspaces. Stadiums have their own special configuration policy that controls the air and allows users better wireless and cellular connectivity. It is critical to consider the minimum needs and requirements of each specific environment and balance the design to meet your users’ needs. Licensing is another great example when planning for design, traffic, and budget in the same conversation. Controller licensing determines failover path and cost of licenses overall.

 

3. Know your users’ expectations and your management team’s expectations both now and 3-5 years from now

Having to make changes to a project can lead to overspending on implementation costs, project drag out, poor rollout, poor user experience, and expensive add-on situations. By fleshing out all of the expectations and defined them in advance, you can design to meet and exceed the needs of the users, enabling IT to focus on supporting the business and not on supporting the technology. Establish a list of needs and wants first. Much like buying a house, once you’re in the discovery phase and comparing brands or features, it will be quick and easy to step through what you were looking for in the first place.

 

Would you like to read the rest of Dan’s tips? Download his whitepaper, 6 Tips to Ensure a Successful Wireless Project!

 

 

By Dan Allen, Architect

Disaster Recovery, Featured, Network, Network Infrastructure, Storage, Unified Communications, VoIP

Huh? What’s the Network Have to Do with It?

By Nate Schnable, Sr. Solutions Architect

Having been in this field for 17 years it still amazes me that people always tend to forget about the network.  Everything a user accesses on their device that isn’t installed or stored locally, depends on the network more than any other element of the environment.   It’s responsible for the quick and reliable transport of data. That means the user experience while working with remote files and applications, almost completely depends on the network.

However, this isn’t always obvious to everyone.  Therefore, they will rarely ask for network related services as they aren’t aware the network is the cause of their problems.  Whether it is a storage, compute, virtualization or IP Telephony initiative – all of these types of projects rely heavily on the network to function properly.  In fact, the network is the only element of a customer’s environment that touches every other component. Its stability can make or break the success and all important user experience.

In a VoIP initiative we have to consider, amongst many things, that proper QoS policies be setup –  so let’s hope you are not running on some dumb hubs.  Power over Ethernet (PoE) for the phones should be available unless you want to use bricks of some type of mid-span device (yuck).  I used to work for a Fortune 50 Insurance Company and one day an employee decided to plug both of the ports on their phone into the network because it would make the experience even better – not so much.  They brought down that whole environment.  Made some changes after that to avoid that happening again!

In a Disaster Recovery project we have to take a look at distances and subsequent latencies between locations.  What is the bandwidth and how much data do you need to back up?   Do we have Layer 2 handoffs between sites or is it more of a traditional L3 site to site connection?

If we are implementing a new iSCSI SAN do we need ten gig or one gig?  Do your switches support Jumbo Frames and flow control?  Hope that your iSCSI switches are truly stackable because spanning-tree could cause some of those paths to be redundant, but not active.

I was reading the other day that the sales of smart phones and tablets would reach approximately 1.2 billiion in 2013.  Some of these will most certainly end up on your wireless networks.  How to manage that is definitely a topic for another day.

In the end it just makes sense that you really need to consider the network implications before jumping into almost any type of IT initiative.  Just because those green lights are flickering doesn’t mean it’s all good.

 

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